Widescreen monitor

[markronz]

I have a wide screen computer monitor I was considering using in an arcade cabinet.   I haven't hooked anything up yet, I just had a quick few questions I was hoping someone could answer for me.

What happens when you use MAME on a widescreen monitor like that?   Most games are in 4:3 video mode, so what do they look like on the widescreen monitor?   Is there just black bars on either side of the game?   Or is the image all stretched out?

Also, would it make more sense to turn the monitor sideways so that it's longer up and down?   Are you then able to rotate the video so that it displays that way?  That way the games that use the longer monitors like 1941 (I think) and other games would display correctly?   Or doesn't it work like that?

Thanks!

[drventure]

I've got a dell 2405 in my cab. Very happy with it. It definitely doesn't look "original" but it does look pretty good.

You do get black bars on the side. You +might+ be able to stretch the screen, but... yuck.

Also. I believe you could also setup marquee art to fill the side areas if you were so inclined. No idea how to do that though, though I may be giving it a shot shortly.

As for rotating, I'll have to defer to someone else there. not quite there with my cab.

[markronz]

Thanks for the information.   I didn't want to stretch the picture.   I was just curious if that's what would happen.   I am glad to hear that doesn't happen.

And I didn't really want to build any sort of spinning device for the monitor or anything like that.   I was thinking that if you mounted it permanently vertically, maybe you could get the games that had the long monitors to use the whole thing.   Then 4:3 games would just have black bars on the top and bottom.   Although now that I think about it, that would make the screen pretty small.  Since the majority of games are on the normal 4:3 monitor size, it'd probably make more sense to mount it normally and maximize the screen space.

Thanks again!

[Ginsu Victim]

In MAME.INI you can set the aspect ratio of the monitor.

[Jack Burton]

First of all don't do it.

Unless there is some game that plays in widescreen that will be taking up most of your cab's playtime then I do not recommend a widescreen display.

4:3 monitors are easy to find these days.  Especially old TV and PC CRTS.

Vertical games do not use a different monitor from horizontal.  They run in the same aspect ration, only reversed to be 3:4.  The actual monitor is exactly the same, just turned on it's side. 

[Blanka]

4:3 monitors are easy to find these days.  Especially old TV and PC CRTS.

Maybe there is not much room in the cab. 4:3 LCD's are very hard to find (unless you don't mind 5:4). A widescreen LCD looks fine if the black level is dark enough.  And we want out portion of Darius now and then. Widescreen is very welcome for that game

If you want to mount an LCD vertical, check the panel type first. TN panels can't be put vertical, as it will look horrible. Make sure you have a IPS, MVA or PVA panel.
Also check the mame-version. Some don't work well with rotated windows-desktops. Sometimes you get borders on all sides (shrinked image), sometimes MAME rotates again, resulting in a rotated desktop after Mame use.

[robC]

Problem with 4:3 monitors are that I couldn't find one larger than 20" or so. I would have loved to have like a 24" 4:3 monitor, but couldn't find anything.

My thoughts on widescreen LCDs: I wanted to have a screen large enough that my vertical games would still be a good size, so I went with a big 28" HannsG monitor. It has a lot of real estate even on cropped vertical games, and is especially large for horizontal games. You can set your preferences to crop games or not in horizontal mode. Personally, (I am not a total purist) I have been running all my Horizontal games at fullscreen so they are stretched a bit. I play mainly on my own cab, so I don't even notice it anymore, and it certainly does not affect gameplay. I like how they fill that huge amount of real estate with no black bars.

After upgrading my computer, I also now play all my PC (mostly FPS) games on the cab, and they do take advantage of the widescreen. So now I am especially glad to have gone with the big monitor in there.

[Dizzle]

I run a 32" widescreen on my pedestal setup and I have no regrets.  Some games I'll run with black bars, but most of the other ones I play on it I stretch.  To be honest, the stretching doesnt bother me at all.  I'm not a purist either though - if I was, I probably wouldn't be using an LCD display to begin with.