arcade resolutions, monitors and more.

[Cowboy Mac]

hi, im in australia and ive been planning my mame cabinet for quite a while now, and are finalizing details regarding the monitor. i am going for an original used arcade monitor, possibly 27".

1. if i buy a resolution capable of only the standard 15khz which by my research is a CGA monitor capable of 640 x 200 will i be able to play games such as mortal kombat 2 on it which run in a resolution of 395x254?
2. will it resize the image to fit or will it cut off some of the picture? should i go for a monitor capable of 31khz which will run in 640x480.

i am only planning to use dos as an OS so i am not concerned with resolution quality in windows. if you have any suggestions PLEASE post them i dont want to make an expensive and regrettable mistake!

[SNAAAKE]

its way too much hassle buddy .

You should really look for some down scan converter then use windows in arcade monitor.TURN ON hardware stretch and you have FULL screen for every single game.I only paid $130 for my scan converter and its every penny worth it .

[Cowboy Mac]

SNAAAKE: what is too much trouble? running DOS as and o/s rather than Windows? or using an arcade monitor? is a scan converter going to help me play games in a resolution not designed for the monitor? i dont follow exactly what you meant.

[SNAAAKE]

well....getting full screen is total b!tch when you are running dos..i heard scary stories too.like you could blow out the monitor.I mean..you know..you could get some scan converter for as cheap as $100.

I dont know..i tried arcadeos..it was really funny..none of the games filled the whole screen.there is sound problem too.like you have to get a plug in play sound card like SB 16 ISA.

like i said..too much hassle.
AND YES,once you are in windows,you could make any game fill the whole screen.even vertical shooters.dos and arcadeos is just way too funny .and sooner or later,mame will be windows only.they will ditch the dos port.

[AndyWarne]

I can't agree here! If you see an arcade monitor picture using properly configured Advanced MAME / DOS, alongside a picture using hardware stretching and a scan converter you would always go with the first!

[generousben]

hi,

I havent used mame for 6 months but virtually  
 all the games mame emulates were original played on a 15khz monitor.
even early 3d games streetfighter Ex ,tekken etc were still played on a 15 k .

i dont understand the  "capable of 640 x 200 " part of your post u can run a 15k at loads of different res  aslong as you are outputing a 15 signal. the main problem people have is trying to get svga modes to run on 15k.
the idea of advance mame is that it plays the games at there or as close to there original res.

in DOS  the mortal kombat the picture shouldnt be cut of.

What do u want?
if you want a dedicated arcade/mame machine buy an 15khz monitor
or beter still buy an 15/25 auto switch monitor.

There is no need to buy a scanconverter if you only want to play emulators on a 15khz.

useing powerstrip and an uninterlaced modeline ,u can run all mame games in fullscreen in windows.
this has the same benifits as using a scancoverter except the picture is not converted or degraded in anyway.
the downside of this is that H/S is still used.

buy a 15 or 15/25 monitor,then wait for Ultimarc to release its video card

dont bother buying a scanconverter if you just want to play emulators.

ben

[Cowboy Mac]

thanks ben, you have cleared up a few things that were bothering me. i got the 15khz 640x200 thing from this http://www.monitorworld.com/Cables/video_standards.html site. i had assumed seeing it talks about 15khz there it refers to 640x200, however your explanation makes much more sense (and this is probably for pc monitors).


i am considering purchasing this monitor - Nanao 29" Dual Res Monitor (would this be auto switching?), as it is the best product for the best price i can seem to find in Australia at the moment. Do you think Ultimarcs new video card is worth waiting for? will it make it that much easier for me vs. a normal video card?

[generousben]

Hi.
the nanao is top quality monitor featured it later jap sega cabs .
it should be auto switching.
where are you getting it from Highway?ask them if its auto swicth.

if i were building another cab i would buy.

15/25 monitor
ultimarcs video card.

I prefer 25khz monitors you can still run mame at 15khz,
but you can run the windows desktop at 25, and 3d emulators at 25.

although most people who use a 15/25 for mame will only ever run it at 15khz

I know you only wanted to use dos but playing zinc,daphne and pj64 is cool on an arcade monitor.
If you use a windows set up u can still run mame in dos and the other emulators in windows.

At the moment the downside of using windows is Hardware stretch.
in most single system emulators pj64 zinc etc all games play at the same resulution.

in mame all the different types of games play at different resulutions
in a windows setup h/s forces all games to run fullscreen at the same resulution which is great as there is no configuration.but H/s loses detail and donst look identical.

dos and advance mame play the games without h/s
and at ther diferent resulutions .
hence the games look near arcade perfect.
the downside of dos is it takes longer to set up, games are slower to load and most people just have a dos only set up so they lose out on some of the other emulators.

zinc when played with the same windows setupon a arcade monitor already looks  arcade perfect as it dosnt use H/S.

Ultimarcs video card is ment be able display windows mame 32 fullscreen without using hardware stretch and also play the games at there corect resulution.much the same as advance mame does.

if you like dos and know how to easly set advance mame up then use that at the momet it gives the best ,most arcade like picture.

these are some pics of a windows set up compared with the original arcade game.

the first is from mame32 running on a 15khz using a radeon video card. (without using a scanconverter)but using H/s
the second is the original arcade.(if you use a scanconvter i cant see the picture being as good)
the 3rd is dos mame v53 and arcade OS
the 4th one is svideo








then arcade and mame 32 on a 15khz side by side.



arcade and arcadeOS side by side

The original is far sharper and more detailed than Mame32 if you use dos the game  looks closer to the original .
but mame32 using H/s is still bloody close to the original

I stopped using dos as the windows setup i use is almost arcade perfect but so easy to set up.

if you wait for ultimarcs card you should get all the benifits of useing windows plus the arcade perfect picture quality of dos.

[Cowboy Mac]

thanks ben, yea the monitor is from highway http://www.highway.net.au/parts/monitor_&_chassis/1104.html . I am ordering all the parts today from a few places, so ill let everyone know how my project goes. im not 100% sure what OS ill go with, we'll have to see. Hope this thread has helped other people with arcade monitor scanrate questions also

[Minwah]

I don't know an awful lot about this subject, but how about using AdvanceMAME for Windows and not using hwstretch?  This way you can get fullscreen without the loss of quality hwstretch gives...

Or am I missing something?

[generousben]

Yer you are right
but most people dont bother trying to display windows on an arcade monitor.
so there for they boot directly into dos /advance MAME at start up.

Running Advance Mame in windows does give the best pic compared with mame 32 but can take time to set up.

I still prefer to boot into windows 98 first then select.

mame32
dos mame.
zinc
snes9x
pj64
daphne

instead of just booting into dos and only having mame.

You can run windows emulators easly on an arcade monitor just by having a videocard that supports custom resulutions.
(any Radeon card or a few other cards support this ) this will also give partial desktop support.

another thing about this post is that people can see how ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- svideo looks compared to RGB monitors.

[AndyWarne]

Wow people are recommending our video card even before it's on sale!
I hope it lives up to expectations. Most of what is posted here is correct. For most games it will display full-screen in Windows with no H/W stretching. H/W Stretching (or actually compression) needs to be enabled for games with a vert res of greater than 300 lines as a 15Khz monitor cannot display more than 300 lines.
In DOS it will display all the normal VESA3 MAME modes which are tweaked for full-screen.

[Cowboy Mac]

i am purchasing the 15/24 Nanao monitor, however it is not auto switching resolution, it has a switch on the chassis to change resolution. will i be able to run older games designed for 15khz in 24khz? or will i have to leave it at 15? or i guess i could try to wire up a switch from the chassis to the cabinet to make it easier to switch resolutions? any thoughts?

[generousben]

ok.
you should be able to run all the 15khz mame games at 24khz,
but by doing so the games wont look as arcade perfect as they were not designed to run at that res.

just run it at 15khz to start with then see what you prefer.
you might end up not using the 24khz option much for mame

the picture quality at 24khz is ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- hot though and is more suited for 3d games and windows .

[Cowboy Mac]

ok thanks ben, when games designed to run at 15khz run at a higher scanrate such as 24khz what happens to the picture, does it increase in quality (however not true to the original arcade feel) or will the picture not look as good as if it were running in its designed resolution? (15khz for most?)

[generousben]

its similar to when you run mame on a 31khz vga,
you just lose some of the grity low res look of 15k.
if you look at the pics i posted the first one with hardware stretch on, the pixels look smoother and rounder
where as the original arcade has square blocky ones
15k resulutions really are very low like 384x224etc.
its more likely to slighty decrease the quality in mames case.

altough EGA is still low quite low res at around 512x384,
some games will look a bit like you have H/S on.
 
you just need to play around with it when you get the monitor you might prefer it at 24khz the colours will look brighter some games might benifit.

its abit like the opposite of pc games.
pc games dont start looking there best untill above 1024x768 32bit

play them at 640x480 16bit and you lose how the game wa designed to look.

[Cowboy Mac]

ok thanks ben. can you please fix the pictures in your post so they load? or provide a link so i can find them elsewhere? i tried from the html code and pictures url but yahoo wont let me display them.

[generousben]

do they work now?

[Cowboy Mac]

thanks ben, they work now.. they are so helpful! ill let everyone know how my monitor goes!

[Cowboy Mac]

ok guys, i think ive decided to go with a namco exleena 1 with a VGA 31khz monitor. with this 31khz monitor it apparently has a normal VGA connector (a la computer monitor) so with this is there any problems running this directly from a video card? is there any point in using andys card with a VGA arcade monitor? anyone able to offer any advice? thanks for you help. you will be able to find my site here. i expect to have a good deal of info up around the 20/01/03.