Vertical and Horizontal - getting the best of both worlds

[Richardgregory]

I'm sure this might have come up before, but being a newbie and to this fantastic forum, I haven't been here long enough to know! 

Need some direction here:

So I"m sure you all wanted to be able to play vertical and horizontal games; however only have the room for 1 single cab.  So what is the solution here?  Build a mechanism that allows for the rotation of the monitor?

I really thought of getting another cabinet, but there has got to be a methodology with a single cabinet.

  

[GoYouSalukis]

I am in the process of finishing my cab with a rotating monitor. The other option I guess is to get a big enough horizontal screen so that you are happy with vertical games on it.

My monitor rotates pretty nicely, and I am satisfied with it. I have some issues with the frontend, but none that are insurmountable.

There is a forum category specifically for rotating displays. On the top of my forum it is calle Mrotate, but I know on the main list it has been renamed.

Justin

[edit] It is called "Automated Projects" now. I suggest you take a look in that forum to see how others have accomplished it.

[Malenko]

The other option I guess is to get a big enough horizontal screen so that you are happy with vertical games on it.

Or a vertical monitor that you are happy with the horizontal games on:

[Richardgregory]

I never thought of that actually...just get a bigger monitor     Would that work though for vertical games?   Most of the LCD monitors these days are all widescreens format, which doesn't help.

Monitor rotation:  I was thinking of just a plain manual methodology rather than fussing with motors and stuff.

Is your's based on automation?

[Richardgregory]

So what sizs of a monitor would work best to have both vertical and horizontal games on it.  If I can leave it on either configuration and be able to run both format of titles on it, and not be distorted in any shape, that'll be awesome.

[Malenko]

welp, thats a 32" CRT in the killer instinct 2 cabinet, makes horizontal games about 24.5" so you can base your math on that =)

[GoYouSalukis]

Malenko's looks great. I am retrofitting a super pac-man cab, so I have less than 24" width to deal with, but if I built another from scratch, I would think hard about a 32".

Mine is based on automation. I use a USB motor controller to rotate a robot turntable that the monitor mount is attached to. There is a program called startcom that runs a DOS command to tell the controller to rotate to vertical or horizontal modes.

[Richardgregory]

I wonder if I get a 27" and rotate it such that it's vertical and have the horizontal games displayed in that configuration rather than instead of vertical being displayed on a horizontal monitor it'll fair much better no?

[Richardgregory]

All monitors these days such as the LCD/LED are widescreen format!  However, some have a 4:3 button on the panel to allow for displaying in 4:3.   

I'll have to experiment how a horizontal game will look on a 27" monitor in the vertical configuration. 

[Malenko]

the math in my head makes it around 18 inches, so slightly less than a 19" horizontal monitor

[Richardgregory]

I just loaded a few vertical titles on my PC's 22" Widescreen monitor.  I think it's fine other than the black bars on the both sides of the screen.  I don't really notice any stretching of the screen.

[DeLuSioNal29]

I run horizontal games on my 19" 4:3 CRT vertically and I was amazed on how natural they look.  See my video on youtube:


I also have a 27" Betson horizontal monitor by the way and I wasn't bothered by the 19".  That said, our fellow BYOAC user MGB is running a Betson 27" vertically in his cabinet and when I played it I was blown away on how good horizontal games looked.
Here's a link to MGB's Vertical Retrace cab:  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,108784.0.html

DeLuSioNaL29

[Richardgregory]

GREAT setup!  Thanks for sharing. Nice cab.....inspiring!

[Thenasty]

one cabinet, 2 monitors (horizontal/Vertical)

[RandyT]

I've always been a fan of putting in the largest monitor which fits, and going horizontal.  At 16:9, the vertical games will be a little smaller, but it gives you room on the sides of both orientations for snazzy bezel graphics and/or instructions, if so desired.

I really boils down to whether the games you like most are vertical or horizontal.

[mgb]

In my cab I have a 27" multi sync crt in the vertical position because vertical are my main interest and for the room I have for my cab, I couldn't have too wide of a cabinet.
I play horizontals on the vertical screen and they look fine. its actually just a hair bigger than they would be on a regular 19" horizontal arcade machine.

[sshaw10]

I'm putting plans together for a first cab and have spent dozens and dozens of hours fretting about a monitor.  I will digress a bit from your original question but will get to it after a quick vent.  I appreciate the purists for CRT and scan lines but it's becoming very expensive and difficult to find monitors.  I'm designing a cab to last a long time, LCD's will be around for replacements.  A good LED backlight source will last a long time as I plan to leave my cab on all the time.  They use a lot less power.  The ASUS monitor I got has a 1ms response time, there is zero noticable blur.  I prefer the image.  I was amazed when I first started looking at rotating displays and started designing a direct drive setup.  But I just kept thinking if I got a 27" monitor, even at 16:9, I can mask the ends off and still have a  big enough area for horizonatal and vertical play.  There are online porpotion calculators where you input the diagnol and ratio and you will get the x y dimensions.  BUT, for some fighting games that had big screens it might be small.  I have no interest in most of those games, I'm looking for standard v and h games with something square like Defender or Asteroids being my biggest, square games.  These look really good on the monitor.  I'm just deciding to mount it v or h and where to mask.  Most of the posts on this topic I read were older and it's only somewhat recently that these 27" monitors with 1080 resolution (which on a regular pc would not be high enough for me but for this use is overkill) have started selling under 300 bucks.  I will be starting some software setup and config this weekend and really taking a better look at the monitor and will post updates in the projects thread.