Gateway destination monitor... should I bother getting one?

[brandon]

As the topic says I'm considering buying a Gateway Destination monitor for my next Mame cab build.  I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to CRTs and things like motion blur, latency, contrast/black levels, etc are important to me.  I know LCD tech has come a long way but it seems a bit silly to buy an expensive 144hz display for retro gaming.  I can get a 31" gateway destination monitor for about $150 which seems fair to me.  I've seen sony Trinitron TVs on CL for quite cheap but TV out has always left much to be desired and in the past was always blurry or have geometry issues, overscan, etc. 

Any Gateway monitor users want to chime in?

[leapinlew]

Those have the direct VGA plugin right? I wanted one for a long time, but to me the issue is the age of the monitor. Those things have to be 20 years old by now, right? $150 seems steep.

What resolution do those work with? Regular TV's had clipping issues when pushing a desktop to it, so I'm curious how a destination would do.

[brandon]

Yeah, direct VGA input. 640*480 and 800*600 i believe.  It has all the controls for geometry and is designed to connect to a PC only.  so it shouldn't have the problems that a TV out does. It looks like a TV but is a 31khz monitor.  I've seen them go cheaper than $150 but I don't think it's a bad deal.  If I found a cheap 25" arcade crt I'd still need an ArcadeVGA.  This thing will work with any card and that's a big plus.  I just don't want to buy it if it's only marginally better than a TV but i don't think that's the case.

[Don]

If you can get a TV with scart input then you can connect it from VGA to scart using a custom cable or the Ultimate Scart Adapter sold by arcadeforge. That way you can get a true low res image (240p) with natural scan lines, and it will look essentially exactly the same as an arcade monitor.

Alternatively using a 31khz pc crt you can output 480p (ie double 240p) and use a scan line generator like the slg3000. This will also give a good image for low res games.

[pbj]

I don't recall those monitors looking all that great back in the 90s when they were new.  Nobody wants or needs one so $150 seems steep.  Offer $50 cash in hand.


(would be nice if people would STFU already about SCART TVs around here)

[yotsuya]

I don't recall those monitors looking all that great back in the 90s when they were new.  Nobody wants or needs one so $150 seems steep.  Offer $50 cash in hand.


(would be nice if people would STFU already about SCART TVs around here)

Heh about the SCART TVs.

[Don]

(would be nice if people would STFU already about SCART TVs around here)

Yeah I mean it's not like they were the standard for an entire continent or anything.. But my guess is you're from the States so anything not applicable should be banned I take it

[pbj]

Yeah I mean it's not like they were the standard for an entire continent or anything.. But my guess is you're from the States so anything not applicable should be banned I take it

They were the standard in a select few countries, nobody has made one in 20 years, and not all of them support RGB.  Your hard hitting newsflash about using them in arcade cabinets was fresh last century and anyone remotely interested in using one already knows about that functionality.

[leapinlew]

Yeah I mean it's not like they were the standard for an entire continent or anything.. But my guess is you're from the States so anything not applicable should be banned I take it

They were the standard in a select few countries, nobody has made one in 20 years, and not all of them support RGB.  Your hard hitting newsflash about using them in arcade cabinets was fresh last century and anyone remotely interested in using one already knows about that functionality.

'MERICA!

PBJ for President!

[DeLuSioNal29]

Looks good to me, plus you can plug in your Dreamcast with a VGA adapter


But I do recall them not looking as sharp on Windows when they first came out.  But for gaming I think it will be fine.  I wouldn't pay more than $100 for it.  $75 would be a good deal.

D

[brandon]

Ok, thanks guys.  $150 does seem a little high but I remember paying $500 for a tri-sync forever ago so this seemed reasonable at first.  I can probably score a Sony Trinitron for $25, if not free, that would be close enough and would also allow me to connect retro consoles.

  I just realized my desktop monitor supports 120hz so I'm going to try MAME with the black frame insertion, zero blur mojo this afternoon.  I still don't see myself buying another expensive LCD just for a MAME cab though.  Especially since they're the wrong aspect ratio and it would take a beefy setup to run the HLSL MAME stuff.