Looking for a new monitor for tate...

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:00 pm

I'll be getting my Alienware within the next month but am planning on buying an adjustable monitor. I need it to where i can twist the monitor on it's side and enjoy a verticle shmup in all it's intended glory. Hopefully i can find one that is flat and crystal clear.

Is there a version of MAME that will automatically set my shmups to full-screen sidescroll so that i can do this?

Does anyone have a suggestion for which monitor i should buy?

visuatrox · Post by **visuatrox** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:12 pm

Flat and crystal clear does not compute, because all LCD monitors have a fixed resolution the results will always be blurro-vision. It depends on how picky you are though, when it comes to picture quality a decent CRT looks better than the best LCD Monitors. Unfortunately I don't think there are any neat CRT monitors that pivot, and the only LCD monitors I have found that rotate counterclockwise are from DELL. They are great though, if you can live with the filtering (although considering you are emulating anyway, I guess this would not be a big problem).

Post by **Ghegs** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:19 pm

Moved to Hardware.

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:23 pm

You got an Alienware? Those are uber-expensive......I hope they aren't as crappy as any Dell or Gateway you can buy off the shelf.

LCD isn't so great for gaming, since they don't seem to keep up with the refresh rate and gives you blur-o-vision. CRT is the way to go. I'm pretty sure any CRT monitor will be fine, just remember to de-gauss it when you are done TATEing.

MAME does a pretty good job with the aspect ratio however, so you probably don't really need to TATE in the first place.

Bishamon · Post by **Bishamon** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:29 pm

Mame32 has a setting to automatically rotate vertically oriented games any way you like.

I use a Viewsonic VP171b 17" LCD, which rotates clockwise (almost all rotatable LCDs do), but it does a suprising job scaling lower resolutions to its native 1280x1024 (very little blurring); much better than older generatiobn LCDs. Another nice feature are the two VGA and one DVI connection; I keep my Dreamcast and PC connected at the same time, and I also use it for PCBs. Most DC games have an option to invert the rotation, so they work wonderfully, with one major exception: Ikaruga.

Still, I highly recommend this display.

kemical · Post by **kemical** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:35 pm

the dell 24" widescreen LCD... get that.

Wait for when they offer it with some discounts, they just had it for sale for 899$ after some coupons a few days ago.
We have some at work and I can say they are pretty sweet LCD's, as much as I dislike LCDs. Easy to rotate too.

Also you could run Mame in the lcd's native resolution, depending on your vid card and settings you cna have it filtered close to pixel-clear.. or even with no filtering.

also, the refresh/latency is fine on it.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:36 pm

The Alienware i'm getting is actually being built by a friend - so technically it's not really an Alienware - it's just made up of a mixmatch of high-end Alienware parts and other stuff that he finds to be of higher quality. This way my pc costs me no more than 900 bones.

... and my friend is my BEST friend of 10 years. He knows his shit and well... i've seen his pc. If it's anything remotley similar to that then i'm set up for awhile.

I love emulation - despite it's mostly small imperfections. These arcades i used to save and save for weeks on end so that i could spend all day pumping quarters into... they're free now. These consoles that i used to mow yards, wash cars, and chop firewood for can now be available to me in seconds. Nostalgia has a hold on me like you wouldn't believe...

FatCobra · Post by **FatCobra** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:41 pm

circuitface wrote:The Alienware i'm getting is actually being built by a friend - so technically it's not really an Alienware - it's just made up of a mixmatch of high-end Alienware parts and other stuff that he finds to be of higher quality. This way my pc costs me no more than 900 bones.

... and my friend is my BEST friend of 10 years. He knows his shit and well... i've seen his pc. If it's anything remotley similar to that then i'm set up for awhile.

I love emulation - despite it's mostly small imperfections. These arcades i used to save and save for weeks on end so that i could spend all day pumping quarters into... they're free now. These consoles that i used to mow yards, wash cars, and chop firewood for can now be available to me in seconds. Nostalgia has a hold on me like you wouldn't believe...

Homebrew Alienware? Didn't know that.....and I love emulation as well. Gotta love the old days.

japtor · Post by **japtor** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:33 am

kemical wrote:the dell 24" widescreen LCD... get that.

Wait for when they offer it with some discounts, they just had it for sale for 899$ after some coupons a few days ago.
We have some at work and I can say they are pretty sweet LCD's, as much as I dislike LCDs. Easy to rotate too.

Also you could run Mame in the lcd's native resolution, depending on your vid card and settings you cna have it filtered close to pixel-clear.. or even with no filtering.

also, the refresh/latency is fine on it.

i have one. theres a few ms of lag in the display for me though. it was a big deal when it first came out, maybe something with dvi timings or some other random thing, but different drivers and setups have fixed it for some people. its hooked up to my mac with dvi, pc with vga, im not sure if theres any lag on the pc side, but i havent really tried mame on it there, just macmame. the lag is small enough that its not a big deal for most games, but its annoying when you feel it.

i have nothing really to add suggestion wise. just a warning though if you hook up a console or something to it, most lcds only rotate clockwise, most games rotate counter clockwise. course, a lot of games have rotation options at least so it isnt a huge deal, but something to think about (mame can rotate whatever the hell direction you want).

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 2:39 am

I run into this problem on my Saturn shmups. The display rotates clockwise, where TATE mode on most games goes counterclockwise. MAME doesn't have this problem because it can go either way (any MAME will have rotation as an option, it's been built into the MAME core since version .22 or so, if I recall correctly.) If I want to TATE the monitor, generally I'll just remove it from the stand and prop it up against something. Obviously not the best solution to the problem, but it works well enough.

SAM · Post by **SAM** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 11:08 am

I have a crazy suggestion.

Cosmic Amusement got the folliwing "monitor" which WILL tate nicely.

CHASSIS 20'' 31Khz S HIGH RESOLUTION (US$110)

CHASSIS 29'' 666 15 / 24 / 31Khz NORMAL / HIGH / S. HIGH RESOLUTION NEW ASTRO CITY (US$180)

http://home.netvigator.com/~cosmicco/partslist.htm

They should work on your PC, since they accept 31kHz (VGA). I have ordered the "New Astro City" one since it also do 15kHz. I think every one knows what the 15kHz mode is for...

Post by **Dave_K.** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 5:18 pm

SAM wrote: Cosmic Amusement got the folliwing "monitor" which WILL tate nicely.

As I indeicated in your other thread, these are not monitors, but just the PCB+Neckboard, otherwise known as a "chassis".