Arcade VGA or not

[shorthair]

A more specific version of this topic was over at monitor/video. My question is general, and I thought it might get more view, here: Regardless of the type of monitor you're using, could any of you interested give your opinion/impression of the visible difference between using an avga and not? I mean, aside from saying something like 'it's more like the original', can you describe what the actual qualities are (especially with 15 and 31khz games)?

[ahofle]

I saw your other thread, but I'm not sure what you mean by 'not'.  With a proper video card and powerstrip, you can get the same resolutions as the ArcadeVGA provides, but it's quite a bit more work.  For me, it was worth the $85 to have all the resolutions built in (and I can see all the boot screens).  If you are asking 'ArcadeVGA VS. no authentic arcade resolutions' then I would say definitely get the ArcadeVGA.  You are basically wasting 2/3rds of your D9200's capabilities by running everything in 640x480 IMO.

[shorthair]

Oh.  I read through the powerstrip thread but didn't quite get it. I mean, yeah, if you're going to pay at least $60 for a card, then might as well get the avga (like you did).

If you are asking 'ArcadeVGA VS. no authentic arcade resolutions' then I would say definitely get the ArcadeVGA.  You are basically wasting 2/3rds of your D9200's capabilities by running everything in 640x480 IMO.

Okay, so what do you 'see' in the difference, in-game?

For anyone else, I mean: having seen Mame run on your monitor (be it PC, TV, or arcade) without an avga, and with, what do you see as the difference?

[ahofle]

Oh.  I read through the powerstrip thread but didn't quite get it. I mean, yeah, if you're going to pay at least $60 for a card, then might as well get the avga (like you did).

If you are asking 'ArcadeVGA VS. no authentic arcade resolutions' then I would say definitely get the ArcadeVGA.  You are basically wasting 2/3rds of your D9200's capabilities by running everything in 640x480 IMO.

Okay, so what do you 'see' in the difference, in-game?

For anyone else, I mean: having seen Mame run on your monitor (be it PC, TV, or arcade) without an avga, and with, what do you see as the difference?

Well for horizontal 4:3 games, you can no longer see the scanlines like you could on the original games when you run them at 640x480.  640x480 seems to smooth the lines and pixels out a little bit.  Keep in mind this is on my regular arcade monitor -- it's not a multisync like yours.  It's really personal preference whether this is better or worse.  Then there are vertical games.  I have to turn on hardware stretching to run them at 640x480 (and fill up the screen) and this looks HORRIBLE (very blurry).  But as someone mentioned, I'm not even sure you'll notice much difference on the games you mentioned which are all horizontal if I remember correctly.  I just wonder why you splurged for the D9200 in the first place if you have no intention of using it's other modes.    

If I were you, I would download powerstrip and just try ONE custom 15 khz resolution for a particular game, run the game at both resolutions and decide for yourself.  I'm curious, you mentioned you used to have an ArcadeVGA.  How did you configure the games in MAME?  For that matter, how do you have them configured now?

[shorthair]

Heh, afloe, you have me mixed up with the author of that other thread in monitor/video. I'm trying to get an idea why I might want an arcade monitor vs a 27" TV...or even just stick with my PC monitor but use an avga with it.

[Circo]

I have had two arcade vga's and have always thought they were great, now the vertical games were a bit of an issue until I got my billabs multisync monitor, since it displays all of the way to 1024x768 I am able to run almost all of the vertical games without stretching finally.  For me if you are going to drop $500 - $700 on a true multisync arcade monitor what is another $85 to make it do it's thing? 

Of course if the wife knew what I had spent on them over the years it might be a different story.   

She never realized that I have had a D9200, a betson, and now the billabs (of which I am a major fanboy). 

[ahofle]

Heh, afloe, you have me mixed up with the author of that other thread in monitor/video. I'm trying to get an idea why I might want an arcade monitor vs a 27" TV...or even just stick with my PC monitor but use an avga with it.

Ahh sorry about that.  Well here are some pics I posted in another thread comparing an arcade monitor vs TV (there is really no comparison between those two IMO):

TV (S-Video at 640x480):
http://hofle.com/mame/robotron_ddraw.JPG

Arcade Monitor (with ArcadeVGA at native resolution):
http://hofle.com/mame/robotron-arcademonitor-ddraw3.JPG

[shorthair]

afloe: thanks.  What size and brand are each of those displays? Also, what would you say the difference is between your arcade monitor and a PC monitor?

Circo: you're saying you like the Billabs the most? What orientation is each of your monitors installed? Do you have any pictures of them?

[ahofle]

The TV is a 24" flatscreen...can't remember the brand.  I want to say Akai or something.  The arcade monitor is a used 25" Dotronix RSV25.  Running non-hardware stretched modes on a PC monitor looks really bad IMO.  The dotpitch is so fine on modern monitors that you see every game 'pixel' as an exact square instead of a soft shape making everything look horribly blocky.  You have to use stretching and 'effects' to blur the image which looks much better, but still not as good as an arcade monitor.  Again, IMO.  If you go with an LCD or PC CRT monitor I personally wouldn't bother with an ArcadeVGA.  Run everything at a high resolution and use Aaron Giles' aperture grill 'effect'.

[shorthair]

I think his overlay effects come stock with the new video scheme, along with some others. (For some reason, the grills and scanlines look much bigger on my monitor.) Of them all, my favorite is the Scanlines 75x2: it sort of distinguishes things without looking like there's a grill in the way of things. However, I like no effect the best. I can see what you mean about the blockiness, but the clarity of the display overall is like a breath of fresh air compared to scanlines or aperture. On older versions of MAME, I run it either RGB sharp, or RGB sharp with 'switch resolutions to fit'. The latter gives it a natural sort of very fine scanlines. The only problem with it is it doesn't rotate them if the game display is rotated.

I like how your arcade monitor looks. To go that way, I have to find a computer with an AGP slot, or get a new one. (By the way, sorry for mis-spelling your name, there. I thought it looked wrong.)

[Boz]

My experience with the AVGA my have been very different from the others here.

First, while the AVGA card is mostly good, the drivers may give you trouble. I had to try four different computers with completely different chipsets and mobo architecture and 2 different AVGA cards before I found a solution that worked well. I communicated with Andy for over two months trying to get it to work. In the end, a computer I borrowed from work (Dell GX270) was the only machine that would load the drivers properly. Andy was pretty responsive and tried several driver code changes to help me. My suspicion is that Andy only has the resources to test on a limited set of machines to ensure his drivers work. If you are building your own computer with the latest mobo, be warned.

From a display perspective, once I got it working, I can't imagine ever looking at the games via a standard VGA card again. Of course, I'm a bit of a purist and wanted the absolute most authentic look and feel that I could afford. The scanlines and grill of the monitor make all the difference in the world.

[AMDman13]

I recently bought and have been running my AVGA card for about 1 month now. I have a Betson Korteck 27" Multisync which is almost identical to your WG. Up intill last month I had been running all games at 640x480 hardware stretch enabled and was completely happy with it. I was skeptical as you are and kept thinking, "Why would I want games that are 10-20 years old look as crappy as they did back then?" Well I had some money burning in my pocket, so I figured what the heck as popular as they the AVGA is I could always sell it if I wasn't happy.
Anyway..
I can now say, "I've seen the light!" Games were programed and designed under these low res environments and when running at 640x480 -hwstretch  they looked blurred in compareson. The games are much more crisp and detailed. IMHO it is the difference between night and day. Well spent $! My suggestion is try it and spend some time configuring all of the different resolutions ie. screen size and geometrics. If you don't like it sell it. Worst thing that could happen is you might be out about 10 bucks or so.

Edit: Dang it I should have read the whole post before commiting scratch this advise and bag a multisync first. I tried my AVGA with PC monitor first. Not a huge difference. Not to me at least.

[motorfish]

I've got Arcade VGA cards in both of my MAME cabs, and I'll never go back to a regular PC card again. The Arcade VGA is unmatched at producing that arcade perfect quality.