Brightness Tests
Here are some measurements taken with a light meter, full white, 100% window, no scanline mode. Average of 3 readings, light meter placed against the screen. Round to the nearest whole number. Measurements in nits.
Mask Nits
MGX: 412
RRGGBBX: 350
MGX+slot: 306
dotmask: 300
RGBX: 300
RRGGBBX+slot: 263
RGBX+slot: 223
These readings agree nicely with my eyeballings of the masks in my previous post. I think the minimum for CRT-like brightness on a sample and hold display is around 300 before scanlines are applied. RRGGBBX+slot is just barely out of reach- the brightest I can get it is around 275 by fiddling with HDR settings. Maybe it’s enough in a dark room? This also means that RGBX+slot is also ruled out.
Scanlines actually consume a bit more brightness than I thought - here are the readings with my scanline profile applied:
Mask Nits
MGX+scanlines: 314
RRGGBBX+scanlines: 264
MGX+slot+scanlines: 236
dotmask+scanlines: 229
RGBX+scanlines: 225
RRGGBBX+slot+scanlines: 201
RGBX+slot+scanlines: 170
For reference, a high-end consumer CRT could achieve a maximum brightness of anywhere from 200-300 nits (full-screen white image). However, this was only briefly sustained and would drop slightly.
It’s important to also acknowledge that perceived brightness on a CRT was likely higher than a sample and hold display of the same nits, due to variable persistence of the electron beam. John Carmack did a talk at the 1st Oculus connect where he talked about the effect of persistence on perceived brightness.
It would be interesting to see if beam simulator on a high Hz display has an effect on perceived brightness, but my monitor only goes up to 160Hz.



