Arcade 1up upgrade- what is out there?

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Shredder1:
how exactly am I not listening to advice?

you said I should be talking about monitors, and despite the fact that I thought that was getting way ahead of myself, I started to bring them up.

you said I could go bigger because the things where so cheap..so I decided on a 32" monitor over the original 20-24.

you mentioned plywood, so I went looking at various types of plywood.....

this is what gets tiring about that question because it does seem like someone wanting to start trouble.

Gilrock:

--- Quote from: Shredder1 on May 18, 2021, 07:42:05 pm ---...I will most likely be using pi most of the time just because it's newer tech.

--- End quote ---

Well between this statement above and regarding LCD's as good or better than CRTs I think you caused everyone to throw up.

I mean I like my RetroPie build but I would never say its better than a PC its more like bottom of the barrel you can get by with. I liked it for a simple bartop but would not use one for a full sized cab. I was also hesitant to use CRTs cause I had no experience with them. Now I've built 2 cabs with CRTs and they blow away an LCD. I've even done my own cap kit and disassembled and cleaned a chassis and also bought a Sencore tube rejuventor and restored the CRT in my Defender. I went from knowing zero about CRTs to accomplishing some nice stuff with them. If you want to stick with LCD fine but you really need to buy a good LCD not a "cheap" one.

Also from earlier in the thread it sounded like you needed to have all your wood cut by someone else. Do you really have no power tools? If so I'm not sure I'd recommend you start this project at all.

Phreakwars:
Now that isn't fair. I myself don't have power tools.. well I do but I suck at using them. I take all my stuff to my cabinetry company for cutting. They don't charge but a few bucks to make the cuts I need, then it's a matter of just assembling which I can for sure handle. If someone told me I shouldn't even start because I don't have tools, I'd give them the finger. If that is a crutch for some, it's not a crutch that can't be fixed. The CRT advice, while good, isn't necessary except to the most demanding gamers. A nice decent spec monitor with good brightness and contrast adjustments works fine for most people, but honestly, if you are investing money in a full size, take the advice of Mike Holmes and do it right the first time. Don't settle for part "x" now when you know you want to eventually put in part "z" later on. This holds double true for monitors.

leapinlew:
Even though the monitor is the main attraction and the one component you look at more than anything else, monitor choice is still subjective to personal opinions. I'm one of those guys in the middle. I have 7 arcade cabinets and 5 have LCD's. Some of the LCD's have scan line generators, or filters, but for me, LCD's are authentic enough in most cases. I use a CRT for my classic 4 way vertical cabinet and Star Wars cabinet.

OP - you got some good advice here. Let me throw my opinion on the pile. I've built many cabinets and by far the easiest and best option is finding an original and rebuilding it. And with the cost of wood, it might even be cheaper. Check out the local scene to see what kind of cabinets are availabe.

RandyT:
I will admit to using an LCD in one of my cabinets. I'm not proud of it, because it was the direct result of laziness on my part, as I removed a good CRT which probably just needed a cap kit. One of these days, I'll fix the CRT and it will go back in.

The LCD looks fine, but it just doesn't "feel" right. So that cabinet ends up barely used because I always seem to gravitate toward the one with the big CRT. The one thing I think LCDs have over standard arcade-res CRTs is raw resolution, which can really improve vector games. A very bright, high contrast LCD would be my "go to" for that application, barring the use of an actual vector monitor.

But, to each their own. A lot of folks getting into the hobby aren't even old enough to have seen what the games are supposed to look like, let alone care enough to deal with the challenges of getting an arcade-res CRT working with modern computing devices. LCD is all they've ever known, so they think that is what the games looked like. Without the element of nostalgia, they might even prefer the LCD, not understanding that some of those well-defined pixels were never intended to be that visibly well-defined.

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