The Effect of CRTs on Pixel Art (2024)
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
A 2024 datagubbe.se article argues CRT screens don't fully explain why modern pixel art looks off.
The debate resurfaces, touching how retro games are displayed and preserved.
Background
The article responds to a recurring argument, popularized by a TikTok video from user "mylifeisanrpg," that pixel artists once worked with the physical properties of CRTs and that modern pixel art therefore looks wrong. datagubbe.se agrees modern blocky pixel art is often misdirected nostalgia but argues far more is involved than CRT fuzziness, and that on early 8-bit systems like the C64 and NES strict hardware limits shaped graphics — Maniac Mansion (1987) ran at 160x200 pixels, while Mayhem in Monsterland (1993) used anti-aliasing and dithering to simulate higher resolution and color depth on the same hardware.
How it unfolded
- Summer 2024datagubbe.se publishes "The Effect of CRTs on Pixel Art."
- Aug 2, 2024The author notes it was brought to his attention that the article's image is indeed a photo of a CRT, and links a less out-of-focus close-up.
- Oct 13, 2025The author writes a more in-depth text about the Peach meme and signal quality.
- Sep 20, 2026A Hacker News item titled "The Effect of CRTs on Pixel Art" is posted, with 19 points and 3 comments.
- Sep 21, 2026GeekNews (fr.news.hada.io) posts the topic "L'influence des CRT sur le pixel art (2024)."
Who’s saying what
- Author
- datagubbe.se says the claim that modern pixel art often doesn't look right is correct and modern blocky pixel art is often misdirected nostalgia, but more is going on than CRT fuzziness; he uses old CRTs weekly and always disables CRT filters in emulators.
- Analysts
- Hacker News commenter fasterik argues modern pixel art is its own aesthetic designed for high-DPI LED screens and shouldn't be judged by how it looks on a CRT.
- Caution
- Commenters including GuB-42 and zajio1am say pixel art worked around economic rather than technical limits, that sharp square pixels are a feature, and that CRT-era DPI was not so different from today's.
- Public
- Commenters egypturnash and JuniperMesos frame CRT look as one aesthetic choice among many, with JuniperMesos saying it shouldn't carry much weight versus other artistic decisions.
Still unverified
datagubbe.se states he doesn't know whether the CRT version in mylifeisanrpg's video is taken from an actual CRT, and thinks it looks too fuzzy and is more likely a software filter approximation, though he may be wrong.