Quick question about using a TV as MAME monitor and computer monitor

[goofy]

OK, I've been kicking around the question of monitor in  my head for a while as I've been planning my cabinet. I have high aspirations for this cabinet doing multiple duties. Obviously it will play MAME, but also function as a TV, run PS2 and/or Xbox and play computer games.

Now, I was considering using my 18" flat panel PC monitor with TV tuner, but I'd really like something bigger. However, I don't want to buy a $2000 20+" Monitor with tuner. So, I was thinking about a 25" TV using s-video or component video inputs. I've had read some of the problems with this solution and some of the benefits.

But, mostly I am wondering, how would this solution look for regular PC gaming??

Would PC games look decent on a TV screen through component video or s-video?

Any other issues to think about?

Thanks for any thoughts.

[shadowdrak]

A lot of TV crads for pc can "fake" 800x600 or higher resolution, but really only things smaller than that will look any good.  MAME should look fine (not exactly arcade perfect and I hear you have to turn the brightness up a lot).  TVs can only display in interlaced mode so anything that is only one pixel high will blink at 30hz or get anti-aliased away depending on your hardware.  This makes fonts hard to read.  for PC games YMMV, but i was never very impressed.  It basically cuts the frames in half.  If you have a card, I would say to test it out on a TV you currently own and see if you like it. Anyways, component and s video would absolutly be the way to go for the highest qualtiy picture. Those only affect color-quality not resolution though.

Personally the route I would go for attaching consoles to your cabinet without sacrificing PC game quality, would be to get an arcade monitor(VGA or standard resloution) and either build a console video converter like on the PC2JAMMA page or attach your consoles to the tuner card in your pc. That might not be easy though if your tv-tuner card is also your video card, because in the case of a standard res arcade monitor, you would need an arcadevga card to play pc games anyway.