newbie with monitor questions i cant find with search

[muell67]

Im working on designing my first cabinet. Im a drafter & cnc programer for a cabinet shop so Im getting a little caried away with things, but right now I building a solid model of my cabinet in  autodesk inventor and im trying to get everything perfect so i can get my parts cut on the cnc and minimize the actual cutting I will have to do by hand. That is why im trying to decide every part I will be using including the monitor. So my questions is what is everyones opinion of the following monitors. both from happ controls.

vision pro 27" svga monitor
and the
wells gardner d9200

I believe both of these hook up directly to my computers video card. (pleas correct me if Im wrong) and im looking for minimal setup I get the impression from what I have read that with both of these monitors I should be able to hook it up and just start playing, and mame32 will swith to the right resolution and refresh rate, correct? will this give me perfect arcade quality are will I need to use something like advance mame and set each game up individually? Will either of these games support all of the games in mame? Sorry about such a long question but this has been something concering me since ive started considering building a cabinet. Thanks for any help, and if you have monitor recomendation other than the ones ive listed please let me know.

[muell67]

im also planning on using a ultimarc arcade vga card is this a good or bad idea.
is it necessary?

[fredster]

IF those monitors can hook directly up to your computer, you don't need the Arcade VGA monitor, that's for hooking up a CGA arcade monitor.  It's a waste of money for this application.  You can use a nice graphics card.

You can find out if they will hook up by asking the manufacturer.  You can also search on RGVAC and ask.  Lots of tech guys are on that group.

[muell67]

all of those monitors due hook up directly to the computer, but I thought if I didnt get a arcadevga card I would have to set up every game individualy in advance mame. also what is rgvac?

[whammoed]

If you want an easy set up the arcadeVGA is not a waste with the d9200.  It will let you use the cga resolutions that the d9200 is capable of without having to use advmame or something like powerstrip.  If you go with the vision pro, any video card will do.

[muell67]

ive actually decided against a d9200 after reading a review on www.retroblast.com and reading about all the problems people are having with them. Its now between the vision pro and the betson imperial/kortec 27". So Why would the arcade vga card help with the d9200 and not the vision pro I thought they were both about the same. Ive also heard the betson imperial is also about the same as the d9200 only with better quality construction. Any opinion on wich I should get?

[whammoed]

betson has same functionality as d9200.

vision pro can't do cga (15khz) or ega (25khz) which means it can't do the arcade perfect resolutions that the arcadevga puts out.

[muell67]

Ive been doing some research on the betson/kortec and the part numbers for the 27" are  KT-2914 & KT-2914F the second number is for a flat screen model. Would a flat screen model be bad for mame use? I would think the picture would look better.

[big daddy]

I have the betson imperial and arcadevga and recommend both highly...mine looks great!

The person above who said the arcadevga is a waste of money with those monitors is completely wrong.  The monitor is a waste of money WITHOUT using either the arcadevga card or advancemame (which can be difficult to setup)...otherwise your not using the resolutions/frequencies that you paid so much money for the monitor to support.

So if you get the betson, you need the arcadevga card or need to use advancemame.  Since advancemame can be troublesome to setup, arcadevga card is easily worth it (particularly if you can afford the betson!)

It's not as simple as pluggin in though.  You need to download a res-tool that creates some ini files that outputs in the correct resolution from mame.  It's a simple tool to run though and you only have to do it once.  From then on, all games will be displayed by your monitor in the resolution that closely matches the original.  

One more tip with the betson.  The Wells Gardner utility that is used on the arcadevga card that supports 800x600 non-interlaced also works on the Betson.  So I'm able to have my desktop (and mamewah) set at 800x600 with no flicker.

[Bones]

I had the same concerns regarding premature failures with the D9200 after reading similar reviews. I emailed WG and the reply I received advised that there have been several updates to the newer models which have corrected the earlier problems. To quote my reply email from WG-"You can be confident these problems will not arise with your monitor".

However, asking a manufacturer to comment about problems with their product is rarely going to give an honest answer. Having said this, I have also read that a lot of people are VERY happy with their D9200's.

Hope this helps as I am also on the monitor merry-go-round and finding it tough to make a decision.