Rotating monitor or rotating LCD screen questions?

[Tiger-Heli]

This is more just to satisfy my curiosity (and yes, I've heard what happened to the cat . . .)

First off, I'm not building an arcade cab, this is for the main computer (but it gets a lot of MAME usage).

I was helping someone on a cocktail cab on the main board and played with the aotorol setting and discovered that vertical games look much better sideways on a horizontal monitor.

Also, Word documents would look better on a vertical monitor as well.

But I don't want to rotate my 17-inch CRT each time I change apps (and I don't think it would be good for it).

Does anyone know if LCD screens can do this?  And would any LCD screen work, or would it need to be a special one?  Was there one that automatically rotated the image when you changed the screen orientation?  (or would I need a batch file to run Word vertically)?

Finally, (other than not working for lightguns, AFAIK), how are LCD's in MAME?  Can you still use -800x600 and hardware stretch, or do these not mean anything.

Thanks!!!

[MonitorGuru]

Regarding software rotation, most newest video drivers from nVidia for sure and probably from ATI  allow you to rotate the image by 90 degrees completely around the monitor, therefore you can BOOT windows into a 90 degree (or 270 degree depending how you want to tilt your monitor) rotation where the task bar appears on the short edge of the monitor. All apps opened work just fine, maximizing works, etc..

Now if you're speaking of hardware.. an LCD that has a motor in it to rotate when the video card tells it to.. I know of none. There are a few LCD's that are manually pivotable.

Correct, due to magnetic issues, you dont want to rotate CRTs frequently.

Here's a pic of the driver in nVidia:

[MadEditor]

About two years ago, many high end LCD had a PIVOT function has they called it, in some it even automatically switched the display.

But I have'nt seen any lately

Now there's also a software solution,if you look in Nvidia driver there's a pivot function too, so you could buy a normal LCD a place it on a "pivotable" arm

As for the res in MAME the only prob is that a lcd is clear only at it's native res (15'' 1024x768, 17'' 1280x1024), at a lower res it's a bit blurry...


Hoped it helped

[Tiger-Heli]

About two years ago, many high end LCD had a PIVOT function has they called it, in some it even automatically switched the display.
But I have'nt seen any lately
Now there's also a software solution,if you look in Nvidia driver there's a pivot function too, so you could buy a normal LCD a place it on a "pivotable" arm

I wasn't looking for a motorized solution.

I think that PIVOT feature is what I was thinking of (would have been about two years ago also).

Seems like a great idea, as I wouldn't necessarily want to HAVE to flip the monitor to open a Word document, but it would be nice to be able to without having to load a batch file or go into the video driver config.

So this died on the vine then, huh?

Any idea who made it, or might still be making it?

As for the res in MAME the only prob is that a lcd is clear only at it's native res (15'' 1024x768, 17'' 1280x1024), at a lower res it's a bit blurry...
Hoped it helped

I didn't realize that either.  I guess I would have to try one out and see if the blur bothered me.

[JMDickson]

Ati has hotkeys you can configure to quickly switch the rotation mode.  Several LCDs have pivots on the bases to allow for rotation.