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Poll: Smoked or clear glass
Wade:
For newer monitors, CLEAR is the best. Smoked is best for old arcade monitors with burn or light grey tubes.
Practically ALL newer monitors come with a dark tint ALREADY ON THE TUBE. Using tint over top of a newer monitor would only make sense if you were trying to hide a bad install job... and even then, I'd recommend just fixing the install to look better.
This change occurred mostly during the 90's. It's hard to find a game with tinted glass from the late 90's on, and a lot of them from the early 90's had already abandoned tinted glass (such as the MK series).
Wade
Crowquill:
The Crazy Kong cabinet that I converted to MAME already had smoked plexi, but I'm very glad it did. The bezel is just black posterboard. Games with a black background (like virtually anything before 1984) just kind of "appear" with none of the monitor parts or bezel really visible. It's really sharp.
My Primal Rage cab that I use for JAMMA games has clear glass and you can see every imperfection in both the monitor and the surrounding bezel as well as the crappy paint job that Atari did on the inside of the cabinet (should have all been painted black, but it wasn't).
My Neo-Geo 2-slot dedicated came with smoked. I had my doubts being full-screen full-color graphics, but it really does look cleaner and much more finished with the tinted glass. Doesn't dull the graphics near as much as I expected.
I'm going to find a way to implement smoked plexi or glass into my cocktail project soon. First I have to find affordable glass for the top, though.
Does anyone have a preference between glass and plexi? Is there much of a cost difference?
needlesmcgirk:
I'm still trying to decide what to use for my glass. I am using a 27 inch tv right now as my monitor so I'm not sure what is best. Also, I have no idea where I would get the glass from.
vidmouse:
--- Quote from: needlesmcgirk on July 05, 2007, 10:54:40 am ---I'm still trying to decide what to use for my glass. I am using a 27 inch tv right now as my monitor so I'm not sure what is best. Also, I have no idea where I would get the glass from.
--- End quote ---
I'm using a 27" tv as well, found that clear plexi worked just fine for me
after I got a painted bezel in place. Found it at Lowe's in the hardware/
screen door section (it's used to replace plexi on screen doors, windowed
garage doors, etc). About $18 for what I needed, and they cut it to size.
needlesmcgirk:
I wonder how much better glass would be than plexi though. Seems plexi scratches easy and just looks kinda iffy.