20" TV with Composite only <EDIT> now w/components!

[tshizzle.com]

In the process of building a mame cabinet and picked this up at wal-mart for $90.  20" flat with black housing.  Only negative is theres no S-Video, only composite.  I did have a nice Monster Composite Cable laying around so I figured this will help a bit at least.  

Just wondering a few things....

1) Any particular video card I should be looking to get?  Are any known to work better with TV-Out, etc?

2) Im planning on just installing WinXP, stripping it of everything not needed, and running EmuLoader with standard MAME on there.  Anything I might be in need of besides these 2?

3) Ive read thru alot of the topics , most focus on S-Video vs RGB vs Component.  Now I'll probably never play any game pre-1990 anyways, this is mostly gonna be a Fighting cabinet, some Metal Slug type games, etc.  Not really worried how Tempest or Tron look if you know what I mean.  
What Im getting at, is there any particular settings that work well on most/all games?  IE locking all games at 640x480 , scanlines, etc.  Ive only been messing around with MAME a few months on my PC and notice quite a few games I have to go thru and play with options all over the place to get them centered on my PC monitor.  Is there a nice site somewhere that goes over when you should use Direct 3d, scanlines, <insert option here> , etc?  

Thanks in advance guys - and wow what a nice site and community here - I'm sure Ill be in here with plenty more questions in the near future =)  

[TalkingOctopus]

I have these settings changed in my MAME.ini:

1) A cheap ATI card like a radeon 7000 should do the trick.  Make sure it has composite out or an svideo to composite adaptor.

2) Most likely nothing else is needed.  

3) I use these settings in my mame.ini for my TV.
hwstretch              1
cleanstretch            auto
resolution              1024x768x32
zoom                    1
refresh                60

[tshizzle.com]

Thanks for the info....BTW, nice cabinet you got there =)

So having a decent video card wont make any difference at all for newer games?  IE: Killer Instinct, SF-Alpha, other 3-d type games?  I was thinking about getting something like a MX440 or something along those lines.  

Oh, and theres been 1 thing I've been worrying about.  My cabinet will have to be in my garage for a while as I dont have any room inside for it.  Living in South Florida, the garage can get pretty damn hot.

 The PC Im planning on using in there is a AMD 1800.   Would it be better if I just slapped a whole PC case in there, or if I mounted the board to some wood or something?  I was thinking of buying a small desktop type fan to help blow out the back (BTW, my cabinet wont have an actual backing for a while until I get a chance to move it inside the house I figured why bother)   You guys think Ill have an over-heating issue?  

[paigeoliver]

Take that TV back to the store. The display is not the place to try to save money on your cabinet. If you need to save money somewhere then do it in the computer department. A good display is always going to pretty much cost the same thing. But that $30 used computer you can get now (instead of the $300 one you were going to use), will play nearly everything except the 3D fighters and hard drive games (which aren't really emulated all that great anyway). Then in 2 years you can take out that $30 computer, buy another $30 computer, which now will play those games.

Really, take it back, I did a cabinet with a 19" tv, and it was an actual s-video one, and it looked terrible, I undid it within a week.

[Darkstalker]

"Really, take it back, I did a cabinet with a 19" tv, and it was an actual s-video one, and it looked terrible, I undid it within a week. "

Not that I'm trying to turn this into a monitor discussion, but did you take the 19" s-video TV back because it was too small for your tastes?

[tshizzle.com]

Hmm, well honestly I thought the games looked pretty nice going to my TV in my room from my PC......Even a bit better than my monitor which was so sharp it makes the games look kinda worse.  

Really I was reading thru http://users.adelphia.net/~seanhat/arcade/  this guys arcade.  He uses a 25" TV and I think it looks sweet.  

Thanks for the suggestion, but really I will never play any pre-1990 game anyways, so Im not really concerned if some old vertical game or something looks crappy.  I just want to pwn people in fighters =)

[paigeoliver]

"Really, take it back, I did a cabinet with a 19" tv, and it was an actual s-video one, and it looked terrible, I undid it within a week. "

Not that I'm trying to turn this into a monitor discussion, but did you take the 19" s-video TV back because it was too small for your tastes?

No, until recently I had never had a game with a display bigger than 19-21". I didn't even take the s-video tv back either, as I didn't buy it new. It just didn't look right.

[Trenchbroom]

Thanks for the suggestion, but really I will never play any pre-1990 game anyways, so Im not really concerned if some old vertical game or something looks crappy.  I just want to pwn people in fighters =)

Young pup...you have my pity.

[TalkingOctopus]

Although an arcade monitor would be best, I don't think that S-video looks that terrible on a mid to high quality TV after playing with the picture settings on both the computer and the TV.  

I have to agree that spending a lot of money on a MAME computer seems like a waste.  However, I have had a better experience with ATI's TV out.  I also think it looks better than the older nvidia cards.  (I have no experience with the newer ones - I compared the ATI radeon 7000 to a GeForce 1 and 3).  I use an AMD 1800 as my primary computer and you should be able to play killer instinct fine as well as any 2d capcom games.  For 3D games, zinc will run on the 1800+ XP.  I'd mount to the computer to the board because putting a case inside of another structure seems like a waste.  You probably would not need a fan vent, but it wouldn't hurt anything.  I put 2 80mm fans on the back of my cab, but I ended up leaving them powered off.

Finally, it would be a shame to have an arcade cab and neglect all of the great older games  

[tshizzle.com]

I think im gonna bring that badboy back to Walmart and upgrade to a S-Video at least.  

Thanks for the info, and for the record. Its not that I dont like the "classics" , its just i know they are more of a "oh thats pretty cool" novelty for me, as Im basically building it to play fighters.  

[allroy1975]

I will be using a TV as a monitor for my 2nd cab, so I'm interested in the input of this thread.  

I just wanted to chime in here and say how much I HATE it when people answer questions like PO did in this situation.

There is no less helpful or arrogant way to repsond to a question than like that.  When someone asks "what is the best way to do X"  the answer is NEVER "don't do X".  

Yeah, we've decided to use TVs.  We know there are other (maybe better or worse) ways to do it.  We've made a decision and he's asking the BEST way to do it.

Talking Octopus' responce was much better.  It gave his experience with different settings and said that there are better options.  

I have just had so many experiences when I say "this is what I'm doing, can someone help?"  and the responces you get are "don't do that"  and it's not helpful at all and it's very frustrating.  

okay, I'm done.  BTW, on my 35" sony that I play all my classic console games on, I have an old ATI AIW Pro card and use the S-Video and I wouldn't want to read a whole web page on it, but the text doesn't look that bad.  It's definatly usable.  I'm thinking about getting another ATI something like an 8500 or  something.....

Allroy

[Nephus]

I'm using a TV for my first one (when I get the money) because it's similar enough to an arcade screen without the associated limitations.  TVs are getting better, and computer monitors are too expensive at the sizes that look right.  I'm not going to have some ultra-sharp screen that makes older games look like crap, and is only 17 inches when I could get something that better recreates the experience, is 25 inches, and is much cheaper.  I know a lot of people use computer monitors, but throwing such a tiny screen in an arcade cab just doesn't look right IMO.

[tshizzle.com]

Just wanted to let everyone know, I took the advice from you guys, and alot from http://www.oscarcontrols.com/monitors.shtml , and returned the 20" composite and got a 20" Daewoo Flat with Components!  I didnt even know they made 20"s with components, but Best Buy had it at $149.99 with a $20 mail in to bring you to $129.99.  

Heres a pic of it:


Has S-Video and composites as well, so maybe Ill even end up throwin in my Dreamcast or something =)

[goofy]

I know that 20" is not an HDTV or HDTV-ready TV, but if it were an HDTV/ready TV, shouldn't you be able to hook up your PC to the component inputs (via an RGB to component cable) and get the same quality resolution as a PC monitor? Isn't 480p or 1080i resolution very similar to what PC monitors can do?

Anyway, I've tried briefly a couple of times to hook my PC up in this manner to my big screen tv and never had any luck getting a high resolution image of the PC on the TV. But, it should be possible, right?

[NinjaEpisode]

Just wanted to let everyone know, I took the advice from you guys, and alot from http://www.oscarcontrols.com/monitors.shtml , and returned the 20" composite and got a 20" Daewoo Flat with Components!  I didnt even know they made 20"s with components, but Best Buy had it at $149.99 with a $20 mail in to bring you to $129.99.  

Heres a pic of it:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0002471XS.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Has S-Video and composites as well, so maybe Ill even end up throwin in my Dreamcast or something =)

Question, are the composites/S-video just on the front of the unit or are they duplicated on the back?

One would think it wouldn't be fun to have to route a cable to the front of the TV to feed the signal.

[tshizzle.com]

the back has 3 sets of composites , 1 component, and 1 s-video