A BilLabs Question

[geraldwhite]

Hi, first i would like to say this is my first post on this board; just wanted to say hey to everyone first.


I'm pretty new at this and I'm deciding what monitor I should get for my slikstik cabinet, is there any clear advantage to have 1024x768 if so what is it? I was thinking about getting a the BilLabs BL27CB0P which is there 27" flat screen that has the ability to do 1024x768.

My question is how do i hook this up, i know that the Ultimarc ArcadeVGA video card does not do those resolutions, what are my other options? Uvc?

Is the setup simple on this monitor? Plug and Play so to speak.

Will it work with my slikstik cabinet?

thanks guys, if i don't get this monitor i was thing of going with the WG9400, which will be easy to hook up, but no high rez.


thanks again.

[MonMotha]

No arcade games (perhaps aside from some very, VERY modern ones you won't be able to afford real boards for and that MAME won't emulate) will use 1024x768.  Heck, 800x600 is extremely rare, with even progressive 640x480 being unusal.  The only reason you'd care about 1024x768 would be normal PC usage (desktop, web browsing, setup/config, etc.) and possibly for a MAME frontend (boo mame, gogo real boards! - sorry, I'm a hardware collector).

The Billabs has a slightly lower dot pitch than most arcade monitors, so the resulting picture will be more like what you'd expect from a big PC monitor rather than a TV or arcade monitor.  This means it will look better at higher resolutions, but not as "authentic" at lower resolutions.  From what I've heard, it still looks great pretty much anywhere in the spectrum.

As far as video cards, any modern video card should work.  I don't know about ATi (their linux support is horrible, so I stick with nVidia), but any nVidia card from the FX5000 series or newer can go all the way down to standard arcade resolutions (480-525 lines, interlaced, 15kHz horizontal) and up to well more than that monitor is capable of.  Since you don't need the plug and play standard res capabilities of the AVGA, you don't need it (incidentally, I beleive the AVGA is capable of higher resolutions, but I don't own one).

These arcade monitors are not Plug and Play in the sense that they support they DDC information for retrieving supported scanrates automatically, but you can just configure it in Windows (or Linux, or whatever) as a generic 1024x768 capable monitor and ensure that you use 60Hz.  You can actually go higher refresh at lower resolutions, if you want, but using 60Hz for everything makes things easier.  I think Windows has a "1025x768 LCD Flat Panel" or similar option that will force it to use 60Hz refresh.  The Billabs will support the standard/default WinXP operating mode (800x600@60) as well as VGA text mode (640x480@70-72), and it shouldn't let you run any modes that will damage it.

[Negativecreep0]

I never understood this whole issue im thinking of buying the same monitor. Do we definately need AVGA to play games in their true format to get the multisync monitor to switch to the proper frequencies? what is the advantage of getting a AVGA to a newer vid card? Will it let games run without the whole tearing effect?