Splitscreen should make a comeback this generation (Gaming)

by uberfoop , Seattle-ish, Thursday, November 26, 2020, 23:28 (1547 days ago) @ MacAddictXIV

You were also much closer to the CRT.

Loads of people likely weren't. Because the resolutions were so low, and the video signals fairly poor even for the resolution, there simply wasn't much to be gained by sitting super close. And in line with this, most SD CRT televisions didn't try very hard to accommodate close-up viewing: they tend to use pretty coarse masks or aperture grilles that can look pretty nasty at close range.

Like, here's a photo I took just now of my 20" Trinitron:

The vertical segmentation (the aperture grille) is plainly visible. The horizontal segmentation (scanlines) is visible as a shimmer when using standard interlaced content. For my eyes, both of these effects are very noticeable and distracting up to more than 3 feet away. When I'm actually gaming on this TV, I tend to sit at least 5 feet away. Pretty similar to the ~5-7' viewing distances I generally use for my 48" flat panel.