Is 4:3 the best way to go?

[fl00die]

Hi guys,

I am building my first hyper spin cabinet for my son (and me!).

I have a 4tb drive all nicely filled with all kinds of systems.. I have a 32" TV which ive worked out is ample to provide a 25" 4:3 old school screen if needed.

I have decided that, however good it is to have 100s of systems it really could have a negative effect when people come to play the machine. Just TOO much choice.. So I am going to keep all the main consoles, a couple of home computers (Amiga, ST, C64, etc) and of course Mame (Arcade classics). I am probably going to do away with even PS1 onwards.. So my question is, would it be best to just force a 4:3 ratio for the whole lot? and impose 1 generic bezel PER system.. So 1 for SNES, 1 for MAME,blah de blah... Id love to have individual bezels for every single mame, snes, megadrive game but that's just fantasy stuff surely. So 1 per system in order to fill the black voids in the left and the right.

For instance, my fav, Killer instinct and the MK cabs all used 25" screens didn't they so I believe. hopefully it would work nicely.

Anyones thoughts on this would be greatly received

thank you
David

[Malenko]

4:3 is the best ratio to keep, other wise games will get stretched. faux bezels to hide the black areas is the best way to cover them.  *Some* PS1 games are worth having, mostly the arcade ports of certain games. They added new features (like CGI Endings to Tekken 1) and new characters and modes (SFA3 comes to mind, though the Dreamcast port is much better) I can see playing some SNES/Genesis games but just arcade type ones like streets of rage and clay fighter; I never bothered with consoles on my MAME cabs.

MK and KI both had 25" monitors in their dedicated cabs, but Ive played KI on a 19" monitor on a conversion cab before.

[fl00die]

Hi Malenko,

yes ill do that then.. I guess that I can implement 1 generic Mame bezel, and 1 for everything else cant I?. Just search the web for one I like I suppose.. And change the HSLDLSLD settings or what ever they are called to get curved screen and make it as authentic as possible.

How did KI play on a 19"?

[paigeoliver]

There is nothing you are going to emulate that isn't 4:3. Choosing anything that isn't a 4:3 display is made out of 100 percent fail. I hear all the excuses in the world as to why someone had to use some cruddy LCD widescreen, that ultimately has the same or smaller 4:3 viewing area than a standard 19" or 21" CRT.

"Oh, I don't want the trouble of a crt." Not sure what trouble you are talking about. They have connectors, they hook up.

"CRT is too heavy". Didn't realize you were a 9 year old girl who needed to be able to move the machine without a dolly, and if so then why is it built out of MDF instead of plywood.

"I have to play Street Fighter 5, etc." Those are 3D windows applications that support a whole bunch of different resolutions and aspect ratios. In fact if the newer SF games had a preferred aspect ratio then it is actually 5:4, as that is the only ratio that doesn't crop the backgrounds.

[Yenome]

I agree with the others when it comes to pure retro/arcade gaming it has to be 4:3. If you have the room a full sized cabinet with a 25/27/32 inch CRT. I say if you end up using the LCD use either a bezel like Malenko said or use tinted/smoked plexi glass to cover the screen so if you do happen to play something with a diff ratio like 1942 you wont even see the area that is not displaying anything.

[lettuce]

It using a 16:9 LCD TV why not mount it in the cab vertically that way you'll get a 4:3 display area without the width of a 16:9 in a horizontal orientation

[paigeoliver]

It using a 16:9 LCD TV why not mount it in the cab vertically that way you'll get a 4:3 display area without the width of a 16:9 in a horizontal orientation

This is pretty much the only LCD use I endorse, slapping a big one in there vertically so you can still fill the cabinet with a large 4:3 picture. Unfortunately you still have image quality problems and display lag to deal with when you do that.

[Jakobud]

It using a 16:9 LCD TV why not mount it in the cab vertically that way you'll get a 4:3 display area without the width of a 16:9 in a horizontal orientation

You can but if you work out the math you really need to put in something big like a 50" LCD.

[Yenome]

I found that a 42" tv will give you a 25" 4:3 once rotated 90 degrees. Course a 40" will give 24 11/16" 4:3 so if you use a 40" you will only be losing 3/8 in on the width when using it as a 4:3 monitor. This all depends on my math being right. Im sure on the 4:3 width being able to fit on the height of the 16:9 once rotated. Ill double check with my 47" later to see if my math adds up(no pun intended)

[Malenko]

"CRT is too heavy". Didn't realize you were a 9 year old girl who needed to be able to move the machine without a dolly, and if so then why is it built out of MDF instead of plywood.

I can lift and mount 25" and 27" CRTs all day every day.  Putting a 36" CRT vertically in my KI2 cab almost killed me.

[pbj]

27" is as big a CRT as one man can reasonably carry. 

Anyway, it's Current Year.  Consider a pedestal.  Largest LCD on the wall you can afford. 

Want to know what old games look awesome on a huge TV?  All of them.

[paigeoliver]

"CRT is too heavy". Didn't realize you were a 9 year old girl who needed to be able to move the machine without a dolly, and if so then why is it built out of MDF instead of plywood.

I can lift and mount 25" and 27" CRTs all day every day.  Putting a 36" CRT vertically in my KI2 cab almost killed me.

Yeah, I have been there. However that is properly a 2 man job, and only needs to happen one time. Not to mention larger than what 98 percent of people would be considering.

[BigCurtis]

This is a continual consideration for me.

Most of the classics I enjoy are vertical games, so I've gone around everything from building dedicated vertical & horizontal cabs, the rotating monitor, going with a wider widescreen oriented vertically to include virtual pinball, and back around to sourcing 1:1 square monitors off Alibaba or the like to avoid having to decide and deal with shortcomings or build a rotating monitor mechanism. Accepting the reality that CRTs will eventually run out (thankfully I still have several NIB for projects) or become so niche (and thus costly) that dealing with them is problematic still hasn't fully taken hold.

If you're set on 5:3 (or 5:4) and can live with LCD, you've still plenty of options and sizes to choose from. Though no reason to not use the display on hand and keep other monies in your pocket for other toys.

[leapinlew]

It using a 16:9 LCD TV why not mount it in the cab vertically that way you'll get a 4:3 display area without the width of a 16:9 in a horizontal orientation

This is pretty much the only LCD use I endorse, slapping a big one in there vertically so you can still fill the cabinet with a large 4:3 picture. Unfortunately you still have image quality problems and display lag to deal with when you do that.

Gonna disagree with the really strong opinion against the use of a LCD. I use a 27" widescreen in my cabinet behind smoked glass and it looks fine. Hyperspin fills up the entire screen and all the games have nearly invisible black bars on the side.

[paigeoliver]

Yet the still widely available 21" crt monitors that can be had for basically free have the same 4:3 area, a better image for almost anything we want to play and have no display lag.

Your 27" wide is fine. But the 21" 4:3 is better and it is almost criminal not to use these monitors while we can still save them from the scrap heap. Sure, it might break down one day, stick the LCD in at that point. No reason to bury the CRT before it is dead.

[leapinlew]

Now I get it. While you much prefer the image of a CRT, the cost is a big factor as well. In my case, LCD's are very low cost, or free so I didn't factor in cost.

Please don't point it out to me but I must be oblivious to display lag. I use arcade monitors, pc monitors and lcd monitors in my machine. My only real complaint with lcd's is lack of scan lines and that the image is too sharp.

[ppv]

If I could, I'd use CRT in a heartbeat. The retro look alone is worth it, imho.

But the best use of a LCD in cab that I have seen is the Mimic.  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,149109.msg1555074.html#msg1555074

If I could, I'd go that route, the implementation alone makes it worth to lose the vintage look.

But I have no money to buy a brand new screen and not much chance to have a fat cab that will win the wife's approval if I go the CRT route.

[Laythe]

I think 4:3 is the way to go, in general, if you want to make a good looking cabinet without it getting complicated.

If your cabinet is roughly the size and shape of a traditional arcade cab, and you put a 16:9 widescreen horizontally in it, you can't go over about a 27".  When you run Galaga on that, you're playing on about a 16" TV equivalent.  You also end up with a bunch of blank vertical space that tends to look bad, unless you really do a good job hiding it in your design.  (It can be done, but see: complicated.)

If you scale the horizontal widescreen 16:9 panel up to where you've got enough vertical size to look good with a portrait game, and where it fills up the amount of vertical space you expect in the design of an arcade cab, then you are up in the 32" range screens, and you've got a 28"+ wide cabinet that's starting to ask for an aircraft carrier 4-player control panel and maybe a Tron stick and maybe some cup holders.  Go any bigger than that, mounted horizontal, it starts looking to me like the owner probably also thinks stretch Escalade limos are pretty cool.

Mounted portrait... I think that can work well, but, it gets complicated.  If you want to keep it simple, I say go 4:3.

If I could, I'd use CRT in a heartbeat. The retro look alone is worth it, imho.

But the best use of a LCD in cab that I have seen is the Mimic.  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,149109.msg1555074.html#msg1555074

If I could, I'd go that route, the implementation alone makes it worth to lose the vintage look.

But I have no money to buy a brand new screen and not much chance to have a fat cab that will win the wife's approval if I go the CRT route.

Thanks! 

(You can retain a little bit of the vintage look with a setup like Mimic, if you bake the scanlines into the artwork used by your .lay files.  It's not as good as a CRT, but it's as good as a LCD plus scanline generator, with an additional nice effect where the emulated game monitor has scanlines but the bezel art doesn't.  Still doesn't have the phosphor persistence, saturated brightness, or black level of a proper CRT though.)

You can but if you work out the math you really need to put in something big like a 50" LCD.

I disagree.  Doing the math, I think you need a 35" 16:9 portrait display to give you a 21" 4:3 landscape screen equivalent in the middle.  Unless of course you mean to run bezel art, in which case, yeah, a 50" would be great.  It won't fit between 24" verticals, though, it will be pushing into that same 28"+ region of "somewhat oversized".  I think 46" is as big as you can fit portrait, in the normal arcade width.

[yotsuya]

I <3 Laythe...

[ark_ader]

If you use a mirror you can put the TV in a better location in the cab.

I use 20" LCDs I snagged at a thrift store.  They work great and can pivot.  Paid $20 each for them.

[artyfarty]

Portrait mounted LCD, screen resolution set to 1080x1080 with a square bezel overlaid. Fits in a regular width cabinet and allows you to play 4:3 and 3:4 games without the hassle of a rotating screen.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lettuce]

Are people who have their LCD mounted in portrait using the new integer scaling option that MAME introduced to get proper aspect ratios when switch from vertical to horizontal games??

Im guessing with 4K TV becoming more reasonably priced now that they are a really good alternative to CRTs, thanks the the higher screen res being able to produce better CRT shader effects much better than a 1080p set....only issue now is that response time/input lag i guess

[Laythe]

Are people who have their LCD mounted in portrait using the new integer scaling option that MAME introduced to get proper aspect ratios when switch from vertical to horizontal games??

Im guessing with 4K TV becoming more reasonably priced now that they are a really good alternative to CRTs, thanks the the higher screen res being able to produce better CRT shader effects much better than a 1080p set....only issue now is that response time/input lag i guess

I'm integer scaling manually.  Knowing I've got 1080x1080 to work with, I check the game's actual line count as reported by MAME, figure out what multiplier I can get away with (usually 3x), multiply the line count by that, then by 1.333333 for the other dimension, and then set up my layout files to position a screen of that size.  Lastly, set up the bezel to fit it.  Works in any version of MAME that supports layouts.

I've made scanline patterns for 2x, 3x and 4x, and I'll nudge the screen placement up and down by a pixel or two to make them line up right.  As a confirmed heathen, I always run horizontal scanlines, even on vertical games, because while it isn't properly correct I still think it looks better.

An advantage to baking all the art to a fixed 1080 size is that it loads faster; MAME doesn't have to scale it down on game startup.

4k would be pretty slick.  1080x1080 is enough to get instruction cards usable and readable, but only if you're careful. They'd be crisp and clear at 4k.

[RandyT]

Now that 4k is within reach for projects such as ours, I truly believe that it is the future of recapturing the look the classics had on a CRT.  There are so many more pixels to work with than 1080p.  The only caveat is the horsepower required from both the CPU and the graphics card, to be able to pull it off in real time.

4:3 CRT's are still the easiest and most cost effective way to get there, but at some point, they will no longer be around, or be so rare in good working condition that the cost will be prohibitive as well.  So we may as well get used to the fact that 16:9 is where things will ultimately be heading...unless, in a more mainstream application than ours, there is an unforeseen demand for very high resolution screens in 4:3.  Builds like Laythe's are a good step in the right direction for utilizing what we will likely soon need to accept as the norm, and it does a very nice job.  The only thing I think I would do differently, and it's purely a preference thing, would be to modify the graphics surrounding the game to be less intense.  The bezel art was printed, so the game graphics "popped" in contrast to them.  Seeing everything at the same intensity seems to detract a bit from the actual gameplay area.  But it is an excellent execution, and also nice seeing others incorporating the dynamic marquee concept into their builds.

[pbj]

Those dynamic marquees always seem like they'd be way too bright to have up in your face like that.

[RandyT]

Those dynamic marquees always seem like they'd be way too bright to have up in your face like that.

As they are an LCD panel, you have very fine control over how bright you would like them to be.

[albrigsr]

How do I create the custom resolutions?  I tried with my video card and nothing really looked different when I did a 1080x1080 resolution on a wide screen monitor.  Is there something else I need to turn off as the monitor is stretching it?  I ask as I think I may go with a widescreen monitor (LCD) mounted vertically.  Thanks.

[Laythe]

Those dynamic marquees always seem like they'd be way too bright to have up in your face like that.

My LCD dynamic marquee is a translucent film of liquid crystal over a flourescent tube backlight.  (Newer panels use LEDs instead.)
The arcade original marquees were a translucent film of printed plastic over a flourescent tube backlight.  (Some BYOACers are using LEDs instead.)

I think that it's not all that different.  There's a little screen-door effect around the edges of the pixels if you get real close, but the overall brightness seems comparable to me.

Builds like Laythe's are a good step in the right direction for utilizing what we will likely soon need to accept as the norm, and it does a very nice job.  The only thing I think I would do differently, and it's purely a preference thing, would be to modify the graphics surrounding the game to be less intense.  The bezel art was printed, so the game graphics "popped" in contrast to them.  Seeing everything at the same intensity seems to detract a bit from the actual gameplay area.  But it is an excellent execution, and also nice seeing others incorporating the dynamic marquee concept into their builds.

Thanks, Randy!  I think the camera I filmed Mimic with gives the wrong impression about how it looks, as it tended to overexpose the contents of the screens.  I agree entirely with your preference here - attached is a screenshot of Zoo Keeper to show the actual levels between my emulated monitor and emulated cardboard bezel art.

I also agree that 4K is going to have promise here.  As you can see with the screenshot at 1080, the bezel instructions are readable but not exactly crisp.

[Afterburner]

I went from a 21 " CRT to a refurb'd 24" 4:3 LCD I bought on eBay for $80 and never looked back.

That also allowed me to cut like 10" off the depth of my cab, which was great.  Still looks like a classic standup cab and takes up far less floor space.

[Fydo]

My dream display would be an affordable 1:1 ratio (square) IPS display with great viewing angles and extremely low input lag. (Hah, dream on!)

To me, 1:1 seems like the best catch-all for building a mame cabinet. Can do vertical, horizontal, whatever.

[Laythe]

My dream display would be an affordable 1:1 ratio (square) IPS display with great viewing angles and extremely low input lag. (Hah, dream on!)

To me, 1:1 seems like the best catch-all for building a mame cabinet. Can do vertical, horizontal, whatever.

https://www.amazon.com/FlexScan-EV2730QFX-Monitor-1920x1920-EV2730QFX-BK/dp/B00R58MLSY

Oh... wait... you said affordable.  Nevermind.   

[plazma]

How about a 5:4 TFT with a 1280:1024 resolution? The aspect ratio is almost square.

[Laythe]

How about a 5:4 TFT with a 1280:1024 resolution? The aspect ratio is almost square.

Good side, they are out there and affordable.  I believe they were either 17" or 19", and the 19" size is servicable for our purposes - a little better than a 24" 16:9 is.  A horizontal or vertical game will fit well on one - you'll get a little letterboxing in both cases, but the sizes will be close, and a 19" display won't look out of place on a regular size cabinet.  I think they can be a good choice.

Down side, they are orphans now like CRTs are.  1280x1024 SXGA used to be fairly popular, but not anymore.  As far as I know, no one is producing them.  So like CRTs, there's quite a few of them around at the moment, but as time goes on they are going to get harder to find.  Replacing one in ten years is probably going to be difficult.

[adambull]

Hey,

I only recently joined but enjoyed this discussion.

I certainly agree with retroarcade 4:3 is only really way to go. Regarding the CRT and TFT/LCD there are actually some strong arguments to use CRT and not use CRT.

CRT are well known for producing ionising radiation, and although we are talking about a small about of X-ray radiation <0.5 milloroentgens per hour at a distance of 5cm from an external surface to 21 CFR 1020.10 regulations set by FDA in the US.

CRT since 2007 should be well below that limit. Older ones, not so much.

CRT flicker and periodic scanning of CRT although instant response and no lag can be more perceptible to some people than others, whilst some people may see a smooth experience of their arcade, others may see significant peripheral like effects from scanning that is offputting  and unpleasant. I am one of those people, sadly. 75hz is really the minimum for me. 100hz is a preference though!

Some CRT have hf noise that can be really darn annoying, and to be fair, I have an old Iiyama Prolite 19" E2208HDD that suffers that condition itself, so it's not just something CRT's suffer from. The lag input vs input quality is a tradeoff to consider, I think. Which is more important?

In fairness though CRT are pretty good and there are some trinitron's that I actually miss, that said, I've got them out before and they _arent_ that clear as I remember them being, but the POC monochromes I had before that were so much worse it's probably understandable.

There's some really good reasons not to throw out the CRT, because actually they are quite hazardous to expose and are full of cadmium, lead, leaded glass and phosphorous, re-using them means that the environment will be spared for a little while longer, and you will have the respect of the EPA or your local environmental agency.

I think that CRT is an unmatched legacy, and it's criminal to waste a good thing, but there are some other considerations too, a persons visual acuity, the displays brightness, emissions, flicker , input lag. These things matter folks, I think that CRT vs TFT is not a black and white question, but I suspect I am probably overthinking this Ultimately as good engineers of any kind we make decisions which are best for the use, or at least that is the way it is _supposed_ to happen, but great engineers have a tendency of finding ways to re-use stuff, and that's A - OK to me

Best wishes,
Adam

[albrigsr]

Interesting thread.  Gentle bump to see if I can get an answer to the above question:

How do I create the custom resolutions?  I tried with my video card and nothing really looked different when I did a 1080x1080 resolution on a wide screen monitor.  Is there something else I need to turn off as the monitor is stretching it?

Thanks!

[yotsuya]

Look for a checkbox in your display settings that says maintain aspect ratio

[RandyT]

I also agree that 4K is going to have promise here.  As you can see with the screenshot at 1080, the bezel instructions are readable but not exactly crisp.

Ahh, that looks much more realistic.  The shading around the inside edge of the game area seems to throw me off a bit, but that's probably the HLSL trying to simulate a curved tube.  Still, that part is unrealistic, as the game image would never be shaded.  It's emitting light .

Just for kicks, I did some calculations to see what 4K would bring to the table for HLSL type effects.  Based on my math (and someone should probably double check to make sure it's correct ) a horizontally mounted 1080p screen with a 4:3 chunk used for gameplay, would provide 24 pixels for each pixel of a 320x200 image.  Given that the 24 pixels would also need to include the blank line between the pixels, that number is cut down to about half, or 12 pixels per actual game pixel.  Any bezel graphics used at the top and bottom will reduce the number even further.  I.e. there's not much to work with, to try to reproduce the natural artifacts of the classic CRT.  When it comes to replicating dot masks, the pixel size is also too large to really do it effectively. 

4K, on the other hand, provides 4x the resolution, or about 96 screen pixels for every game pixel+blank line.    Much more to work with, and the fine pitch of the screen pixels should even make convincing dot-mask emulation a possibility.  But even at that resolution, I think limiting the bezel graphics to areas not used for gamefields, will ultimately yield the best CRT emulation.  I'm really curious what the future is going to bring with these displays

[Laythe]

Ahh, that looks much more realistic.  The shading around the inside edge of the game area seems to throw me off a bit, but that's probably the HLSL trying to simulate a curved tube.  Still, that part is unrealistic, as the game image would never be shaded.  It's emitting light .

Heh, yeah, you got me there. 

I'm not actually running HLSL at all; everything you see there is in my layout files.  I found shadowing the edges of the CRT contributed to an illusion (to me) that the emulated CRT is behind the emulated bezel layer, but you are quite correct that the CRT shouldn't ever actually receive a shadow, being emissive.

I'm usually doing a 3x scale on most games on a 1080p panel, for 3x3 or 9 TV pixels per emulated pixel.  (Makes a 224 line game 672 pixels tall, leaving ~400 pixels for bezel.)  At 4k, I'd probably be suggesting a 6x scale, for 6x6 blocks of 36 TV pixels per emulated pixel.  I think that would be enough for convincing dot masks, as you say.

[plazma]

How about a 5:4 TFT with a 1280:1024 resolution? The aspect ratio is almost square.

Good side, they are out there and affordable.  I believe they were either 17" or 19", and the 19" size is servicable for our purposes - a little better than a 24" 16:9 is.  A horizontal or vertical game will fit well on one - you'll get a little letterboxing in both cases, but the sizes will be close, and a 19" display won't look out of place on a regular size cabinet.  I think they can be a good choice.

Down side, they are orphans now like CRTs are.  1280x1024 SXGA used to be fairly popular, but not anymore.  As far as I know, no one is producing them.  So like CRTs, there's quite a few of them around at the moment, but as time goes on they are going to get harder to find.  Replacing one in ten years is probably going to be difficult.

19" 1280x1024 go for really cheap atm. I can get them for free or max 10€ for a used one. I have two and I'm going to test how they work with an Xbox and Coinops software. I'll try to get emulators working with an Xbox because I can have them for 3€ each.

[Alejo I]

Re: future of 4:3 displays

CRT is dead and buried, but keep an eye on LG and other OLED display manufacturers. They'll probably start pumping out commercial 4:3 units for video walls soon enough. They'll be pricey, but contrast and black levels should be CRT-like.