Buying Arcade Monitor

[eeknight]

I am in the panning stages of a coctail MAME system, and am thinking about purchasing an 19" arcade monitor from this company: http://www.multitechgames.com.  They seem to have decent prices and within travelling distance to pick-up.  (I won't have to pay for shipping.)

I am thinking about using the ArcadeVGA card from Ultimarc with an arcade monitor.

Several questions...
- Has anyone purchased from Multitechgames before?
- Besides Wells Gardner, what are some other decent monitor manufacturers?
- Are there any options on the monitors that are a must have, or are they fairly standard?
- Their new arcade monitors seem fairly inexpensive, considering some prices I have seen.  Does this necessarily mean bad picture quality?

Any other advice to keep in mind when purchasing an arcade moitor would be helpful.

[Auntie MAME]

I bought a refurb. WG U3100 for $185 from WG.  It is great.  It appears new.  No burn in.  Great deal.

[b3atmania]

I am in the panning stages of a coctail MAME system, and am thinking about purchasing an 19" arcade monitor from this company: http://www.multitechgames.com.  They seem to have decent prices and within travelling distance to pick-up.  (I won't have to pay for shipping.)

I am thinking about using the ArcadeVGA card from Ultimarc with an arcade monitor.

You can use many off-the-shelf videocards to output 15kHz (standard res.) or 25kHz (medium res.) to an arcade monitor if you are willing to preservere with some configuration. If you want to go plug-and-play, the ArcadeVGA is a fine choice though.

Several questions...
- Has anyone purchased from Multitechgames before?
- Besides Wells Gardner, what are some other decent monitor manufacturers?

Hantarex has some very nice ones. I can recommend the Polostar 25inch from personal experience.

- Are there any options on the monitors that are a must have, or are they fairly standard?

I would say that monitor controls should be placed in a pratical place, i.e. outside the chassis using an extension cable. Having the monitor controls on the back of the monitor is a big hassle for home usage.

Any other advice to keep in mind when purchasing an arcade monitor would be helpful.

You might want to consider a multisync arcade monitor.  Multisync monitors handle both 15, 25 and 31KHz Hsync rates. Costs a bit more, but you won't need to purchase an ArcadeVGA, so the total cost is the about the same.

[paigeoliver]

Well, it looks like that place only sells rebuilt monitors, which will likely be an old tube, with a new "8-liner" replacement chassis. So the original manufacturer is really a moot point.

Not that it really matters what brand you pick, not for home use, it isn't going to be on 16 hours a day, 364 days a year like it is in the arcade.

Older Hanterex monitors seem to have a bad reputation.

While the Wells Gardner D9200 is actually supposed to rival color vector monitors in unreliablity. I know a TON of people here have bought them, and a ton have had problems. I have also talked to some techs, and read some RGVAC posts, and the general consensus is that they are junk, really fancy JUNK. My only first hand experience with this was seeing them bring a brand new Police Trainer 2 into the pizza buffet I frequent, it had a D9200, and the monitor went out the next day. It is still sitting there dead right now, months later.

Other Wells Gardner monitors are generally fine. If you end up buying a used monitor, then go for an Electrohome G-07 if at all possible, as that is one of the most reliable ever made.

[eeknight]

Any other advice to keep in mind when purchasing an arcade monitor would be helpful.

You might want to consider a multisync arcade monitor.  Multisync monitors handle both 15, 25 and 31KHz Hsync rates. Costs a bit more, but you won't need to purchase an ArcadeVGA, so the total cost is the about the same.

- I thought that if I used one of those monitors that I would still have to use an ArcadeVGA to output the proper frequencies?

- Will that monitor work in a horizontal position for a cocktail table?

- My original problem with using a standard PC monitor was that the images were too blocky.  I tried playing with Adavanced Mame to fix this, but got mixed results.  My understanding is that the 15KHz arcade monitors will look more like a typical arcade game because each pixel on the older monitors is larger than on the new higher res. monitors.  Would one of these multisync arcade monitors still display the screen naturally, despite the fact that it has more pixels?

[b3atmania]

- I thought that if I used one of those monitors that I would still have to use an ArcadeVGA to output the proper frequencies?

No, thats the whole point of having a multisync monitor. It will work for arcade resolutions (15 or 25kHz) and PC resolutions (31kHz). You just need a video card that can sync down to 15kHz. Like I said, many cards can, but it takes some configuration.

- Will that monitor work in a horizontal position for a cocktail table?

Sure.

- My original problem with using a standard PC monitor was that the images were too blocky.  I tried playing with Adavanced Mame to fix this, but got mixed results.  My understanding is that the 15KHz arcade monitors will look more like a typical arcade game because each pixel on the older monitors is larger than on the new higher res. monitors.  Would one of these multisync arcade monitors still display the screen naturally, despite the fact that it has more pixels?

Monitors do not have pixels. They have visible lines. Using analogue controls on the monitor you can fit stretch/pan any picture to fit perfectly. This is also how arcade operators do it.