A Few Beginner Questions

[DillonFoulds]

Hey guys, I've picked up a cabinet with a DOA game board, track and field, (more on it in a diff thread, I'll keep this monitor/video related) that came with a working monitor and power supply. I've yet to test the cab as I want to make sure I'm doing everything proper before i go wiring things up and blowing something...

What I can tell you is my Monitor Chassis is and Orion A-One (AM-0316f), and my Monitor Tube is a Zenith G-A63ADG25X 04RC0105-007. The Power supply is a PowerMaster III.
The guy I picked the cab up from (Darrell from Rocky Mountain Vending, here in Alberta) threw in a VGA/RGB harness (VGA in, RGB H V and Ground out) so i can wire that in to the monitor, and use VGA out from my MAME PC. He also told me it's a 15KHz monitor (low res.)
The card I'll be using is a Radeon 9800 XT (AthlonXP 2500+, 1gb ram), and should be Soft-15KHz compatible (TY SS!!!).

What I'm wondering is, if i wire up this monitor, run soft15KHz, install 15KHz, set windows to use 15KHz (and tweak OS to boot MaLa), will it properly scale and output all games to the monitor? I plan on playing classics of course, but also I'd like to play 4 player games like The Simpsons or Gauntlet Legends.
Also, if I output a resolution to the monitor that it can't handle (say 1024x768@60Hz) can it potentially damage the monitor?

- OR -

Is this not going to be worth my time, and should i just put in a 20" Dell LCD Monitor (DVI connection) that i have here, and make a bezel for it?

[DillonFoulds]

Update: I wired up the monitor tonight, got everything going on the PC. Set up soft15KHz and set quickres to autostart. I set the resolution to 640x480, and then reboot the PC and hooked it up to the monitor.

The computer boots fine, and gets to the desktop perfect, but now i'm faced with a new problem. The picture is very dark, and only blue shows up. I tried adjusting the brightness, but even at full it's not bright enough.

Do i need a video amp circuit in place, or could it be something else wrong?

Also, I'm thinking of ordering an ArcadeVGA before i stress out about this problem anymore. Does an arcadevga have a built-in video amp (5v?), or will i still need a j-pac?

[Ummon]

Do i need a video amp circuit in place, or could it be something else wrong?

Likely.

Also, I'm thinking of ordering an ArcadeVGA before i stress out about this problem anymore.

You have it working. You don't need one.

Does an arcadevga have a built-in video amp (5v?)...

No. JPAC or amp separate (also available). I'd recommend the latter, as it's less effort, less money, and I doubt your TnF board is JAMMA.

[DillonFoulds]

Thanks Ummon.

The TnF board is not JAMMA, just a konami 18x2 connector (parts/solder).

Another thing I noticed is that apart from the gain knobs beside the RGB inputs on the chassis, there's another set of colored knobs on the daughterboard directly behind my tube. I can take pictures of these if needed. Should these have any effect on the overall picture quality?

-Dillon

[Finchbyrd]

I'm not sure if its the same, but let me explain. My cabinet has an "adjustment board" of sorts connected to a cable that you can use to adjust the monitor at a distance just long enough to see the front of the cab while reaching for the adjustment board. It also has controls attached to the monitor chassis, but they're the same controls. You can use that or the "remote" to adjust the monitor.

[DillonFoulds]

I've gone ahead and wired up the monitor, adjusted the brightness and the Video Bias, so that blacks look correct, and the colors are visible.

The blues and greens show up perfectly.
The reds not so much... I've got 3 adjustment knobs that, when tweaked, do the following...

R-Gain - No effect
R-Drive - Blanket of red pixels across the screen.
R-Bias - How strong the red pixel blanket shows up.

I've multimeter'ed the signal and everything's showing up fine from either the gameboard or the PC connection for all pins.
I know that the gameboard and PC are both outputting reds fine.


If it's any help, here's a shot of the neckboard controls.

The knobs are from left to right: RGB Drive, RB Bias (My understanding is that there should be no G Bias, as i am to adjust the R and B accordingly).

[DillonFoulds]

Brought my monitor in to a tech, got things figured out. I was not adjusting something properly.

Picture's great now!