Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

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SuperDeadite
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by SuperDeadite »

Based on my knowledge of Japanese and how they tend to mess up translating into English, I would guess it's telling you to adjust the moniter if the circles appear as ovals. So yes they should all be circles.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by gray117 »

tomwhite2004 wrote: he complained that the pixels weren’t square, to which he was answered that it was impossible since the engineers had been asked to make square pixels. He eventually learned that it was due to a calculation error from the hardware team
MameHaze wrote: Very unlikely.
The interesting thing here is we're all assuming the artist is talking about his authoring setup vs in game.
I think the answer to him about square pixels and the hardware team delivering square pixel solution is actually in regards to his art setup and may even be a different 'hardware team' (just regular IT rather than dev?)... Either by mistake/design being somewhat obtuse.

There is frankly no way the arcade hardware team mistakenly specified 384x224, they might have been inconsiderate to art issues, but there's no way that was a mistake in the region of 25-28%, for all those years.

What might have been a mistake (within what many might perceive as a marginal acceptable region of error) is what was good enough for correct at 4:3.

As stated there's no way of proving intent, but there's some perceivable not circles that look like they wanted to be in cps titles - most notably the grading result in third strike... but again, did anyone really care?... go count frames if you want to be obsessive... much more practical...

Too much is made of NTSC pixel shape, it basically doesn't matter if you take 4:3 as the ratio and project to that - no matter where the pixels fall - your vertical lines are the most important part of the crt puzzle. And you just have to produce your art with that in mind, up to an extent... ofc if you've got a relatively small 8x8/16/32 pix asset (especially with a 1 bit alpha) there's only ever going to be so much wiggle room in terms of getting something that looks great as a symmetrical clump of pixels as a slight oval vs something a little asymmetrical jank, but technically a better circle shape...

The non square pixel is really only a concern of video production where recording, post work and then either transcoding/translation to the end pixel ratio might need to all be specially accounted for (it's potentially like 3 steps of video game art production) or else all done at the end ratio.

Oh and I don't think the curved screen holds any sway into the design of the hardware or art - the standard was always to have this as linear as possible, the curve was required for focus.

...

The problem is there are clear issues in dev shops where I suspect they may have chosen a lowest common denominator as the master approach/spec where (unlike arcades) you don't expect people will be adjusting geometry ... or don't think they'll give a fck as long as something appears on screen ... which is where I think the production rational (and resulting fan arguments) over the correct snes aspect ratios came from, for example... although bugger me if I can understand anything that ever happened at nintendo...

Now as for that strikers screen... it's just some translation lols going on, but who knows if who ever did that adjust screen was in truly in tune with what the art + code gameplay peeps... I suspect they probably meant circles and then it was up to you how you then stretched and/or under/over scanned the screen from there... it's just the circles gave you the hardware baseline ... and art were probably told to sort their shit out and keep any picky concerns to themselves :P

Apologies to the OP, but this is a pretty fun ramble... as long as despatche's blood pressure remains ok and no one accidentally gives him a haemorrhage... Let me know what you think of rastan 3 if you give it a whirl, but I wouldn't bother with a multi screen setup myself :)
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by Xyga »

gray117 wrote:Let me know what you think of rastan 3 if you give it a whirl, but I wouldn't bother with a multi screen setup myself :)
multi ? https://www.anandtech.com/show/14204/so ... led-screen
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by gray117 »

Now... I would love it if someone hijacked the demo screen and just played rastan on it... Get your rainbow-loving-animal-menagerie-assembly out of here and give us some pixilated barbarian action!
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komatik
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

gray117 wrote:but I wouldn't bother with a multi screen setup myself :)
I'm still debating. Thus far people have named seven multiscreen non-shmups, but four of them are racing games. Arcade racing games are one of those things that don't really age well so I'm not sure how often they'd be played.

But for shmups so far it's only the Darius family and Galaxian 3 (which is more of a FPS than a shmup). I was hoping there were more on that front.
gray117 wrote:Now... I would love it if someone hijacked the demo screen and just played rastan on it...
At that scale each pixel would be almost an inch square. Perhaps a bit of a waste :p
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

The Darius thread pointed me to another game I haven't heard of yet: Sagaia. Looks to be a 2x 4:3 shmup?
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by MameHaze »

Sagaia is just an alt name for Darius II

Also good racing games age just fine, OutRun, Turbo Outrun, Pole Position, Power Drift etc. are as playable today as they were the day they were released.

Heck, even Virtua Racing is, and that's an early 3D game and most early 3d games *don't* age well.

It's just, for some reason the quality of racing games took a nosedive for a while so you have a bunch of games that really haven't aged well, your F1 Exhaust Notes, Rad Rally, Super Ground Effects, Racing Beat, Final Lap series etc. which in reality weren't that good even at the time. (Quite how Final Lap got 4 entries when it feels like a downgrade of Pole Position in the first place I don't understand)

Seems like a strange comment anyway, of all the 'old arcade games' you still see on location the racers are amongst the most common, because people are still willing to put money in them to play them and the operators are still willing to maintain them. You're much less likely to see a 90s shmup anywhere whereas you're still going to see Sega Model 2 or 3 racers at most tourist destinations, and they still hold their own just fine.
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komatik
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

MameHaze wrote:Sagaia is just an alt name for Darius II
OK thanks, that makes sense based on the few pictures I was seeing.
MameHaze wrote:racing games age just fine, || of all the 'old arcade games' you still see on location the racers are amongst the most common
I mean, maybe? In my experience it's been the exact opposite. I dunno that I've ever seen an older racing game any time I've been to a place that still has arcades. Most people who are into racers seem to either want the comedy-style (eg, Mario Kart) or the simulation-style (eg, Forza). Comedy-style arcade racing games weren't really a thing, and simulation games were fairly primitive then and everyone seems to have moved on. With the exception of the Initial-D series I can't think of any 90's racing games that people still have any interest in. Outrun and Crusin' and stuff were classics for their time, but they seem to be the sorts of classics where people just smile and say "oh I remember that" then walk away. I dunno.... maybe it's a regional thing.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by gray117 »

It's just accessibility and novelty. Everyone knows what driving is, and the steering wheel sticking out from screen is both a relative novelty (to what people have at home) and an accessible means of control that's an attraction. Kind of how 'good' the game is kind of secondary as long as punter is prepared to have a lark...

On the flip side a novelty widescreen beat em up is usually a bit less accessible and a bit less novel... Unless the theme is on trend with the kids bumping about - turtles/Simpson etc... But even those are far less universal than driving, and how to be good at it.

...What surprises me is why sports games were relatively popular (in the uk at least)... especially all those virtual tennis naomi setups we seemed to get in the late 90s/early00s, maybe they were cheap, or fell into some kind of easily approved list of attraction themes when people had a plan for say '3 x arcade machines, whatever type just sort it out for £x, just make sure it's nothing parents will complain about'.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by SuperDeadite »

Issue with racing games, is that we tend to fall in love with one, and then get annoyed when others control and feel differently. Personally I adore Drift Out '94. I'm so used to it, that playing Neo Drift Out confuses my brain and I quickly get frustrated by it. Most people seem to be the opposite, love Neo and can't adjust to '94.
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komatik
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

To satisfy my own curiosity on the racing games thing and see whether my memory held true, I decided to go to an arcade and do some research. The only arcade anywhere near here is a "Dave and Busters" so I swung by to jot down some names and numbers. This was in the evening when the place is pretty busy overall so I'm fairly confident this a respective sample.

Trying to count the number of individual games was thorny since it was often ambiguous whether multiple hardware units mounted together were connected or not. So instead I decided to count installations, where I'm defining an "installation" as any number of individual seats/stations/divisions/guns/etc of the same type grouped together with the same game title/marquee. For example, the six identical skeeball units in a row on the back wall are counted as a single installation, the Tomb Raider game with the 10ft wide screen and four lightguns is a single installation, etc.

I spent a while walking around cataloging everything. There were 105 different installations on the arcade floor, and of that only five were racing games:

1) Mario Kart DX [4 seats]
This was a clear favorite. All four seats were occupied nearly continuously (no seat was empty for more than 30 seconds) and a few times there was a waiting line. FWIW, the players were always kids under the age of 15.

2) Crusin Blast [4 seats]
The next most popular. 2-3 seats were always occupied, but I never saw all four taken at the same time.

3) Super Cars [4 seats]
4) Snocross [4 bike-looking things]
Both of these were questionable. There were large lengths of time where no one was playing. When there were people playing it was only one or two. The entire time I was there I think both these installations counted together had a grand total of ~10 people use them.

5) Super Bikes 2 [2 bikes]
This was a ghost town. Not a single person played this, nor did I see anyone even standing looking at it.


So anyway, it probably depends on where you live, but at least around here I can say that traditional '90s-style racing games aren't super popular. Less than 5% of the floor was dedicated to them and on the whole they weren't that active.


FWIW, although there were several flying-vehicle-based-3D-rails-shooters, I saw no traditional 2D scrolling shmups of any variety.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

So are the Darius family and Galaxian 3 really the only shmups out there that were something other than a single 4:3 screen? I still feel like there were more that I can't remember the names of.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by Syntax »

Recently had to work on 2 F355 Challenge racers.

Triple crt setup. Things nuts.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by Classicgamer »

So.... um.... what are people arguing about here?

Surely it can't be about whether old arcade games were intended to be 4:3 or 3:4...

The concept of display resolution on CRT tech is not the same as digital flatscreen fixed pixel displays. The only thing an analog crt monitor is concerned with is the number of horizontal lines. You can output any horizontal res you like without changing the aspect ratio. A CPS1 game output in 2560 x 224 looks identicle to the same game at 384 x 224.

CRT monitors made use of the analog stretch capability to resize the image to fit the 4:3 screen. If they didn't, 224 line games like SF2 would have been letterboxed while Mortal Kombat and R-type would have been cut off at the top and bottom.

They were all 4:3 or 3:4 aside from a view obscure exceptions like the Silent scope games which had a second LCD screen in the scope and some early CRT based arcade VR helmets. There was also the attract modes on games like Daytona which made use of multiple screen like a PC does when you extend the desktop over two monitors.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by donluca »

You arrived late to the party, the show is already over. :P
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komatik
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

Classicgamer wrote:So.... um.... what are people arguing about here? Surely it can't be about whether old arcade games were intended to be 4:3 or 3:4...
It appeared to be, but wasn't.

When I first created the thread I used the incredibly poorly-phrased title of "which PCBs weren't 4:3". What I meant was "which games had a non-standard display setup, like multiple screens or the rare oddball 16:9 screen or intentionally miscalibrated screens or anything like that" but I couldn't write all that in the title field. Of course the first few people who responded naturally assumed this was yet another "square pixels" debate due to my poor title, and then everything went off the rails when Despatche joined in because the way he interprets and phrases things causes all sorts of communication issues and it started a huge argument. (He never confirmed my post, but I'm pretty sure he was actually fighting on the same side as everyone else but no one realized it and we all spent two pages trying to convince each other of stuff we already agreed on).

Anyway, this thread wasn't supposed to be about arguing for or against anything. As I wrote before, I'm thinking of building a multi-screen/widescreen MAME cabinet and I'm just trying to get a list of shmups that might make use of it.

So far, my list includes:

16:9
- Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact (dipswitch option)
- Virtua Racing deluxe cab (unclear, maybe? 496x384?)
- original cotton arcade (unclear)

2x 4:3
- X-Men (6-player version)
- Rastan Saga III
- Galaxian 3 (unclear)

3x 4:3
- Darius
- Darius II
- The Ninja Warriors
- TX-1
- Buggy Boy
- F355 Challenge

variable
- Race Drivin' Panorama (3x 4:3 or 5x 4:3)

..... but it seems that the Darius family and Galaxian 3 are the only actual shmups on that list (and Galaxian 3 is kinda more of a FPS anyway). I thought there were more, but maybe I'm just thinking of various Darius versions.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by Dr. Phil »

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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by Classicgamer »

komatik wrote:
Classicgamer wrote:So.... um.... what are people arguing about here? Surely it can't be about whether old arcade games were intended to be 4:3 or 3:4...
It appeared to be, but wasn't.

When I first created the thread I used the incredibly poorly-phrased title of "which PCBs weren't 4:3". What I meant was "which games had a non-standard display setup, like multiple screens or the rare oddball 16:9 screen or intentionally miscalibrated screens or anything like that" but I couldn't write all that in the title field. Of course the first few people who responded naturally assumed this was yet another "square pixels" debate due to my poor title, and then everything went off the rails when Despatche joined in because the way he interprets and phrases things causes all sorts of communication issues and it started a huge argument. (He never confirmed my post, but I'm pretty sure he was actually fighting on the same side as everyone else but no one realized it and we all spent two pages trying to convince each other of stuff we already agreed on).

Anyway, this thread wasn't supposed to be about arguing for or against anything. As I wrote before, I'm thinking of building a multi-screen/widescreen MAME cabinet and I'm just trying to get a list of shmups that might make use of it.

So far, my list includes:

16:9
- Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact (dipswitch option)
- Virtua Racing deluxe cab (unclear, maybe? 496x384?)
- original cotton arcade (unclear)

2x 4:3
- X-Men (6-player version)
- Rastan Saga III
- Galaxian 3 (unclear)

3x 4:3
- Darius
- Darius II
- The Ninja Warriors
- TX-1
- Buggy Boy
- F355 Challenge

variable
- Race Drivin' Panorama (3x 4:3 or 5x 4:3)

..... but it seems that the Darius family and Galaxian 3 are the only actual shmups on that list (and Galaxian 3 is kinda more of a FPS anyway). I thought there were more, but maybe I'm just thinking of various Darius versions.
Ok, I think I understand although I am not sure I can see the point. If you are building any sort of arcade cab for games before the flatscreen era, a 4:3 monitor is clearly optimal. I don't even remember seeing any 16:9 TVs until around 1995 and I never saw one in an arcade until the PC based / flatscreen cab era.

496 x 384 games like those Sega model 1, 2 and 3 were all 4:3 EGA monitors. Now, most of those racers used multiple screens (on link cabs) but only the attract mode made use of wider aspect ratios (over multiple screens).

Street Fighter 3 was a 4:3 game. It might have a dip for widescreen / HD displays as it was a later arcade title but it most definitely looks best on a 4:3 CRT (like anything with sprites).

On the rest of the list, unless you plan on buying the original PCBs, I would suggest checking if some of the obscure versions of games like Race Drivin actually work in mame. You can play games like Ridge Racer but the super deluxe version (which used a real car for the cab) never worked...

If you do find games that appeared to use extra wide aspect ratios, it's also worth checking how that was achieved. I.e. Early games would have just used a 4:3 screen with a widescreen shape bezel. So, they might not make use of a 16:9 screen, even if they look wide.

If you want to play arcade games on an HD 16:9 screen, I'd recommend trying Tekno parrot which allows you to play some of the later PC based arcades on a regular PC. You can use it to play games like Mario Kart DX the arcade game which is an awesome 16:9 arcade game.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by energizerfellow‌ »

komatik wrote: - Virtua Racing deluxe cab (unclear, maybe? 496x384?)
Definitely widescreen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kLBXLciioA
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

Classicgamer wrote:If you are building any sort of arcade cab for games before the flatscreen era, a 4:3 monitor is clearly optimal. I don't even remember seeing any 16:9 TVs until around 1995 and I never saw one in an arcade
Figuring out which if any arcade games actually used 16:9 (or other weirdo ratios) and whether it's worth making a 16:9 cabinet is a large part of what I'm trying to figure out. So far the answer appears to be "no". As for multiple-4:3 screens, so far the answer seems to be "probably not".
Classicgamer wrote:Street Fighter 3 was a 4:3 game. It might have a dip for widescreen / HD displays as it was a later arcade title but it most definitely looks best on a 4:3 CRT (like anything with sprites).
I need to be clear here that I'm referring specifically to "Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact", not "Street Fighter III: New Generation" or "Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike" or any other incarnation of the Street Fighter series. As far as I'm aware, only the arcade PCB of "Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact" had this special dipswitch option for 16:9 mode. And it's definitely meant to be played at 16:9 not some form of squashed hi-res 4:3, you can look up pictures and videos.

ImageImage

Now, as to how many actual physical Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact arcade machines ever used this mode I have no idea (it's a matter of some debate), but that's a separate argument.
Classicgamer wrote:I would suggest checking if some of the obscure versions of games like Race Drivin actually work in mame.
Well yeah, a prerequisite for a MAME cabinet is that the games actually run. But I need to figure out what games to investigate first which is the point of this thread.
Classicgamer wrote:If you do find games that appeared to use extra wide aspect ratios, it's also worth checking how that was achieved. I.e. Early games would have just used a 4:3 screen with a widescreen shape bezel. So, they might not make use of a 16:9 screen, even if they look wide.
Yeah I mentioned that upthread in regards to SF3:2i. Since I don't think anyone's found an actual version of this cabinet running in 'widescreen' mode it's unclear how it would've been implemented in the real world. All we have to go on are the fuzzy memories of a few scattered people who claim to have seen one.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

energizerfellow‌ wrote:
komatik wrote: - Virtua Racing deluxe cab (unclear, maybe? 496x384?)
Definitely widescreen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kLBXLciioA
As the camera pans around at the beginning the screen looks suspiciously flat and doesn't fit the rounded plastic bezel at all. Likewise I see no scanlines, moire, or fps desync fade like I'd expect from filming a CRT. I'm like 99% sure that's a modern flatpanel LCD in that thing and not the original screen it had during normal operation, so I don't think this video proves anything either way. In fact as a counter point the "SELECT COURSE" steering wheel graphic at the end looks rather stretched, so if anything I think this was probably a 4:3 game.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by energizerfellow‌ »

komatik wrote:
energizerfellow‌ wrote:
komatik wrote: - Virtua Racing deluxe cab (unclear, maybe? 496x384?)
Definitely widescreen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kLBXLciioA
As the camera pans around at the beginning the screen looks suspiciously flat and doesn't fit the rounded plastic bezel at all. Likewise I see no scanlines, moire, or fps desync fade like I'd expect from filming a CRT. I'm like 99% sure that's a modern flatpanel LCD in that thing and not the original screen it had during normal operation, so I don't think this video proves anything either way. In fact as a counter point the "SELECT COURSE" steering wheel graphic at the end looks rather stretched, so if anything I think this was probably a 4:3 game.
https://www.giantbomb.com/virtua-racing/3030-11009/
https://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/13/139866/2693279-2352042105-16194.jpg
V.R. DX
There was a Deluxe version, known as the V.R. DX cabinet type, which is a single-player machine and has a 16:9 aspect-ratio monitor (the first use of a widescreen aspect ratio monitor in a video game), and 6 airbags (3 on each side) built into the seat that will inflate and "nudge" the player when cornering, and one more airbag on the player's back that inflates under braking. The seat is also adjustable via "forward" and "back" buttons using air pressure. V.R. DX's force-feedback steering also uses two pneumatic cylinders to rotate the steering wheel, which differ from the electric motor-and-clutch system that the upright and twin versions use (which have no inbuilt air system), so the steering feel is quite different.
Here's a few more you can add to the list like Techmo Bowl:
https://www.giantbomb.com/games/?letter ... descreen=1

Digging through arcade flyers helps a bit too:
https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/

That's an arcade game list with widescreen support cutting off in 2005. Data includes home releases and multi-player side-by-side arcade dirtying up the data a bit, along with some possible errors, but it's better than nothing. The sit-down version of Taito's Super Chase and Gun Buster both certainly look like 16:9 CRTs.

Cotton isn't looking too widescreen:
https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page= ... 34&image=1

A list it looks like somebody made from MAME:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cade/comments/ ... ke_darius/

Ridge Racer got a triple-wide as well:
https://arcadeblogger.com/2016/06/17/ri ... ld-record/

Darius II was in both dual and triple screen versions due to conversion kits with the original being dual and conversions being three.

I also remember there being some Youtube video semi-recently that some standup version of Darius I or II (?) that was stupidly rare, but a PCB was found in Japan and some arcade in the US made as close to an exact cabinet replica as they could? Like single-digit known copies known to still exist?
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by Xyga »

Yes as far as I can remember from my experience VR deluxe's original monitor is a true widescreen low-res CRT, I've played it (mentioned earlier in this very thread) and it's the only one of the type I have ever seen personally, definitely not like those 31khz wide TVs, and unlike the few wide broadcast monitors as well.
(how many wide broadcast wide CRTs ever made could display true 15khz btw?)
It was curved and its mask type looked peculiar, unlike the average shadow mask.

edit: sorry 24khz in this case, but the look/sensation wasn't different from any 15khz.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

Oh interesting, I guess that settles that then. Weird the steering wheel graphic is stretched, but as we know stretched graphics aren't definitive. I'm still going to put my money on the monitor in that YT video being a modern flatscreen LCD instead of the original CRT, but at least we know it was the right aspect ratio.
energizerfellow‌ wrote:That's an arcade game list with widescreen support cutting off in 2005. Data includes home releases and multi-player side-by-side arcade dirtying up the data a bit, along with some possible errors, but it's better than nothing.
Yeah "dirty" is being kind. They make no distinction between actual single-monitor "widescreen" (ie; 16:9), multi-monitor "widescreen", and 2players-w/-individual-monitors. They usually don't specify what the setup was or have images of the cabinet, and they seem to conflate all releases together (ie; they list a 4:3 arcade as "widescreen" because it had a GBA port). I guess it's a place to start though if I want to do a lot of googling.
energizerfellow‌ wrote:The sit-down version of Taito's Super Chase and Gun Buster both certainly look like 16:9 CRTs.
I agree with Super Chase, but the images in Gun Buster gallery show it to be a typical 2players-w/-individual-monitors lightgun rails shooter.
energizerfellow‌ wrote:Cotton isn't looking too widescreen:
I have no idea honestly. I only listed Cotton because of SuperDeadite's comments:
SuperDeadite wrote:For example, Capcom's in house X68000 ports and Cotton have widescreen modes.
SuperDeadite wrote:Here's Cotton X68000 running on real hardware on a 29'' arcade CRT. in 15khz wide (512x240) mode:
In truth the X68000 is actually outputting in 512x512. 512x240 are the pixels actually being drawn, the rest of the output is just empty unused space.
energizerfellow‌ wrote:A list it looks like somebody made from MAME:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cade/comments/ ... ke_darius/
Oh neat, thanks. Most of what's listed there is stuff people already suggested upthread, and the rest appears to be all strip-mahjong games, but "Thunder Ceptor" I'll try to investigate.
energizerfellow‌ wrote:Ridge Racer got a triple-wide as well:
Yeah, it seems as though at least half of all multi-monitor arcades were racing games, which aren't that popular around here for whatever reason.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by donluca »

komatik wrote:ImageImage
Backgrounds are squashed. UI and sprites look ok.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by mikejmoffitt »

I do want to interject for a bit, and perhaps too late, but it is important to not fall into the pitfall of assuming every developer used the perfect rendition of a circle as their biblical reference for the pixel aspect ratio. A lot of creators at the time "just drew it" and probably put a lot less conscious thought into this kind of thing as we do now.
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komatik
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

donluca wrote:Backgrounds are squashed.
...are we looking at the same images? The backgrounds are the same sprites. Open both images in Photoshop and layer them to compare. FWIW, I have this game running in RA+FBA and I can confirm that the "wide" mode increases the horizontal space without squashing or cropping anything. "Normal" outputs 384x224 while "wide" is 496x224. You can clearly see all over that "wide" adjusts all the widths of all the sprites and art as well as showing more of the BG art to be correct for the new ratio. The easiest place to confirm this is the opening fence scroll: if you overlay a screenshot of both "normal" and "wide", the "normal" is a pixel-perfect crop of the "wide" image with just the sides cut off (and that's counting the entire image, sprites BG art and all).

The game doesn't explicitly declare what the preferred ratios are for "normal" and "wide", but if you assume that "normal" is 4:3 and that both modes use the same pixel-aspect-ratio, you get 15.5:9 for "wide" which is close enough to 16:9 to be sure that's what they were going for. Having actually played the game, nothing looks squashed in that mode.
mikejmoffitt wrote:I do want to interject for a bit, and perhaps too late, but it is important to not fall into the pitfall of assuming every developer used the perfect rendition of a circle as their biblical reference for the pixel aspect ratio. A lot of creators at the time "just drew it" and probably put a lot less conscious thought into this kind of thing as we do now.
Yeah I know that unfortunately this stuff is often a lot more sloppy than people like to admit. I'm not considering things like squares or circles to be authoritative or anything, just something to take note of in cases where there may be a question. Personally I always assume any given game is "4:3 with stretched graphics" unless there's hard proof otherwise or a large pile of supporting circumstantial evidence.
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komatik
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by komatik »

Xyga wrote:It was curved and its mask type looked peculiar, unlike the average shadow mask.
As a side note, I really really wish this type of information was cataloged somewhere. I'm something of a stickler for things like scanline bloom and mask/grills since these games just don't look right to me when played raw. I always want to recreate the original look as closely as possible and I wish I could look up whether I'm supposed to be using aperture grill or shadow mask or whatever and what type.
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donluca
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by donluca »

komatik wrote:...are we looking at the same images? The backgrounds are the same sprites. Open both images in Photoshop and layer them to compare.
That's exactly what I did. At first I thought it was just my feeling, so I overlapped them and changed opacity of the front-most layer and saw that the 16:9 backgrounds were squashed. Interestingly enough, the UI and sprites are correct.
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Re: Which PCBs used abnormal or multi-monitor displays?

Post by energizerfellow‌ »

komatik wrote:
energizerfellow‌ wrote:The sit-down version of Taito's Super Chase and Gun Buster both certainly look like 16:9 CRTs.
I agree with Super Chase, but the images in Gun Buster gallery show it to be a typical 2players-w/-individual-monitors lightgun rails shooter.
Yeah, Gun Buster is looking to be a 4:3 side-by-side.
komatik wrote:
energizerfellow‌ wrote:Cotton isn't looking too widescreen:
I have no idea honestly. I only listed Cotton because of SuperDeadite's comments:
SuperDeadite wrote:For example, Capcom's in house X68000 ports and Cotton have widescreen modes.
SuperDeadite wrote:Here's Cotton X68000 running on real hardware on a 29'' arcade CRT. in 15khz wide (512x240) mode:
In truth the X68000 is actually outputting in 512x512. 512x240 are the pixels actually being drawn, the rest of the output is just empty unused space.
That's typical of many X68000 games, which would have the end user manually adjust the monitor to 4:3 to get the correct picture aspect ratio. Plus it's a home port anyways, not an arcade release. The arcade release is definitely 4:3.
komatik wrote:
Xyga wrote:It was curved and its mask type looked peculiar, unlike the average shadow mask.
As a side note, I really really wish this type of information was cataloged somewhere. I'm something of a stickler for things like scanline bloom and mask/grills since these games just don't look right to me when played raw. I always want to recreate the original look as closely as possible and I wish I could look up whether I'm supposed to be using aperture grill or shadow mask or whatever and what type.
As far as I know, all commercial arcade releases using CRTs were done on shadow mask, never aperture grille. Were there even any flat CRT cabinets other than generic tri-sync JVS candy cabs like the Sega Blast City or Taito Egret 3?
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