Hacking a Cable ~ PVM2530 Continued....

[The Hubba Bubba Kid]

Ok, So with the help of the very cool people on this very cool website, I've reached this point in trying to make use of my Sony PVM2530 monitor for my Arcade. 

Quick review.  Monitor has a DB25 connector.  Looking to hook that to DB15 VGA.

After consulting with people and product suppliers I decided to go with; buying a DB25 Cable.  Hacking one end off and re-terminating with a DB15 connector
So the next thing was to get the Pinout information for the DB25 so I know what to connect to what.
Got that info.
Here is where I become a little iffy and need some reinsurance.
Now that I have both Pinouts, is all I have to do is connect red pin to red pin, blue to blue, Hsync to Shsync, Vsync to Vsync (and so forth), daisy chain all my grounds and ignor the "N/C's", using the Pinout diagrams as my guide?  Or am I missing something?

 

[lilshawn]

sounds about right... just make sure you feed it a resolution it can display.

[The Hubba Bubba Kid]

And how would I go about doing that.....?

[Jack Burton]

Use either an ArcadeVGA graphics card, or a the program called Soft 15khz. 

[lilshawn]

soft15k will use very low resolutions that older arcade monitors and tv's can display relatively well , and without killing the monitor by trying to drive a high frequency into it.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=66402.0

[MonMotha]

As a warning, pin 9 has been repurposed to be 5V semi-recently.  Do not connect it to ground.  Just leave it unconnected.

[The Hubba Bubba Kid]

Wow.... thanks.  That's a good thing to know.  This site rocks!!!!
Just out of curiosity, what would have happen if I had connected it?

Val

[MonMotha]

I would suspect that most video cards have a PTC fuse on the line to limit the current, so it would probably just cut out the 5V.

If the card does not have one (and there's no guarantee it will), you'd effectively short 5V from your PCIe (or PCI or AGP) slot to ground via that connector.  Either your PC supply would shut down due to the overload or, more likely, some traces would get burned off the videocard and/or motherboard.  PC power supplies can source a surprising amount of juice on the 5V rail.  I've got one from an old HP netserver rated 5V @ 78A (no kidding, you could weld with this sucker).

[The Hubba Bubba Kid]

Thanks... let me ask you this, seeing how you sound like you know your ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---. 
I've go my monitor (Sony PVM2530), got my project for my cable.  Do you have a suggestion for a video card?
I know there's a lot to choose from....and, their a lot of mitigating factors.... but something tells me that you have some good suggestions.

Thank you for your time,
Val

[MonMotha]

I tend to use whatever I've got laying around   I've even used onboard video before.

[Jack Burton]

Older Nvidia graphics cards are pretty good if you have a PC that supports them.  I use an Nvidia GeForce FX 5200

[apfelanni]

i suppose the 2530 is the us version of the euro 2730 with scart, sub d and bnc plug in . my 2730 was doin fine with 15 k input from a radeon 9200 agp card . nowadays i prefer passive cooled budget pci xpress cards like the radeon 4350.  pic was taken with a mame pc plugged in. the pvms produce a very nice lowres picture . theire disadvantage is a poor geometry , missing osd and screen setting/options and discoloration /degaussprobs when they are used in tate mode.   

[The Hubba Bubba Kid]

Greatttt... what is/are "missing osd"?  and when you say bad Geometry... can you translate that into laymen terms...

[apfelanni]

the vertikal lines arent 100 % vertikal like on a highend pc crt. its more like a tv . but most people wont notice ingame . i have 2 nec xm 2960 in use for other consoles and they are more like pc monitors ( up 2 1024x768 )  . everything can be adjusted in the onscreen display , while on the sony u have to manually adjust some parameters per poti inside the device . nethertheless the sonys produce a superb lowres pic with brilliant colors . i like the ps1 and ps2 cave shooters and saturn games on it . they also came out great on my nec multisyncs , but the sonys seem to be more " authentic " . added a pic of a sony 2130 pvm with mame pc . same as his big brother . ideal for retro gaming .

[Jack Burton]

mostly to restate applefani, but to elaborate:

Geometry refers to the screens ability to accurately display shapes on the screen.  For example look at this pattern.



If you were to display this pattern on your monitor you would check the geometry by looking to see if each of the circles were as close to perfectly circular as possible, and the squares should each be exactly the same size with no bowing or shearing in any direction.  Each line should be perfectly straight horizontally and vertically.

On an LCD display the geometry is usually 99.99% perfect.


Missing OSD merely means there is no digital on-screen adjustment like many tv's and monitors have these days.  Everything is handled by buttons on the front of the monitor, and some controls also on the inside of the monitor.  
On a good CRT the geometry will not be perfect, but it can be made very close.  I would say my Sony P1110 CRT monitor has something like 98% accurate geometry after my fine tuning.  

TV's and other CRT technologies are usually worse than that, especially in the corners.  To partially compensate for this manufacturers set their screens to have overscan, which will push the boundaries of the screen past the visible portion.  This puts the better geometry closer to the visible edges of the screen, but sacrifices intensity and resolution.

HOWEVER

Don't worry about it.  You've probably been looking at displays with worse geometry than the PVM's all your life and never even realized it.  The geometry patterns really bring out problems that you would probably never have realized were even there without the pattern.  During gameplay you will still think things look the right shape and size, and the image on a PVM will look fantastic.

Additionally, all the  PVM's I've ever seen had excellent geometry compared to the field of CRT's available.  It's only when compared to an LCD monitor or another range of pro CRT's like the XM series that they have "poor" geometry.

On a personal note, I have owned an XM-29 plus, AM-3501R, XC-3717C, Diamondscan 20m, PVM-1371Q, PVM-1390, PVM-2530, and several arcade monitors and I prefer the PVM-2530 out of all them for it's great color and clarity while still having not too high of screen pitch.