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Monitor advice
nitz:
--- Quote from: GregD on May 05, 2011, 12:31:15 pm ---I am building a modified "Woody" clone and I need some advice on the monitor. I will be running MAME games and console games up to Super Nintendo on the machine. In my price range, I can get a 22 LCD at 16:10 or a 19" at 5:4. Which would you get? I have some guys telling me to stay away from the widescreen format and some telling me to only go widescreen. Thanks in advance for your input.
--- End quote ---
Some people will tell you not to go widescreen because that's not what the original games used - but the thing is, they didn't use 5:4 either! I was in the exact same situation as you when I was choosing a monitor - 16:10 22 inch or 5:4 19 inch for about the same price. I just did some math. Displaying games in the 4:3 ratio on the 16:10 gives you the equivalent of roughly a 19.4 inch monitor. The 5:4 is only going to give you roughly an 18.5 inch monitor. If you do a good job of putting a bezel around the widescreen, no one can tell it's not 4:3.
The only thing to be careful of is to be sure that you can display the emulators you want to play fullscreen without stretching. Having a video card that can do the 16:10 display's native resolution (probably 1680x1050) is a must. Mame will be fine, but some emulators, particularly ones that haven't been updated in a few years, will not be able to display fullscreen without stretching unless your video card can do aspect ratio correction. Of course they won't be correct stretched to full screen on a 5:4 display either, but it's much closer to 4:3 than 16:10 so it may not bother you.
My video card does not do the aspect ratio correction, so for those emus that stretch in full screen, I get around it by running them in windowed mode and using an autohotkey script I found called "poorman's fullscreen" to put a black border around them so they appear almost like a full screen display would. It's not ideal, but it's a sacrifice I was willing to make to get a bigger screen.
If you're the type who doesn't mind messing around with video modes and emulators and such, I'd say go for the widescreen as its effective size is nearly an inch bigger than the non-widescreen. If it sounds like too much of a pain to you, you may just want to sacrifice a bit of size to make things easier.
Hope this helps and welcome to the forum. :cheers:
DNA Dan:
I guess <$100 for a retail $500 monitor shouldn't matter too much about condition. I paid about $150 on a fleabay refurb and it's not flawless. You just have to lower expectations and realize you paid less than 20% of retail new. Not a bad deal at all, even in it's condition.
RandyT:
Most of the refurb stuff from Geeks is graded lower, to keep people happy. I.e. if you buy something with a hairline scratch in the case, but they say in the description that it could have a crack in it, then chances are that you will be happy because you got a "good" one. I've never been displeased with the value of their refurb items.
alfonzotan:
--- Quote from: RandyT on May 07, 2011, 12:45:34 pm ---
Most of the refurb stuff from Geeks is graded lower, to keep people happy. I.e. if you buy something with a hairline scratch in the case, but they say in the description that it could have a crack in it, then chances are that you will be happy because you got a "good" one. I've never been displeased with the value of their refurb items.
--- End quote ---
Yep. I bought one of these last year, and it arrived in great shape.
mytymaus007:
Just open my new used HP Lp2065 Looks great fturned it on the Screen is in 100% working order no scratcheds or dead pixels the grey frame has some blemishes off the top, looks like tape was removed. No worries ill be spraying the frame black because it going in a cab. Otherwise for $120 with shipping unreal deal. :cheers:
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