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New Wells-Gardner D9200 Monitor Review
RandyT:
Hey Kevin,
The only thing I saw that seemed a little off is that you said something along the lines of "the unit I received had some convergence problems", or something like that.
I think that what you see is actually the "norm" for an arcade class monitor. Measured against a PC monitor (which often has up to 3 large circuit boards for convergence and other nitpicky stuff) it's going to come up short every time. I think you may have mentioned this, but it probably has more in common with an RGB capable TV set than a PC monitor, outside of the ability to multi-sync.
Still well done though ;)
RandyT
KevSteele:
Well, I do mention that as a PC monitor it's only mediocre, but that it excels as an arcade monitor. The PC display is worse than a real PC monitor, but better than a "TV out" solution.
The convergence problem on my unit is noticeable, especially with PC display modes. White lines near the top middle of the screen "break apart" into two separate colored lines, as does text.
You don't notice it in an arcade game as much, although if there's white text at the top (a score, perhaps) you do notice the color ghosting.
Monitors have a lot of variation in them, and I've seen worse convergence in some cheaper PC monitors, especially those that had no convergence controls, ironically.
The more expensive monitors, the ones that had convergence adjustments, didn't actually need them. ;)
I've also had monitors that "fixed" their convergence problems miraculously, and I suspect that it may be related to the whole degaussing/color purity issue. I won't know for certain until I get the monitor into it's final home and give it a good degaussing.
I'm being nit-picky, I know, but in the end the display is one of the most-used parts of a computer system. It helps to go into a big purchase like the D9200 knowing what level of display quality to expect.
I'm not returning it, that's for sure. ;D
Kevin
vitaflo:
--- Quote from: Sasquatch! on August 07, 2003, 07:57:17 pm ---Hopefully this isn't an obvious/stupid question, but I honestly don't know anything about the D9200:
If it has a standard 15-pin plug and can display Windows, why would you need an ArcadeVGA card? Wouldn't any PC video card work?
--- End quote ---
You can use a PC card, but you'll be outputting at 640x480. Since arcade games run at a variety of resolutions you may need to stretch the image to fill the screen, which usually means a somewhat distorted image.
What ArcadeVGA does is output at resolutions other than 640x480, in fact it tries to output at the exact resolutions of the games you're playing, thus no stretching of the image, thus an arcade perfect image.
Xiaou2:
Actually... my older ATI Radion 7000ve pumps out 800*600 to my 27" panasonic tv w/ svideo. And with the latest drivers... it does 1024*768.
Also...theres a nice adjustment for either More Clarity (more flicker) or Less Flicker (slight loss of clarity). I believe at resolutions greater than 800*600 it uses interlacing technology.
I think people mis-read into the whole "authentic' thing... as most older arcade games will never look correct on a 9200. The reason being a much smaller dot pitch... (and Im sure there are other factors as well with the older display technology they use)
Look at the differences in colors for instance in my turbo machine on an older monitor:
Heres a shot from my Older ati card that didnt support the higher resolutions and capability that my radion does now. Ill try to take some new pics of the radions capability.
Spyhunter closup on Panasonic 27" + old 8meg ati card w/ svideo out:
RandyT:
--- Quote from: Xiaou2 on August 08, 2003, 06:15:21 pm --- Actually... my older ATI Radion 7000ve pumps out 800*600 to my 27" panasonic tv w/ svideo. And with the latest drivers... it does 1024*768.
Also...theres a nice adjustment for either More Clarity (more flicker) or Less Flicker (slight loss of clarity). I believe at resolutions greater than 800*600 it uses interlacing technology.
--- End quote ---
Display modes output to TV's from PC video cards are always interlaced. At 800x600 and above it must use scaling to display a picture. The highest res an NTSC video monitor can show without scaling (but still interlaced) is about 720x486.
--- Quote --- I think people mis-read into the whole "authentic' thing... as most older arcade games will never look correct on a 9200. The reason being a much smaller dot pitch... (and Im sure there are other factors as well with the older display technology they use)
--- End quote ---
Not quite true. The 9200, according to WG, has a dot-pitch of about .83mm, which is pretty much right on par with those old monitors. The lack of perfect convergence, something inherent to both TV's and arcade monitors also seems to be pretty faithfully reproduced :).
All that is really left after that is possibly pixel shape, which may or may not be the same (hard to see anyway) and scan rates. If the scan lines are where they are supposed to be with the same amount of graphics data as the original riding on them in the proper proportions, you really can't get any closer.
RandyT
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