Hello, I wanted to bring attention to an issue that is about as niche as linuxgaming itself perhaps, i use an older gpu (GTX 1080 Ti) hooked through HDMI to VGA adapter to a CRT Monitor.

CRT monitors are limited by their horizontal refresh (kHz) to set a given resolution and refresh rate, by using interlaced scan, you can cut the required kHz in half which allows you to push resolution or refresh rate or both way further than you can in progressive.

Example, my Samsung Syncmaster 997MB had a 97kHz limit, which means it could run 1920x1440p 64hz , 1280x720p 120hz , 640x480p 160hz , but by using interlaced i could run 1920x1440i 120hz , 1920x1200i 144hz , 1920x1080i 160hz.

On Windows 10 , i could just use Custom Resolution Utility and create the custom resolutions with CVT Timings and get them to work perfectly with the latest nvidia drivers if i just also create the progressive version of this resolution.


On Linux , including SteamOS and its copycats (bazzite, nobara, etc.) none of this is supported at all at all , however, the groovyarcade distro which is arch-based was able to get interlaced scan working on RDNA3.

So my request is: could VALVe add an option to steamOS to support custom resolutions and interlaced modelines? if they did this, there would be nothing to keep retrogamers and crt enthusiasts on windows.

I really want to get off windows but i don't want to stop using a CRT monitor as my main and only computer desktop display, and i really need interlaced support in order to do so, if steamOS could support interlaced scan it would allow me to both update to a modern gpu and get off windows.