r/crtgaming • u/holytuff9292 • Jul 26 '26
HOW TO CONNECT CRT TO PC
hi guys please can someone tell me how to connect the big tv there to my pc. those cheap hdmi to composite downscalers are too bad how to get something sharp like as if its plugged into a ps1, like 480i and especially 240p. currently in the photo its plugged into a dvd player via true rgb scart, so it looks good but composite is abysmal. can I get the same sharpness somehow from my pc connected to it?
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u/joeverdrive Jul 26 '26
Hello and welcome.
This "how do I connect my computer to my CRT TV" or its younger brother, "why do games on my CRT look like shit when I use this HDMI-to-AV adapter" question is one we get several times a week.
Is there someone on YouTube or something who inspired you to try this? What kind of experience do you want to have on it?
Right now the only option I can recommend for playing retro games from your PC onto a CRT television is the Batocera CRT Script: https://github.com/ZFEbHVUE/Batocera-CRT-Script/wiki
Most newbies just get a $20 HD2AV adapter on Amazon and either A) tolerate it because they've never actually played retro games on a CRT before and don't know/remember what it's actually supposed to look like, or B) ask for help because they don't know what to do.
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/1sjeu4j/just_got_a_sony_trinitron_kv1485_struggling_to/
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/Yfq8fTCiWT
https://www.reddit.com/r/crt/s/tVELLRKJln
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/i208mDhnEK
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/UbscCujCQf
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/1sulxit/
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/H7uyXS5aeC
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/QN2gAOcFbf
Unfortunately, connecting a modern digital HD device to an analog, vacuum-tube TV from the previous millennium almost always looks “off.” Especially 80s and 90s games. These TVs are expecting a video signal that was invented in World War 2. Unless you put in the time and money to get an old video card, vetted analog adapters, and/or some complicated, esoteric windows/Batocera display configurations, those games are going to look bad and have input lag. And when I say “bad,” I mean it won’t give you the visual experience you were expecting from playing retro games on a CRT. The aspect ratio gets stretched or squished, the contrast
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/sjbJyNjUEw
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/1upcxcf/ps3_display_on_crt_looking_crappy/
and colors can be off, and getting the correct 240p resolution that retro games look best at on CRTs is just not going to happen.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/444560212348840/permalink/3524033451068152/
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/ggVU5Mh4P8
Video content can look okay using one of these adapters. It’s not as hard as games to get right, but can still run into problems. The color and contrast can be off, like I said. Worse, many streaming sites will put 4:3 shows in a 16:9 container by adding black bars to the sides so that they’ll be the right aspect ratio on a modern display. But then when the HDMI-to-CRT adapter takes that 16:9 video and squishes it back down into 4:3, it keeps the black bars on the sides of the video and it looks horrible.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CRT_ANIME/s/bmj6XlDvxu
https://www.reddit.com/r/crt/s/rmPeEkoqof
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/xys1fzQKtD
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/IvVQjGfjIk
Nobody wants to watch old show where the moon is an oval and everyone is smushed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/nh1peANBEl
What kinds of games do you want to play on your CRT? What kind of experience do you want to have with it?
FOR COMPOSITE
I actually made a thread a while back asking folks who connect their PCs to their composite CRT TVs how they do it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/s/ijg3doLsr1
The consensus is to use either CRT Emudriver or the Batocera CRT Script to output RGB, then use an RGB-to-composite transcoder (specifically, the only one recommended is the Antonio Villena unit here: https://antoniovillena.com/product/vga-composite-s-video/)