j-pac question

[stevejt]

I am thinking about getting a j-pac.  Of course they reccomend using it with their arcade vga.  Will it work ok without it?  It says is will divide a 31khz signal in half when ever needed.  How can a video card be tweaked to 15khz? (don't know what one yet.)  If not, will the game selection be readable in win32?  If it matters it would be on a 25 inch monitor.  Don't know which model, I have stock TNMT, NBA Jam, and X-Men, and a few other loose 25's.  Is there a way to get a model number from a serial number?  I can see a few serial numbers, but can't see any model numbers.  They all start with WG and have 6 digits.  (I know that is for Wells Gardner.

I know thats alot of questions, I will be happy with ANY answers.  (That's any answers to the above questions, for the wise guys...lol)


Thanks!

Steve

[menace]

Here's my experience so far

if you have an arcadvga--you don't need the jpac--any keyboard encoder will do--unless you specifically like the jamma edge connector--then by all means.  The jpac does inded divide the signal so that if you are using say a trident bladeT64 card or a matrox G400 it will protect the monitor until the drivers have kicked in to output a 15khz signal.

With regards to picture quality--you won't like how either a trident or any other non arcadevga look sin windows--it flickers since its interlaced at 640x480 (windows desktop) and the small text on win32 won't be readable.  Now if you are using mamweah thats another story--the text is large enough (and can be changed) so that it is perfectly legible without using the arcadevga.  You likley have a wg K7000 series of monitor and I have used this both with and without the arcadevga--the arcadevga is nicer and easier but by now means mandatory--the trident did an excellent job with this display.

[SirPeale]

The J-PAC is good if you have a JAMMA connector, OR if you're going to wire for JAMMA.  That said, on just about any cab with two players and at least three buttons per player, I think it's a must.

As for video, there are a number of cards that support a 15KHz signal.  Just about any ATI card (such as the ATI Rage) will do this.  Problem comes when you try to find drivers for Windows.  You don't need them for DOS, but Windows it can be a PITA.  A program called PowerStrip comes in handy for this.

[Ken Layton]

To identify your monitors, go to Bob Roberts' "What's My Monitor?" page and look at the pictures of the various chassis. If yours isn't shown then you should post pictures of it.

[stevejt]

Thanks for the replies.  I am trying to build a few mame systems with spare parts for a few extra dollars.  Was debating on giving up some monitors, or going with some cheap new tv's. Is there any way to get the game selection in mame32 readable at 15khz? - I don't want to spend the money on a j-pac if I won't be able to use it right now.   I have absolutely no experience with any other version of MAME.  I think this might be the time to experiment with them...  Any suggestions or tips?  Or links with help? 

Thanks!

Steve

[wpcmame]

There is something in the JPAC that causes the ATI video drivers to not detect that a monitor is connected.
Unfortunatly this means that you can't create custom resolutions with powerstrip on an ATI card. The only resolution that works is 640x480i which is not very good for mame games or PAL movies but works fine for windows games and NTSC movies.

Without an ArcadeVGA card you probably have to use advancemame in dos which can be tricky (but rewarding) to set up. Just remember that advancemame doesn't work very well with modern graphic cards (like Radeon 9xxx or GeForce).