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Arcade VGA or not
Circo:
I have had two arcade vga's and have always thought they were great, now the vertical games were a bit of an issue until I got my billabs multisync monitor, since it displays all of the way to 1024x768 I am able to run almost all of the vertical games without stretching finally. For me if you are going to drop $500 - $700 on a true multisync arcade monitor what is another $85 to make it do it's thing?
Of course if the wife knew what I had spent on them over the years it might be a different story. :dizzy:
She never realized that I have had a D9200, a betson, and now the billabs (of which I am a major fanboy). :applaud:
ahofle:
--- Quote from: shorthair on February 27, 2007, 02:54:20 am ---Heh, afloe, you have me mixed up with the author of that other thread in monitor/video. I'm trying to get an idea why I might want an arcade monitor vs a 27" TV...or even just stick with my PC monitor but use an avga with it.
--- End quote ---
Ahh sorry about that. Well here are some pics I posted in another thread comparing an arcade monitor vs TV (there is really no comparison between those two IMO):
TV (S-Video at 640x480):
http://hofle.com/mame/robotron_ddraw.JPG
Arcade Monitor (with ArcadeVGA at native resolution):
http://hofle.com/mame/robotron-arcademonitor-ddraw3.JPG
shorthair:
afloe: thanks. What size and brand are each of those displays? Also, what would you say the difference is between your arcade monitor and a PC monitor?
Circo: you're saying you like the Billabs the most? What orientation is each of your monitors installed? Do you have any pictures of them?
ahofle:
The TV is a 24" flatscreen...can't remember the brand. I want to say Akai or something. The arcade monitor is a used 25" Dotronix RSV25. Running non-hardware stretched modes on a PC monitor looks really bad IMO. The dotpitch is so fine on modern monitors that you see every game 'pixel' as an exact square instead of a soft shape making everything look horribly blocky. You have to use stretching and 'effects' to blur the image which looks much better, but still not as good as an arcade monitor. Again, IMO. If you go with an LCD or PC CRT monitor I personally wouldn't bother with an ArcadeVGA. Run everything at a high resolution and use Aaron Giles' aperture grill 'effect'.
shorthair:
I think his overlay effects come stock with the new video scheme, along with some others. (For some reason, the grills and scanlines look much bigger on my monitor.) Of them all, my favorite is the Scanlines 75x2: it sort of distinguishes things without looking like there's a grill in the way of things. However, I like no effect the best. I can see what you mean about the blockiness, but the clarity of the display overall is like a breath of fresh air compared to scanlines or aperture. On older versions of MAME, I run it either RGB sharp, or RGB sharp with 'switch resolutions to fit'. The latter gives it a natural sort of very fine scanlines. The only problem with it is it doesn't rotate them if the game display is rotated.
I like how your arcade monitor looks. To go that way, I have to find a computer with an AGP slot, or get a new one. (By the way, sorry for mis-spelling your name, there. I thought it looked wrong.)