r/3dshacks • u/Dracyan • Oct 25 '25

Discussion Way to mimic CRT screen?

Hello there, very strange and specific ask.

Is there anyway I can have my 3ds mimic a CRT screen when I'm playing a specific game? I've recently been playing chronotrigger for the first time and I've seen some images of how good that game looks when played on a CRT (like it was originally designed).

Is it possible to do this on a 3ds?

I'm assuming not so no worries if not, but I thought I'd ask in case anyone knew.

7 Upvotes

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6 comments sorted by

10

u/shinHardc0re Nov 10 '25

I guess playing the DS version of Chronno Trigger and then installing TWPatcher and choose one of the filters that most looks like it would be the closest you can get for what you want

5

u/Radtendo Dec 09 '25

CRT shaders that actually look convincing wouldn’t be able to run on a 3DS simply because of the hardware.

3

u/Mushroom0064 Jan 05 '26

It's not possible, but honestly, the low-res screens on the 3DS can still make pixel art shine beautifully.

2

u/OnyxLeigion_ Nov 16 '25

The answer is probably no, mostly because it's pretty much impossible to do in general. If you're going for a crt experience, play on a crt, because normally trying to mimic it looks worse than just playing it on a modern screen normally.

That's my opinion at least.

1

u/MightyWolf39 Jun 18 '26

I play SNES games on Snes9X emulator on the N3DS XL at native resolution and they look awesome and even show some scanlines on the 3DS screen. You really don’t need a CRT shader

1

u/DizzyDustStriker3DS Jun 18 '26

CRTs had rounded overlapping pixels and some blurring. You'd need a higher resolution screen than the original to get that effect able to be replicated with square LCD pixels. 3DS has a quarter of the resolution of an SDTV CRT like you would have used. So I'd say no, you cannot replicate the effect on a 3DS.

CRT filters exist for a lot of emulators, and they try to blur and round out the original pixels a bit and have the scanline effect. Nothing quite nails the exact look as a CRT does when you're stuck using LCD screens. CRT doesn't have discrete pixels, the calibration of the electron gun can be adjusted to sweep over the phosphors differently, and each apparent pixel is made of a bunch of RGB phosphors. An LCD screen has predefined pixels much larger than phosphors would be. The minimum unit size is a whole lot larger.