Wells Gardner D9200 vs my current 27" TV? (Happ Controls is having a sale...)

[sofakng]

Last year when I started building my arcade cabinet I bought a Toshiba 27" TV (it's pretty good, it even has component video inputs), but with the TV-out it seems a bit blurry. 

Now I noticed that Happ Control's is having a sale until 1/31/2004 on their Wells Gardner D9200 arcade monitor.  To make the deal even sweeter, anything over $500 includes free shipping... (so I'm assuming this monitor would ship free, but I'm not 100% sure).  The free shipping would be saving me AT LEAST $50 (at least I'm guessing).

Can somebody please give me their honest opinion on the D9200 vs a 27" television?  Are we comparing "Computer monitor" quality vs "Television" quality?  If so, there is absolutely no comparison.  A computer monitor is 10X the quality (ok, I'm exaggerating) of a television.

Now I realize that spending $500 is not anything to sneeze at (espicially for somebody just out of college), but this deal seems almost too good to pass up.

Please help me.

[Will]

Do you sell sofa's??Sorry that didn't answer your question.Ask yourself this question do you want to have the most authentic picture that you remember from the good old arcade days?If you don't mind giving up what you remembered for something that doesn't look nearly as good than buy a tv.I have seen mame on a tv and on a normal pc and on the real deal a arcade monitor.The tv looked to blurry and washed out.The pc monitor looked way to clean and clear.The arcade monitor looked so perty and just made me go OOOOOOOOOO YEAAAAAAHHHHHHH(macho man style).Yes it was work to get my fifteen year old monitor in tip top shape but it was worth it.The thing looks fantastic when playing mame.With the d9200 not only do you get the awesome display in mame you also get a nice flicker free 640-480 and 800-600 display for your desktop something my older monitor does not do this.Do you want the best???If yes is the answer than a arcade monitor combined with an arcade vga card is the way to go.Hope this helps.

[Kremmit]

Looks like that free shipping is only for stuff that would normally ship UPS ground.  Anybody know if these ship UPS, or via truck freight?

[sofakng]

After reading a bit more on Happ's website, it appears that monitors 25" and larger do NOT ship via UPS Ground and thus don't qualify for free shipping.

However, Wells Gardner themselves are selling the monitor for $450 (new) plus shipping, so I'm guessing it comes to around $510/$525 with shipping.  So it's actually pretty close to Happ's price.

The more I read up on the D9200, the more problems I read about (convergence, problems with low-frequency/older [raster] games, etc)...  I was just wondering if the arcade monitor (eg. D9200) would be a night-and-day difference between my television.  I actually spent $250 on this 27" television (probably was a big mistake) and so I'd be basically taking a $250 hit on the TV to buy the arcade monitor...  (but of course I can re-use the TV and put it in my bedroom or whatever...)

Keep the opinions coming!

[the3eyedblindman]

Tv's with S video do not look that bad at all, people on this site really make them sound bad. The only thing that looks bad on the tv is the small fonts in windows xp, but you can change those to bigger fonts and they look fine. Also, pc games and mame games look great on a tv. You dont need any special convertors or anything, just a card with s video out (cheap on ebay) and an s video cable, like 3 dolllars at walmart. You can get a 27 inch tv for 160 dollars with s video, which is a few hundred less than an arcade monitor, and you dont have to pay any shipping, I went the tv way!

[oldsage]

I'm also really confused about this... How well does the D9200 play PC games??? Or console games (i saw people using adapters to connect their consoles to arcade monitors...)
BTW, $475!?!?!?
About a week (or two, or three) ago it was $340!!! And now they're having a sale?!?!

[Lilwolf]

D9200 is a CGA / EGA AND VGA monitor.

So with the arcadevga card.  You can handle true arcade resolutions... PLUS if you get 640x480 or 800x600 it will work with VGA resolutions / refresh.

Normal CGA monitors + ArcadeVGA uses an interlaced refresh for 640x480 which kinda sucks.

But yes... HL2 will work.. But you will be running on a pretty old video card. 

[Sephroth57]

I think it really comes down to personal preference. But for practicality and cost savings, i think the best possible thing you can do is just use a computer monitor.  A nice 21inch CRT can be had off ebay for less then 200$ (ive gotten 2, one for my cab and one for my room),  with that you dont need to buy an arcadeVGA card, you get very high resolution and BETTER graphics than an arcade monitor. 

Now some people will say an arcade monitor is better because its truely what the game looked like, well this is where personal preference comes in. Do you care about authenticity that much, where you really are seeing the graphics in their "true" form which is lower res. or would you take advantage of our modern technology , which if available then they would surely use, and view your games in a nice 1024 or higher on a PC monitor?

Truely no one option is better but ill put it simple

500$+ for that arcade monitor - arcade "true" graphics, +$ for AVGA card
200$ for a PC monitor, higher res, no AVGA needed, easy to install

[oldsage]

I think it really comes down to personal preference. But for practicality and cost savings, i think the best possible thing you can do is just use a computer monitor.

[Sephroth57]

i currently use a PS2 on my cabinet. I just got a 50$ adaptor and it works awesome, ive had no problems at all with it, it has a switch on it that goes from PC/console

[Gunstar Hero]

The nice thing about a PC monitor is that vector games look good and you can run high rez programs (like Visual Pinball) and have them look decent. The downside is 21 inch is about as big as you can go without spending a fortune.  Mouning one in your cab can be an event too.

The nice thing about a TV is easy console compatability, size and the price can be low. But the resolution, while cool for MAME in most cases isn't so good. Also sometimes a TV can be a PAIN to turn off/on while in a cab.

The arcade monitor is big, and meant to go in a cab, so it's got mounting hardware and powering off/on is not an issue. It's still not super high rez though, and it can be expensive to set up.

I use a KDS 21 inch monitor I got from some liquidation place for $99. It's a nice compromise, being in a steel frame, but hooking up and working like a PC monitor. I'd say one of the "VGA compatible" arcade monitors Happs sells seems like a good thing, it's how I wanna do my next cab. 

[GGKoul]

I have a 27" TV in my cab and I wouldn't spend the money to get a Arcade Monitor.