WG D9500 Monitor Questions

[JAdamz01]

I'm considering upgrading my MAME cabinet to use a Wells-Gardner D9500 monitor. I've run out of choices for front-ends that are still being updated to support the recent changes to MAME while still allowing me to run in a CGA-standard resolution without interlace flicker. So, this seems to be the most logical step in order to stay ahead of the game from now on and to be able to use any front-end I'd like without the flickering that I get now at 640x480 using my ArcadeVGA card and CGA monitor. So, I have a couple of questions for those who have experience with this monitor.

First, games that ran at 15kHz looked great with my current setup with no flicker at all. However, games such as 720 Degrees that run at 25kHz did have quite a bit of screen flicker. Would this flickering be stop by switching to the D9500, since it natively supports this frequency?

Second, should I experience almost no screen flicker by using the D9500 in Windows with 640x480 and higher resolutions? This is what I'm hoping for, since my setup now the flicker in my opinion is unbearable to look at after a few minutes...

Finally, with my current setup, if I want to run horizontal games so they take up the entire screen area, I have to adjust the monitor accordingly. However, if I want to play a vertical game, the top and bottom of the vertical games get clipped off since I sized the monitor for horizontal games. By switching to the D9500, will this clipping be eliminated so that I'll be able to play horizontal games in "full screen" as well as vertical games with no clipping?

Thanks!

[infiniteomega]

Well, I think I'm the only one on a few different forums who has any experience with this monitor.  And being in such an exclusive group means no one can really help you when you have issues.  Wells Gardner's support is pretty much nonexistent so you have to come to grips with that as well. 

To put it simply, my D9500 is broken.  For whatever reason, it will not work with a composite sync source as it is supposed to.  It's going to require me to send the chassis in for repair/replacement.  That's not fun.  The whole ordeal hasn't been very fun and took quite a while to get to a point where I can hopefully get them to repair the stupid thing.  Billabs is selling a model with similar features, the BL19C91T.  I can't vouch for Billabs, but the general consensus seams to be "Stay away from Wells."  Wish I had listened.

Anyway, to address your questions.  The 25khz games should display perfectly, although I haven't actually tried any on my monitor.  Games do look fantastic in windows, as do games at 15khz.  As far as having to adjust horizontal/vertical size based on the game, well, I'm pretty sure you're SOL for the most part. 

I've had the monitor since march of 2006 but since I haven't completed my arcade cabinet, I haven't used it much.  However, when testing the monitor while connected to my pc I have tried a few games.  At least with advancemame, changing between games that use different systems  causes the same type of phenomenon that you wish to avoid.  Basically, if I adjust the monitor to play a game based on the neo geo hardware, when I switch to a game based on cps2 hardware, I get black bars at the top and the bottom of the screen as the two systems run at different resolutions.  It's annoying, but I don't think it's really the monitors fault.  That's just the price you pay for running the game in a pixel perfect fashion. 

I suppose you could force the games to display at a certain resolution and then you'd never have that problem, but the games wouldn't technically be running in native res anymore.  Then again, I could be wrong.

[JAdamz01]

Thanks for the reply. I actually had the monitor in my cart and ready to check out on WG's website, but then I figured I better get some second opinions first! I'm glad I did...

I'm using a WG K7200 19" monitor now in my cabinet (only bought it about a year and a half ago), and it works great. I'm just stuck with this frontend situation. Since most emulators were made to be run in Windows at at least 640x480, it's hard to stare at a menu that's constantly flickering due to the interlacing. I managed to get MameWAH to run at 320x200 by creating my own custom menu using images of that size, but the latest versions of MAME are no longer supported by the current MameWAH version, and in the "fixed" beta version that was released the ability to change the resolution simply by the size of the menu image seems to have dissappeared.

That was the primary reason for me looking for a digital alternative, the other things I mentioned would have just been a bonus. Looks like I'll keep an eye on the Billabs too...

[Thourne]

Have had my D9500 installed in my arcade for around a month now and works like a dream with zero problems. I play street fighter, bust a move, browse IE several times per day. I love the monitor!

[Ken Layton]

I have found the "digital" monitors from Wells are 'particular' about how you hook up the sync. These monitors don't like having composite sync jumpered across horiz and vertical terminals as is common in most game cabinets. With these monitors composite sync is only to be fed to the negative horizontal sync terminal.

[Thourne]

I guess I answered briefly last post. The D9500 is a great monitor and you can't just refer to one opinion. If you want to get rid of the flicker from your ArcadeVga use the Tri-Sync Utility that is on their web page on the bottom of the screen http://ultimarc.com/download.html. I have had this montitor for about 2 months now and still love it. I paid around $300 with UPS shipping and did alot of researching and such before I bought it. Well worth the money. Here is a picture of my arcade with the D9500 installed. World of Warcraft Themed baby!



Here is a video of it playing on the D9500 monitor:

[liche]

I have a D9500 as well and it works perfectly! Its awesome and inexpensive too.