Best way to test Arcade Monitor / J-Pac

[Walkinshaw]

Hi guys,

Some simple questions which Im sure most will be able to answer. I just want to confirm.

I have an arcade monitor, J-Pac and can use either, Asus Geforce 2 MX400 7100se, Leadtek A170 Geforce 2MX or a Trident 3D image9750 video card.

My questions are, what would be the best card to use for a Mamewah system running windows? and can I test my arcade monitor through the JPac with any of the above cards without any damage to the monitor ?

Seeing I already have a JPac I was hoping not to spend any more for the ArcadeVGA if I don't really need and I don't want to have to buy an ArcadeVGA just to test the monitor as I havent used it for a long time and can't be certain it works now.

Thanks in advance

[SirPeale]

If you want to use Windows you have to have Windows drivers that support 15KHz.

[wpcmame]

Hi guys,

Some simple questions which Im sure most will be able to answer. I just want to confirm.

I have an arcade monitor, J-Pac and can use either, Asus Geforce 2 MX400 7100se, Leadtek A170 Geforce 2MX or a Trident 3D image9750 video card.

My questions are, what would be the best card to use for a Mamewah system running windows? and can I test my arcade monitor through the JPac with any of the above cards without any damage to the monitor ?

With a Jpac you can't damage the monitor since it will not allow anything but a 15KHz signal to the monitor.

You will probably have problems running windows mame with any of the cards since the normal drivers don't support 15KHz modes.
You can use powerstrip to display windows, directx games and mamewah in 15KHz but I'm not sure if it works with the resolutions mame uses.

You can use advancemame but unfortunatly it doesn't support interlace on the GeForce2 cards and I don't think mamewah works with advancemame

[mattv]

With a Jpac you can't damage the monitor since it will not allow anything but a 15KHz signal to the monitor

It might pay to make sure that the 15khz and the 31khz jumpers are closed on your jpac first. Actually the critical thing is to make sure the 25khz jumper  is NOT closed.

These jumpers tell the jpac what frequencies it can send to the monitor. If you have just the 15khz jumoer it will block any signal that is not 15khz, if you have the 31khz jumper on too it will take a 31khz signal (standard PC) and cut it in half to 15khz before sending it on you to your acrace monitor so you will end up with two images side by side. This way you can easily confirm your monitor is working and getting a good signal from your card with no risk at all.
Once you configure your emulator to send 15khz signals they will not be chopped in half any more.

If you have the 25khz jumper bridged the jpac will let 25khz signals though unchanged - this is great for medium res arcade monitors (which you don not have) but very bad news for standard res arcade monitors (which you do have).

So make sure the 25khz jumper is off!