Contest - Monitor comparison!

[rosco]

My guess

A - 1
B - 7
C - 6
D - 8
E - 4
F - 5
G - 3
H - 2

[The Man]

 

B - 5
F - 1
A - 7
C - 2
D - 8
E - 3
G - 6
H - 4

Now I see why we have some many questions about it!

I do have one unrelated question for you though Oscar.  Do you make an Active High interface for the opti-pac?  All my Trackballs are Active High.

TM

[rgardjr]

A-4
B-6
C-1
D-7
E-8
F-5
G-2
H-3

[CthulhuLuke]

Here's just a guess
A - 6
B - 4
C - 5
D - 7
E - 2
F - 1
G - 8
H - 3

[Lilwolf]

hehe, I don't think it's worth the time... but I was considering making a table of the current answers... and basing my answer on the results...

but I guess I will go make some guesses.

Oscar... do you have an ATI video card?  I hear that they have vastly different output then most of the Geforce cards.  Also, what tvout chipset is on your card (phillips?  is it a ViVo?)

Great idea!

[SirPoonga]

hehe, I don't think it's worth the time... but I was considering making a table of the current answers... and basing my answer on the results...

Free stuff not worth time???  You haven;t gone to college, have you:)

BTW, you're the only FE Dev I can think of that hasn't been to fe.donkeyfly.com.

[OSCAR]

I do have one unrelated question for you though Oscar.  Do you make an Active High interface for the opti-pac?  All my Trackballs are Active High.
TM

Funny you should ask.  Take a look at the news I just posted at www.oscarcontrols.com.

Oscar... do you have an ATI video card?  I hear that they have vastly different output then most of the Geforce cards.  Also, what tvout chipset is on your card (phillips?  is it a ViVo?)

Hey Lilwolf!  Yes, I briefly mentioned in the original post that I tried both an ATI Radeon 7500 & my GeForce4 in DOS.  The difference in tv-out quality under DOS was indistinguishable, I could make either one look better than the other just by adjusting the camera position & settings.  However, the ATI did seem to give slightly better results under Windows.  Maybe the ATI drivers give the output quality a little boost??  I just picked up an ATI 8500 today, so I'm going to give that a try and see if that is any better.  From what I've heard about the 8500's so far, I wouldn't be surprised if it was.  BTW, my GeForce4 does have the ViVo chip.

[Sasquatch!]

A-8
B-2
C-5
D-6
E-7
F-1
G-3
H-4

After spending all that time and writing it down, I looked back to make sure I wasn't duplicating anyone, and sure enough, I had the exact same answers as 1UP.  Dammit.

So I switched C and F around.  If I'm right, in your face, 1UP!!

[Lilwolf]

Not what I ment... With so many answers, I was going to make a table and figure out what hadn't been answered.  It wasn't worth the time to look at the pictures....

but I did anyway..

Free stuff not worth time???  You haven;t gone to college, have you:)

BTW, you're the only FE Dev I can think of that hasn't been to fe.donkeyfly.com.

[Lilwolf]

I have 3 that could go either way...

but my 'official' answer

1. F
2. E
3. H
4. C
5. B
6. A
7. G
8. D

but my worksheet when like this

1. B or F
2. E or H
3. E or H
4. C
5. B or F
6. A
7. D or G
8. D or G

but I don't think that answer counts

[OSCAR]

Not what I ment... With so many answers, I was going to make a table and figure out what hadn't been answered.  It wasn't worth the time to look at the pictures....

but I did anyway..

Well, I'm glad you didn't take the fun out of it.  The point is you're supposed to look at the pics.  

The most interesting statistic at the end will be how many people match up the real arcade monitor, seeing as that is the look a lot of people are trying to recreate with their MAME cabs.  Yes, arcade monitors aren't for everyone because so many BYOAC'ers also run PS/2, DC, etc..., but actually seeing how the alternatives compare against them is well worth the test, IMO.

[rampy]

I'm surprised Howard hasn't weighed in yet... he's pretty good at picking out visual details, and is such an avid fan of the authenticity of arcade monitors...  there's the potential for some irony there.

*shrug*

rampy

[Rocky]

A - 8
B - 4
C - 1
D - 3
E - 6
F - 5
G - 7
H - 2

I'm just guessing here  


Rocky

[Dave_K.]

So I guess nobody has guessed the correct sequence yet??  Or is this just for statistical purposes?  Oscar, do we have a winner?

[SNAAAKE]

or atleast who got the most answers correct?

[RandyT]

Using my (incredibly mediocre) powers of observation, my guess is as follows;

A-7
B-1
C-6
D-3
E-2
F-5
G-8
H-4


RandyT

[OSCAR]

I can't answer those questions just yet.  If I said that nobody has guessed the correct combination, then it could possibly improve the chances of someone guessing later who wouldn't have posted their guesses, thinking that a winner has probably already been selected.  And if I said that the correct combination has been guessed, then nobody else would bother trying.

The correct combination and the winner will be posted shortly after 7:00PM EST on Sunday, 10/27/02.

[rampy]

bah... it's gonna take forever for the weekend to get here now =P i'll never make it.

tic-tock-tic-tock

Besides the chance at a prize, I'm chomping at the bit to see the answers... (ok not totally chomping... but i am curious)

rampy

[Superdude]

My stupid answers:
A-1
B-5
C-7
D-8
E-4
F-6
G-2
H-3

[Frostillicus]

My guesses:

A   -  3
B   -  5
C   -   8
D   -  7
E   -   2
F   -   1
G   -   4
H   -   6

I would just like to state for the record that after reading some of these posts and actually participating in this contest I know now why my friends view me and this hobby as more than a little weird: "Yeah dude, there's a SPINNER up for grabs! What's a spinner, you ask? umm....It's a knob - you can control a game...it's like a mouse.  No. Just one axis.  Look, did you ever have an etch-a-sketch? no?  never? well then nevermind. To win  All i have to do is match up 8 screens with the correct monitor and...-Game screens.  yes, arcade game screens.  Spy Hunter.  Listen the point is... well I don't know what the point is but I submitted my best guesses.   Forget it, I'll talk to you later."
Based on a real phone call.  Thanks Oscarcontrols, for such a cool contest  

[SirPoonga]

Sunday and the final answers are almost here....

[OSCAR]

The contest has ended.  I will tabulate all your answers and post the winner along with the correct answers in about 10 minutes.

[SNAAAKE]

sure man...I know I won

[OSCAR]

The winner is RandyT with a perfect score!!!

1  - B  W-G 9100
2  - E  NEC through composite
3  - D  NEC through s-video
4  - H  Toshiba through composite
5  - F  Viewsonic A90F
6  - C  NEC through RGBS
7  - A  W-G 7901
8  - G  Toshiba through s-video


A few stats...

Correct pair matched most frequently:  5-F  (12 matches)
No surprise there, I guess.  Pretty much everyone has played MAME on a PC monitor.

Correct pair matched least frequently:  A-7  (3 matches)
This did surprise me a bit, I must say.  I would have bet a lot of people would have matched that one first because of the soft, fuzzy, and familiar look to it.

This was not an easy contest, and I'll admit it myself!  Now which monitor is the best solution for a MAME cab?  You be the judge.  

Any comments/questions/complaints/etc... please feel free.  


RandyT - I will PM you to coordinate your prize.  Congrats!

[SNAAAKE]

DOH!

Didn't win...

Oscar,
Who did the worse here?(please not me ).

[Brax]

Well darn.... the only way i was going to get a spinner was to win one. (((

fun contest.

[Sasquatch!]

This contest was a GREAT idea, just to make all of us take a second look at potential monitor choices.  Everybody won as far as I'm concerned.  Thanks, OSCAR.

[SirPoonga]

now I have an actual screnshot I can work with for advance mame.

[Lilwolf]

GREAT IDEA OSCAR!  

fun, I just checked my answers.  The main opps was I expected that the nec presentation monitor would have looked better with svid.  It probably has a svid -> composite circuit added later so they could add the 'feature' but didn't design around it.

Of course, the the best is the arcade monitor.  Then the next I would guess is tosh with tv-out svid myself.    I never realized that it was so close.

I would have loved to see a few more entries (still would for comparisons).

1) The real arcade.  If you know where one is around, I would love to see how close we can get an arcade machine.

2) Scan converters.  There are a few cheap ones out there that some say stink, and others say are great (tview gold I think).    

maybe if you mention how you took the pictures as close as possible, people with those and different solutions could take some of their own pictures and make a library out of it.

btw, CONGRATES RandyT!!!

[OSCAR]

You

[RandyT]

Thanks!

I'd like to thank the academy and all the little people.....er, wait, that's me  

Just wanted to let you folks know that I didn't look at any of the other submissions before coming up with my answers.  Those of you that have been here a while might recall the heated monitor related discussions a year or so ago between Howard and myself.  So some of you probably know that I've researched this stuff to a good extent in the past.

I've been playing with this stuff since I built my Amiga into a Defender cabinet and hooked it up to the RGB arcade monitor that was inside.  Even though I have never seen any of the monitors in the test, I had a pretty good idea what to expect from looking at and evaluating just about every tube I have come across for possible inclusion in a cabinet

Anyway, a big thanks to Oscar for a fun contest, and if anyone is interested as to how I came upon my decisions, let me know and I'll write it up.

RandyT

[1UP]

You

[OSCAR]

I knew it, you tricky bastich!!    What I want to know is, how did so many pics of DIFFERENT monitors end up being at exactly the same angle?

I'm just good, I guess.  

Seriously though, I did take quite a bit of time setting them up to try to make sure the pictures were taken from the same perspective, except for the ones that I intentionally made slightly different.  I took TONS of pictures.  I'm probably being conservative, but I bet I ditched about 150 pics before I ended up with the 8 that I was happy with.  My intent was to keep the car the same size in each of the pics, and that wasn't too easy either when changing between a 27" TV and an 18" monitor.  My camera has a true optical zoom lens, not digital, so it doesn't distort pixels, so that definitely helped.  I didn't rely on the zoom for proper size, just very fine adjustments to tweak it in.  I didn't resize or crop any pics to avoid software interpolation of the actual picture, either.

[1UP]

I see you updated the site with the pics and their hardware setup.  Now I can make a more educated decision on what monitor to use.  Thanks for doing the hard part for me!  

[u_rebelscum]

Great contest Oscar.  I got a lot closer than I thought I would, and now looking at the pictures again (20-20 hindsight), the mistakes I made are pretty obvious.    

Congrats RandyT!

Again, thanks for going through all the work for us.  It will help us looking for monitors way more than most other reviews; "a picture is worth a thousand words." (and you took a lot of pictures)