LCD monitor resolutions

[patstg]

In Saint's book, he discusses the Synxity Autosync feature of the Billabs LCD monitor so that it can support all the oddball resolutions needed by old games. But in any of the discussions of monitors, I don't see anything about LCD monitors having a problem with resolution support (other than the obvious ways it "won't look like the real thing"). Is this kind of feature just so common now that I don't need to worry about it? Is it just handled in software now so that the signal to the monitor is always its native resolution?

Thanks

[ahofle]

Standard LCD monitors won't be able to take a low resolution signal (CGA).  Additionally, you do need special software (GroovyMAME/CRT_Emu_driver or Soft15khz) to output those low resolutions as Windows won't do it by default.

[MonMotha]

There's not a ton of reason to try to dump low res into an LCD unless you need compatibility with an actual arcade boardset.  The LCD will just upscale it to whatever's native, anyway, and it'll usually do a pretty poor job of it.  Far better to scale in software using whatever means you find best (you can also do scanline effects and similar, if that's your thing) and sling native res at the LCD monitor.  Modern video cards are VERY good at scaling things, so it's essentially free with the proper software/driver support.

[ahofle]

There's not a ton of reason to try to dump low res into an LCD unless you need compatibility with an actual arcade boardset.  The LCD will just upscale it to whatever's native, anyway, and it'll usually do a pretty poor job of it.

Very true.  There is an arcade bar around here that has some LCDs swapped into some old classics.  They look horrible.