Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Main => Monitor/Video Forum => Topic started by: buks on August 24, 2006, 09:09:28 am

Title: ArcadeVGA question(s)
Post by: buks on August 24, 2006, 09:09:28 am

Okay, I currently have a SCART/VGA cable built from plans on the net. I use this with an ATi card and PowerStrip to connect to my SCART TV. It took ages to setup and theres some minor issues that I'd like to clear up.

800x600 - overscans so basically some (PC) games are unplayable. Any game that uses the lower part of the screen to display stats or buttons means i can't see them.

640x480 - great for mame but later pc games are starting to drop it as a resolution. 800x600 is often the lowest a game will allow (see above for problems). Small text is hard to read too but I suppose thats what you'd expect from a game designed for hi-res monitors.

PowerStrip - complete pain up the butt to configure. But once its working the results are excellent.

So, what I'd like to know is - will I be better off with the ArcadeVGA ? Or have I basically got the same results with all the hacking etc ? I appreciate that theres some lower resolutions that AVGA can do which I haven't setup with powerstrip (I'd try to do them but it takes hours !). Will AVGA allow me to run 800x600 with no overscan or is that more to do with the TV than the card ? Is it possible to have 1024x768 (without panning) or is that just not possible on a TV ?

Any advice would be great. Theres tons of info on these forums but quite a lot of technical talk that quite frankly goes over my head !

Buks

Title: Re: ArcadeVGA question(s)
Post by: AndyWarne on August 24, 2006, 09:46:10 am

The overscan is a TV issue. TVs are designed to cut off a part of the picture at all times. So the only way around this is to adjust the TV. On some TVs this means getting into the service menu which varies with the manufacturer.
800 X 600 should be possible. 1024 X 768 is not.

Andy

Title: Re: ArcadeVGA question(s)
Post by: buks on August 24, 2006, 11:00:32 am

Cheers Andy.

So I presume its not worth me getting the AVGA card if I've got this far with the "hacked" method ? Unless you can tell me what else it offers :)

Buks

Title: Re: ArcadeVGA question(s)
Post by: AndyWarne on August 25, 2006, 04:13:53 pm

Unless you have managed to get Powerstrip to configure modes such as 320 X 240 and all the other low-res modes, then the ArcadeVGA will offer a dramatic improvement since you will get a non-interlaced picture with games running at their native resolutions.
Note that this is only possible with a SCART RGB TV not with S-Video or composite.
Andy