Help choosing a JP style cabinet

[LeedsFan]

I have an idea for a future project (when funds allow) for a Japanese Candy Cab with a PC setup using J-Pac and ArcadeVGA. However I don't know much about these types of cabinets so while I was at the r3play expo last weekend I thought I'd pick a few brains there.

It seems that the Egret II cabinet has a nice built in easy rotate system for the monitor. However this monitor does not support 31 KHz. Only 15 and 25.

Then there is the New Net City cabinet which has a tri-sync monitor but is not rotateable without a bit of elbow grease. So basically I would leave it in Horizontal mode all the time.

My question is what would you guys choose? Would you give up the 31KHz ability of the Egret II for the easy rotate system? Or would you be fine playing vertical games on a horizontal monitor while keeping the tri-sync ability?

I know the scan lines would be in the wrong direction as such. What else would be different playing vertical games on a horizontal monitor?

I'm just wondering which is the best option to take?   We are talking about 29" monitors here.


How many games use 25-31 KHz anyway? I can always get a cheaper JP style cab in Horizontal mode that is only 15KHz. (Astro City)

[BobA]

IMO I would go with New Net City with a tri-sync monitor to have all resolutions available.  On a horizontal 29 inch monitor the display of the vertical game is still larger than the original 19 inch vertical screen.  It will look good and be very playable without rotation.

[Franco B]

I would love an Egret 2. Everyone seems to want one at the moment and so are holding there prices very well.

At the moment I have three Net Citys. One has a Sega 29e31s 31k, one has a Nanao MS2932 31k monitor and my main one I am working on I bought a brand new Sanwa PFX tri-sync for.

IIRC the original NNCs had toshiba tri-syncs but you never see them over here. All the ones that pop up either have the Sega 29e31s or Nanao MS2932 31k monitor.

There is no rotate mech on the Net Citys but they are not that hard to rotate unless you are a 7 stone weakling I will be rotating mine all the time, it only takes a few minutes.

In regards to what type of monitor you want you should think about what type of games you want to play. I want to play 15k Jamma PCBS, 31k Naomi games, 31k Dreamcast and Xbox 360 and also 15-31k Mame games so thats why I went for a tri-sync.

There are other tri-sync cabs about like the Blast City that seem to be fairly plentiful, I think Jeff @ Digitalsystemdesigns imported a load.

If you want more Candy info you may want to head over to arcadeotaku.com, thats where all the cabs came from that were at R3play.

[Jack Burton]

If you put a PC and a J-pac in a cabinet and use emulators you will still be able to play all the 31khz games you want.  

You will simply have to choose between playing the games with the resolution scaled down to 15khz, or you can play the game in interlaced mode with the full resolution but a flickering screen.

Interlaced mode is what a standard definition television does.  It only draws half the frame of the image at a time, but draws the other half on the next pass.  The two are combined together by your vision to make a complete image.  This allows SDTV's to do 480 or 576 lines of resolution but makes for a flickery image.  

Some people complain about the flickering, but then again we all played our consoles on them for decades and most of us never cared about it.  

Since you are in Europe you could connect a console of your choice to a 27" television with some RGB SCART cables.  Try sitting about as far away as you would set on a cab.  Does the interlacing bother you when playing?  If it doesn't then I would definitely get the Egret II.  

If you decide to use 31khz PCB's I believe many of them have switches to support interlaced modes, and if not then there are also seperate converter boxes out there. 

[Marsupial]

When I read your title, I was thinking of a JP cabinet...

[LeedsFan]

There are other tri-sync cabs about like the Blast City that seem to be fairly plentiful, I think Jeff @ Digitalsystemdesigns imported a load.

I didn't realise they were tri-sync too. I wanted to be able to switch the monitor on the fly, but I don't think this will be too realistic in all honesty. I'd want to be switching all the time in a session on Mame. But with the screen being 29" I think it might look fine playing verts on a horizontal setup, as BobA suggested.

I've just seen a Blast City on eBay from Digitalsytemdesigns. He's asking £800 for it. Is this a fair price? If he's shipped them in and cleaned them up a bit then I suppose you have to factor that in also.

[BurgerKingDiamond]

I wish that my candy was *easily rotable. It's not so I leave it tated'. It really depends on what you like. If you're into shmups, then a tated candy is heaven.

[Gray_Area]

For general information, look over here:

http://hard--candy.com/index.asp?page=Cabinet+List

[Jack Burton]

EDIT: log-in glitch put me in the wrong thread.