Look at a Beatmania IIDX Lightening Cab or a Sound Voltex Valkyrie cab. Modern flat panels are are providing better rhythm gaming experiences than CRTs ever did.
I don't think this is as simple as that (and it's not entirely the display's fault). 120hz iidx is a big upgrade over the previous lcds but I'm not sure it is over the games that ran on custom hardware that wasn't just a Windows PC.
I've got a firebeat at home that I play Pop'n on and it feels magical to play with absolutely minimal difference between when the audio and visuals are to where they game expects you to hit notes. Same cabinet but with a windows PC plugged in for modern games feels worse thanks to all the extra latency you get going through Windows (it's especially bad with the audio).
I know modern iidx and sdvx use newer audio apis that are lower latency but it's still more delay than the pre-PC systems imo.
> I'm not sure it is over the games that ran on custom hardware that wasn't just a Windows PC.
It is. I've played on both modern ligthening cabs, and on a variety of old official hardware setups in the CRT and Twinkle era. I'd rather play on a Lightening.
Specifically there is a source of lag even greater than the display lag introduced on almost all of the official LCDs. The input lag, or lag between a button being pressed and the game engine registering the input, is critically important in keysounded rhythm games. The bio2 board introduced in the IIDX25 hardware upgrade made a bigger reduction of this lag than the lag that was introduced in official LCD monitors.
The "custom hardware" or Twinkle system used by Konami for IIDX 1-8 is essentially modified PS1 hardware. It's really not much different than building ontop of Windows Embedded with the amount of custom hardware inside the cabinets.
I can definitely agree on this point. Same for the newer Taiko versions utilizing a 120 Hz panel as well.
High refresh rate displays have been gaining a lot of traction in the past few years with 1080p or 1440p displays running at 120 or 144 Hz being affordable.
