d9200/u3100 look like an arcade monitor?

[Ghoul]

I'm currently driving myself insane about what kind of monitor to get.

I know a lot of people on this board are using or have seen in person the d9200 and u3100 monitors. I was wondering if anyone had opinions on how they look running your average arcade game like marvel vs. capcom, street fighter, mortal kombat, or dig dug. Do they replicate the look of a jamma game very well (how well?)? Is it obvious that they are not true arcade monitors?

If not I will probably just go for a normal arcade monitor w/ jpac.

[Vesper]

I have a 9200 (27") in my cabinet.  I've never compared it side by side to a "real" arcade game, but I think it looks very much like an arcade monitor.  Scanlines and all.  The dot pitch isn't real small like a regular PC monitor, which helps it look more like arcade monitors.  

Personally, I couldn't be happier.  I have the best of both worlds.   A monitor I can run Windows on that looks like real thing.

[Lilwolf]

Vesper, could you take the spyhunter test?

http://www.xiaou2.homestead.com/turbo.html

How about anyone with a real arcade monitor through a jpac.

I would LOVE to see if its as good or better then the SVid.

Why?  If it's not better.... the SVid will be the best options.  Most video card support, You can hook a VCR/DVD/Dreamcast/PS2/ect to it directly.

Also, you can buy it local and not pay 40+ for shipping

[Vesper]

Sure I'll try to take a picture tonight so you can compare for yourself.

[Ghoul]

Sure I'll try to take a picture tonight so you can compare for yourself.

Oh man that'd be awesome for me too!

[Frostillicus]

I just finished a cab and put a 27" d2900 into it.  It is clearly the best solution in my opinion, if you don't mind spending a little $$$

I would recommend the d9200! It works great!  

although...one minor annoyance is that the onscreen menu keeps popping up for no apparent reason.  I've asked around here before but no one answered.  a push of the 'menu' button makes it go away, its a small price to pay for such a huge arcade monitor.

[Vesper]

although...one minor annoyance is that the onscreen menu keeps popping up for no apparent reason.  I've asked around here before but no one answered.  a push of the 'menu' button makes it go away, its a small price to pay for such a huge arcade monitor.

Haven't had that problem with mine.  Sounds like your Menu button is faulty/stuck.  (Probably a bad switch.  If you feel like soldering, you could always replace it.)

[SNAAAKE]

Ghoul,
Just got your pm,

D9200 is the best solution...

Lets make it very simple,It looks exactly like in the arcade except get rid of the annoying huge scanlines.

Hybrids monitors have tiny scanlines that are friendly to yours eyes...

Again,best monitors you can buy.

[Dave_K.]

Snaaake, I think that was the point of him asking the question.  Its possible the scan lines makes these games look more "original" than not.  For example, I played Robotron at the CA Extreme show and it obviously had an upgraded monitor as all the graphics looked blockier.  I went home and powered up my Robotron (with original G07 monitor) and it in my opinion it looks better with the scanlines.

Now this is just my opinion, and only on certain games.  The d9200 obviously has many other advantages over a std res arcade monitor, and I would presonally choose the d9200 (especially if wanting to put a console in your cab at some point).  

<mod> DUH! I just reaslized you could turn "scanlines on" in mame and simulate it with the d9200 and probably have it all  </mod>

[SNAAAKE]

Dont fix scanlines with hybrid monitors damn it..IT suck that way.

Just get the monitor Ghoul because just like the other guy said,"you couldn't be happier".

It looks better then how it looks if you connect directly to arcade monitor and use jamma board.Atleast in my opinion.

[Howard_Casto]

Dave actually you were right on the first part of your response.  Simulated scan lines look simulated.  If they didn't then this wouldn't even be an issue and we would all use svga monitors in our cabs (yuck).  

Hybrid montiors look like a really crappy svga monitor.  Btw, I don't mean that as in the picture quality is bad, but that the scan rate and res is low compared to a real pc monitor.  But regardless the picture is "crisp"  due to the type of pixels on the crt.  Even though the hybrids are closer resolution wise, the pixels still look square.  An arcade monitor or tv pixel looks round. This round pixel is what gives you the nice natural blending  and an "arcade" look.  Unfortunately at this point, no amount of mame filters can simulate this well.

So long story short if you are looking for an "arcade like" display then a hybrid probably isn't a good option.  

I've seen a lot of hybrids and so far none of them even come close to an arcade display due to lack of natural blending.  But if this is the exception, I would like to see pics of the spyhunter test for it as well....

[SNAAAKE]

a hybrid probably isn't a good option.  

SURE man,
Just because you dont have/can't afford then that doesn't mean its not good option.ITS A GREAT OPTION.(only my suggestion).

And guaranteed to wet your pants if you hook up a dreamcast with vga box .Just too great for the price.

[Frostillicus]

HC: The d9200 is definitely THE exception to the bad hybrids you were speaking of.  Trust me, the games look incredible, and I honestly couldn't tell the diff between my buddy's Alien Syndrome and the d9200's display.   It's NOT a computer monitor, that's for sure - I agree with snaaaaake it's the best you can get.

Unfortunately, I don't have a digital camera(or the cab anymore), so I can't do this "spyhunter" test right now.

Vesper: yeah i'm thinking it's the switch, too.  Guess I won't know till I get off my lazy --I'm attempting to get by the auto-censor and should be beaten after I re-read the rules-- and replace it  

[OSCAR]

Here's a closeup with my D9100 (the 18" version) with scan lines off.  The pic I took is really focused in on the car, so it's a bit more of a closeup than the Turbo comparison.  I don't know if you can directly compare this pic with the Turbo comparison since it is a different scale, but it should give you an idea.  I can say this, though, the picture quality for games is amazing, but not quite as fuzzy as my W-G7901 running through a JPAC.  I can snap a few more pics if anyone is interested.

[Ghoul]

I can snap a few more pics if anyone is interested.

Do you think you could get one of marvel vs. capcom? I have an arcade that runs this game like 10 minutes away that I visit all the time so it's really easy to compare the image quality.

Any pics are good though lol, I have to decide what monitor before I start building my cab and I've been waiting for a year to get a green light, finally got all involved convinced that it's a good idea.

[OSCAR]

Here's some MvsC pics, full screen and closeups:

http://www.oscarcontrols.com/tmp/mvsc1.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/tmp/mvsc2.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/tmp/mvsc3.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/tmp/mvsc4.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/tmp/mvsc5.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/tmp/mvsc6.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/tmp/mvsc7.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/tmp/mvsc8.jpg
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/tmp/mvsc9.jpg

[Vesper]

Ok as promised, here's the pics.  I had some trouble getting my camera to focus because of the monitor/refresh and weird lighting conditions of being right next to the monitor so the results are a bit mixed.  I still think you can get a sense of what it looks like though.

All pics are 800x600 (converted from 2048x1536) and are around 100k each.

Here they are:

http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/spy1.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/spy2.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/spy3.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/spy4.jpg

And while I'm showing pictures, here's some pics of my cabinet  

http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/mame1.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/mame2.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/mame3.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/mame4.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/mame5.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/dg64738/mame6.jpg

- Mike

[SNAAAKE]

OSCAR,
Got a quick Q.

Are you running that 18" monitor on windows XP?
Because if you do then i'd say switch to win 98 or me.
Then the blockyness is totally gone..There is a dramic change.It will be much cleaner and no blockyness ever.

TRUST me on that one.The pictures looked blocky/jagged and I know these monitors act funny when used with XP.

[OSCAR]

Nope, I'm running SuSE 8.0 w/ AdvanceMAME 0.61.3.

I just loaded up both of those roms without changing any of the AdvanceMAME default settings.  I know what you are talking about, though, because I have been playing with the Video settings on some other games, and I can get a better picture without the blockiness.  I was just trying to show what the pixels looked like with the closeup shots.

[Howard_Casto]

a hybrid probably isn't a good option.  

SURE man,
Just because you dont have/can't afford then that doesn't mean its not good option.ITS A GREAT OPTION.(only my suggestion).

And guaranteed to wet your pants if you hook up a dreamcast with vga box .Just too great for the price.

Actually when I built my cab I could have gotten one but I choose not to for the stated reasons, which are totally and completely true.  I'm sorry that you don't see it that way.  

Umm showing that you would hook a dreamcast... a device designed to run on a ntsc display to a vga box kind of proves my point.  Your not interested in a true arcade look, which is fine, but don't tell me I'm wrong on this, because hypbrids monitors, do
not look like a true arcade monitor.  They're better than a svga display but just about anything is.  As usual man your just stirring up trouble so chill a little why don't cha.

As oscar's pics showed it is  better than a standard svga monitor but still subpar compared to a real arcade monitor.  Now a tv would give you the proper blending but it would be a little too fuzzy in some cases.  Personally I couldn't stand it if it wasn't blended... it's like playing mame on my regular desktop pc (yuck).  

[OSCAR]

Anyone that is truly picky about their display should certainly consider AdvanceMAME, regardless if you are using an arcade or PC monitor.

On my D9100 [w/ AdvanceMAME], I can adjust the Video settings to make the picture anything from razor sharp (i.e., like a PC monitor), to so fuzzy you can't even play it.

Here's just a quick comparison of some different filter/video effects on Pac-Man.  Of course there are many different effects that give excellent looking results, I just chose a couple that were very contrasting :




Keep in mind that the river can't rise above it's source, so to speak.  Meaning that if you start out with a crappy looking display, then there's not much you can do to improve it.  For an out-of-the box solution that most closely resembles a true arcade monitor, I have to agree with Howard that a TV using s-video is about as good as you can get.  However, if you are looking for total control and you're not against going with AdvanceMAME, I would have to recommend something like the VGA-compatible arcade monitors like the W-G 9100/9200.  Naturally you don't have to use AdvanceMAME w/ a hybrid monitor, I just prefer it.  It all depends on what suits you best, I guess.

[SirPoonga]

OSCAR, advancemame has examples too.

http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/blit.html

[Howard_Casto]

Thanks man... those pictures show what I am getting at.    That's a really good filter you have applied but it still looks like a display that's been filtered. That's all I'm getting at.  If you can stand filters then it's really a nice picture and it does some good blending.  

But to me the filters are nasty, and look fake. It's a personal peeve of mine.  Those hybrid monitors give a great display, but it still doesn't seem arcade authentic to me.  

Again it's all preference, but hopefully thanks to your visual aids everyone can see what we are both getting it.

[mikenotbob]

Oscar,

I'm with you... I would highly recommend advancemame., regardless of what type of monitor you're using.  Tripling the resolution and using the scan2vert worked like a dream for me.

Unfortunately, there are so many issues to factor in when purchasing a monitor; What type of games you'll be playing, ease of use, pickiness of user...

I've recently started scanning BYOAC again (after a 2-3 year hiatus), and noticed how complex things have become, and I've noticed a lot of advice given (and wuestions asked)without specifying what TYPE of games they are concerned with most.

For example, if you will be playing early 80's pacman/donkey kong games most, getting monitor advice from the Street Fighter crowd isn't all too helpful.  The newer arcade games have infinitely better monitors than the old scanline ridden monitors.  (man, you have to laugh at how much time we spend getting nice displays looking like hell. )

Personally, I'm using a PC monitor, because I play vectors, scanline ridden 80's games, straight through to Marvel vs. Capcom released in '98.  On a scale from 1 to 5, I'd rather have a quality 3-4 rating on everything than a 5 rating on some and a 2 on others, if you get my drift.  I bet that the hybrid monitor may even be a better choice for the 'play everything' player than the pc monitor, but they just weren't as readily available/cheap/well researched back when i built my cabinet.

[Ghoul]

Well for me:

Based off sitting around playing games with a gamepad on my comp for these last few months I play around 80% fighting games (marvel vs. capcom and street fighter 2/alpha series to be specific). This might change when I get a decent four way stick, but I doubt it.

My main reason for going with a hybrid monitor is that I had understood that it gave a nearly arcade perfect image while displaying windows well, meaning that I could run computer games that work well in a cabinet such as nfl blitz, virtua tennis, and mortal kombat 4 as opposed to being only good for mame.  An arcade monitor is of course, really only good for mame.

I had avoided the tv route mainly because I don't want to go blind sitting 2-4 feet away from this thing playing it hours on end and I figured as far as eye strain goes a tv has to be much worse than an arcade monitor (especially a hybrid).

[SNAAAKE]

Good for you

Pc games look great too.I play FPS all the time.

GOD !  try medal of honor onces you get the monitor.

woooo hoo.... ...too good looky

[Carsten Carlos]

I got some pitures of the WellsGardner U3100 on my site http://www.mittelalterlicher-markt.de/arcade at the monitor-section. There is also a comparision picture between WG U3100 vs SVGA-monitor.

Only available up to 19", so if you need it bigger this wouldn't be a choice. Unfortunately I've no real arcademonitor by my side to compare, but I think it's rather realistic.

@Howie - ever seen the U3100? At least it has bleedings colors and no blockieness!   No wonder, dotpinch is 0.71mm, its not that fun to watch windows with this, but anyway, I wanna play games in a cab and not word-processing!

[Ghoul]

Oh no my above statement doesn't mean I'm going with a hybrid, whoops I suppose it's worded that way huh. I was mainly giving out my reasons for why I would go with each and what kind of games I play.

[Xiaou2]

Hi Guys,

 Thanks for the pics.


  Just a few notes on taking closeup pics...

 Take pics at a resolution of 800*600 instead of 1024 or higher.   The reason, is that the camera then pics up too much detail... and because of the light so close, it distorts the image.    Its basically like putting your eyeball an inch or so from your tv.  Sure... you can see all the lines... but thats not what you really see from 1ft away.

(yup... I messed up and shot the 'composite' pic in hi-res.  Ill have to retake it someday when time permits...)

 The other thing, is that I cropped a lot of the picture.  Some of the pics I saw were out of focus... and this is why...   You want to take the pic as close as possible... yet still keep focus.  This may be arround 4-8inches away... and you will have to experiment.  

 Also, make sure your batteries are charged up full, as weak ones will delay the time it takes to activate the shutter - thus causing a blur from your unsteady hand movments. (I originally though my camera was broken because 90% of shots were comming out blurred.  I had to actually buy new rechageables... as my old ones lost too much of thier original storage capacity)

 I cant remember, as it was a quite while ago... but I may have even scaled the cropped images down 50% with Paint.

 Remove glass or plexi beofre taking pics.  Be carefull of the lighting.  It shouldnt be too bright, or you will get glare.   Take the pics at night, as sunlight will produce different hues and effects.   Obviously, dont use a flash : )   Youll blind yourself, as well as the camera!   ^_^

[Xiaou2]

hmmm... thought about this a little more.   If your camera dosnt support low res like 800*600... you may be out of luck.

 The only thing you can do... is to move the camera further away (8-12+inches) ... and hope for the best.

 other tips... make sure scanlines and hardeware strech are off.

[OSCAR]

Thanks man... those pictures show what I am getting at.    That's a really good filter you have applied but it still looks like a display that's been filtered. That's all I'm getting at.  If you can stand filters then it's really a nice picture and it does some good blending.  

But to me the filters are nasty, and look fake. It's a personal peeve of mine.  Those hybrid monitors give a great display, but it still doesn't seem arcade authentic to me.  

Again it's all preference, but hopefully thanks to your visual aids everyone can see what we are both getting it.

No problem, Howie!  Just keep in mind, though, that I intentionally chose a wild & phony looking filter just to illustrate both ends of the spectrum.  What I have shown on the right side of my comparison photo isn't what I would consider playable for games, and is actually worse than a true arcade monitor.  Between the different video modes/RGB/filter effects, etc. available with AdvanceMAME there are many, many combinations that can be used to get nearly any effect to fall between the two examples I have shown.  With AdvanceMAME, you aren't limited to the very few effects that are available with standard MAME.

[Dink]

For example, if you will be playing early 80's pacman/donkey kong games most, getting monitor advice from the Street Fighter crowd isn't all too helpful.  The newer arcade games have infinitely better monitors than the old scanline ridden monitors.  (man, you have to laugh at how much time we spend getting nice displays looking like hell. )

Personally, I'm using a PC monitor, because I play vectors, scanline ridden 80's games, straight through to Marvel vs. Capcom released in '98.  On a scale from 1 to 5, I'd rather have a quality 3-4 rating on everything than a 5 rating on some and a 2 on others, if you get my drift.  I bet that the hybrid monitor may even be a better choice for the 'play everything' player than the pc monitor, but they just weren't as readily available/cheap/well researched back when i built my cabinet.

I think you've hit the nail on the head.  Pardon me for jumping in but you've made a good point for reference.  It all depends on the software you run in your MAME cabinet too!

I've been using a PC monitor for a while now and could never understand why someone would want to move to an arcade monitor.  I already know I'm not happy with the color bleed and fuzziness on a TV, composite or S-video.  I've tried it.

I started wanting something bigger for the MAME cabinet, say in 27" area.  It is hard to find a PC monitor that big, that is affordable.  So I began the hunt for an arcade monitor, even a VGA hybrid monitor (Wells-Gardner d9200).

Your post has put me back in check as I do want crispness in Daphne, Visual Pinball, and my NES, Atari 2600, and Nintendo 64 emulators.  No arcade monitor is going to make me happy, no matter the size.

I guess the only thing available to me now is those 40" plasma screens.    I'll go back to enjoying my 21" .22 pitch Hitachi now.

Thanks for posting.

[Howard_Casto]

Your post has put me back in check as I do want crispness in Daphne, Visual Pinball, and my NES, Atari 2600, and Nintendo 64 emulators.  No arcade monitor is going to make me happy, no matter the size.

Good points but just for the record.... Visual pinball is the only emulator you mentoined that is intended to be played on a pc monitor.  The laserdisc games of the 80's were ran on a standard/medium res arcade monitor.  Actually the rips of orignal laserdiscs look worse if they aren't at least played on a tv.    All consoles are designed to be ran on a ntsc display (tv) for proper blending to occur.  None of these systems/games you mentioed are supposed to be crisp.  As a matter of fact, even to this day console game developers depend upon the "crappiness" of your tv.  They use a technique to where they make a game at 640*480 or higher (well above what your average tv can display) and then port it stragiht out through the console's outputs.  And poof, like magic you get alpha blending, due to the conversion without taxing the system's processors.  The n64 is a great example of this.... notice how awful the sprites and 2d graphics look on your n64 emulator?  That is because the resoution is too high.  Put that thing through tv output, on the same computer, with the same resolution settings, and all of that clears up.  

Also for the record the games of the early 80's used the very same display as the modern street fighters.  With the exception of vector games and those really cool projection tv cabinets, virtually all arcade machines used a very generic 19 inch medium res monitor. (Or in the case of 4 player games a medium res  25 inch monitor.)   In other words the "fuzz" factor was the same regardless of the game.  

Now before someone nit-picks there are exceptions, I just haven't heard them mentioned so far.

So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.  

[Dink]

None of these systems/games you mentioed are supposed to be crisp.  As a matter of fact, even to this day console game developers depend upon the "crappiness" of your tv.  They use a technique to where they make a game at 640*480 or higher (well above what your average tv can display) and then port it stragiht out through the console's outputs.  And poof, like magic you get alpha blending, due to the conversion without taxing the system's processors.  The n64 is a great example of this.... notice how awful the sprites and 2d graphics look on your n64 emulator?

The N64 emulation looks about 10 times better emulated because IT IS displaying at 640x480 on my PC monitor (some do 800x600) and they're using OpenGL rendering.  Every N64 game I've played so far looks better emulated on a PC monitor than a TV screen (at least the side by side comparisons I've done).

It comes down to personal preference.  Just because games aren't suppose to be displayed that way doesn't mean I don't like them that way.  I don't care what the designers were doing to make it look good back then.  I want it to look great now.

[Howard_Casto]

Actually unless you are using fancy filtering options and scan lines with your video card it almost has to look worse.  Now the 3d elements might look better but not the 2d as the sprites are made for a smaller pixel area. (Screen filters are bad, umk)

But it's not anything to argue over.  

And your right it's presonal preference as to weather you want the games to look as they were intended or not, which was the point of this thread. What you are suggesting, even if you think it looks better, definately does not display the game as originally intended.

[Dave_K.]

Anyone know what the "dot pitch" of the d9200 is?  The larger the dot pictch, the softer and rounder the pixels will be.  In fact most "vga" monitors above 21" have really bad dot pitches (the tubes are much more like TVs).  So we shouldn't be comparing a desktop computer monitor to the d9200 (as far as how blocky/crisp the pixels are).  Maybe this is why some people think games look quite original on the d9200.  I'm sure older games like Pac man maybe don't look "original" as HC and I would think, but later games like Area 51 might be dead on .

[Dink]

Actually unless you are using fancy filtering options and scan lines with your video card it almost has to look worse.  Now the 3d elements might look better but not the 2d as the sprites are made for a smaller pixel area. (Screen filters are bad, umk)

But it's not anything to argue over.  

"has to?",  "might look better?"  With all your speculation you might just have an argument.  But wait, lets look at some facts...

Do me a favor and load up Project 64.  Load up the Diddy Kong Racing or the Hydro Thunder ROM.  Configure the graphics plug-in for 1600x1200 resolution, 32 bit color depth, Triple Buffer display mode, Direct 3D HAL.

Oh wait, you do that on a d9200 or any arcade monitor out there.

No need to argue about it.

[Xiaou2]

  After taking close looks between the 9100, 9200 ect here, Im a bit relieved.   I was thinking that the picture would be closer to original arcade quality than svideo... and I simply didnt have the extra 200$ to find out...

  Well, from looking at the pics, it looks like those monitors actually have Higher dot pitch than my panasonic 27".  

  Look closely at where the dirt and grass meets.   On the svideo, its hard to pic out the pixel blocks, as they are blended in color very well.   Yet on the 9100,9200s you can actually easily make out the rough pixel edges.   There dosnt seem to be much color blending either.

  The original arcades displays 'output' seemed to be higher in res than than what could actually be displayed correctly on the monitor... so a single lone pixel would only display half the color intensity, and have a strong color bleeded edge.   But... if you put two or more pixels side by side... they are really bright and clear.   Also, by staggering pixels, you can create advanced blending... and even transparent shadow like images (shown lightly right side of  the spyhunter car... more heavily on some capcom games)

  Anyway, while Im not saying svideo is the perfect answer... its the most affordable, and the best looking 'imop'... in regards to older authentic arcade
machines.

  The only thing I think could top it would be Andys new card, with an older low dot pitch monitor... and Id still have to see it in action - close up spy hunter style    

  The biggest problem with svideo- is the loss of colors...blue & green, and when you increase them, the red is too strong and bleeds badly.   There is a ballence though... so its not too bad (all colors a 'little' dull)... and with the new upcomming mame... they are adding RGB sliders so that you can adjust the color output.   This should allow us to reduce the reds, so that when upping the tvs saturation, it will be in perfect ballence : )

  In addition, Id like to say... that yeah... everyone is going to use these displays for different porposes.   Some are playing more modern games, and want to keep the details high... but us old timers may be playing a blend of the old games, and arnt happy if they dont match how we saw them when we were young. (intended display look)
This again, is purely 'opinion', and no reason to argue.

[mikenotbob]

Man, it's been a looong time since I looked at the back of my monitor, but I am positive that I do have RGB inputs, and may have s-video (not 100% sure on the s-video).  Is there any way to utilize the RGB inputs w/ a pc, and would there be any advantage?  Clearly I wouldn't want a SHARPER image, but would i get a brighter, more colorful image?

[Aqualung]

I do have an Sony 21" TV with only RCA Video in and the GeForce has both RCA and S-Video, so I'd like to know if it will have any difference if I plug the GeForce's RCA out to the TV's in, or if I'll have better quality if use the S-Video out from the card and put a S-Video to RCA adaptor to hook it on the TV.