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Ultimarc ArcadeVGA PCI-E - Was I the only one who missed this?

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MaximRecoil:
Does this mean that you can finally properly emulate the Nintendo dual monitor machines, such as Punch-Out?

If you had two of these PCI-E cards, and a motherboard with dual PCI-E video card slots, and with MAME now supporting dual monitor output, wouldn't it be able to work as a drop-in replacement for the original gameboard in a Punch-Out cabinet with its original Sanyo monitors?

Of course, in such a case it would be cheaper and more accurate to just buy real gameboards but it does seem to open up the possibility of making general purpose MAME machines that have dual standard resolution arcade monitors and being able to run dual monitor games in their native resolutions on real arcade monitors in addition to being able to run all the single monitor games just as well.

Popcorrin:
Andy, you said that the card supports 25kHz.  Is it possible to boot at this scan rate for monitors that are strictly medium resolution.

johnvv:
A question for those far more knowledgeable on this topic or doing pre/review of the new card...

With all the new features, what advantages are there to using an arcade monitor (Betson, Billabs, WG) versus a multi-sync PC monitor or LCD panel ?

I understand what Andy notes about image quality on an LCD and the following point:

# When used with arcade monitor, all video modes timed at 15.7 Khz horizontal frequency to eliminate picture shifting on mode changes.

Clearly, the old AVGA card and an arcade monitor was the best 'true arcade video' setup.  How does that change with the new card?  For the price of 27" arcade monitor ($500-600), you can get a pretty good size DVI LCD panel...

squirrellydw:
I wish I could go down to the store to see how this would look and compare and arcade monitor to an LCD monitor with this card.

AndyWarne:
I have not tested using two of the cards yet but theoretically it should be possible.
Medium-res monitors: The card does not really support med-res monitors although with some care they could be used. Medium res monitors are not very good for Mame at all as they really only support the few games which originally used them. You cant run the more common resolutions and also cant do 640 X 480 for a Windows desktop.
There are two 25Khz resolutions on the new card, which are designed for use with the D9200 and similar. A D9200 would boot up in 15Khz mode and when Windows starts, would switch to 31Khz for the desktop. Then, any 25Khz games would use one of the two 25k resolutions. So if you connect a 25k-only monitor, there would be no boot screen and you would be able to use ony two of the resolutions in Windows. This is not really a limitation of the card, but of a 25K monitor.

About the merits of a real multi-sync monitor vs LCD, well it's like comparing chalk and cheese. A D9200-type monitor will give a 100% authentic arcade experience and an LCD will not.
The difference between an LCD when used with an ordinary card and the ArcadeVGA 2 is a matter of picture quality, not really a question of how arcade-real it is, since neither option on an LCD is very arcade-real.
But on the other side of the coin, an LCD used with the new card is quite dramatic and it puts a different slant on the issue. Maybe not arcade-real but great for a really impressive looking cabinet.
Andy

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