Darius best screen set-up?

doctorx0079 · Post by **doctorx0079** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:20 pm

Let me first say that I played Darius and Darius II in MAME, and I LOVE them to death. Has anybody tried playing them on

- 3 flat-panels
- widescreen flat-panel
- 3 CRT's

I guess the last is likely to work the best but the desktop space used up is nuts.

Probably the ideal is to get three CRT's of the same size, some old video cards, and an old desk at a garage sale, and just run it on your old PC.

FIL · Post by **FIL** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:24 pm

3 flat panels would probably work slightly better as they typically have a smaller bezel than crts.

The 2 screen Darius II works pretty well on a single widescreen monitor.

doctorx0079 · Post by **doctorx0079** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:46 pm

FIL wrote:3 flat panels would probably work slightly better as they typically have a smaller bezel than crts.

The 2 screen Darius II works pretty well on a single widescreen monitor.

Yes but, is the resolution going to look decent? Flat panels normally only have one resolution.

FIL · Post by **FIL** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:56 pm

MAME looks fine on my flatpanel, not so for my PS2.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:53 pm

doctorx0079 wrote:Yes but, is the resolution going to look decent? Flat panels normally only have one resolution.

Darius 2 looks amazing on my 16:10 1920x1200 laptop screen. I didn't even spot any line doubling (although I'm sure it's there; wasn't pressing my nose into the screen). However the playfield is small - it takes up maybe 1/3 of the screen although it stretches from one end to the other.

A large, modern 16:10 or even better 16:9 (for Darius II) screen will handle the game fine if you're using good settings for MAME (turn off bilinear filting; shit ruins everything).

doctorx0079 · Post by **doctorx0079** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:27 am

Ed Oscuro wrote:
doctorx0079 wrote:Yes but, is the resolution going to look decent? Flat panels normally only have one resolution.
Darius 2 looks amazing on my 16:10 1920x1200 laptop screen. I didn't even spot any line doubling (although I'm sure it's there; wasn't pressing my nose into the screen). However the playfield is small - it takes up maybe 1/3 of the screen although it stretches from one end to the other.

A large, modern 16:10 or even better 16:9 (for Darius II) screen will handle the game fine if you're using good settings for MAME (turn off bilinear filting; shit ruins everything).

Is that the two-screen version of Darius II or the three-screen version? Which is better?

cutty_sark · Post by **cutty_sark** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 3:07 am

If I'm remembering correctly the original 3-screen Darius cab had the middle monitor mounted upside down, below the other two. It had some sort of mirror contraption projecting it up so that the screens were lined up with no gap. That's probably the ideal setup, or at least the most authentic.

It would be pretty cool to see a triple projector setup to eliminate the gaps.

doctorx0079 · Post by **doctorx0079** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:15 pm

Yeah, I don't think I'd want to go that far.

J-Manic · Post by **J-Manic** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:26 pm

I enjoy playing Darius II in looong widescreen on my Saturn.

t0yrobo · Post by **t0yrobo** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:02 am

Two screen games look alright on my laptop (15in 1440x900). Darius is playable, but I have a hard time staying focused over that much horizontal space wth it being so small.

orange · Post by **orange** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:38 am

you guys should post pictures of your setups that play this while it's running

doctorx0079 · Post by **doctorx0079** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 3:34 pm

J-Manic wrote:I enjoy playing Darius II in looong widescreen on my Saturn.

I've been trying to find somebody who does this! Do you leave it zoomed out all the time??

I still suspect that the best is to use 3 4:3 screens and just live with the gaps. (Unless you go nuts and actually build an arcade setup.)

Fudoh · Post by **Fudoh** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:18 pm

With emulation it's not this easy to get 3 screen running smoothly. Due to the fact that you need two graphics cards, there are synching issues. On my 52" LCD 3-screen darius is approx. the same size that on 3 21" LCDs

And no borders of course.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:33 pm

doctorx0079 wrote:
Ed Oscuro wrote:Darius 2 looks amazing on my 16:10 1920x1200 laptop screen.
Is that the two-screen version of Darius II or the three-screen version? Which is better?

Three-screen version.

Fudoh wrote:With emulation it's not this easy to get 3 screen running smoothly. Due to the fact that you need two graphics cards, there are synching issues. On my 52" LCD 3-screen darius is approx. the same size that on 3 21" LCDs :) And no borders of course.

What do you mean by needing two graphics cards?

If you're running it on one screen, you only need one graphics chip (not even a card, especially since at least the Centrino and above laptops run it just fine).

I agree that the bigger the screen the better - that or get a widescreen, with 16:9 giving the best results marginally (although I'd rather go with 16:10 myself).

FIL · Post by **FIL** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:53 am

You'd need 2 cards for 3 monitors, unless there are cards which support triple heading now.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:36 am

Three monitors because we're feeling special? Why not just buy a big screen? Hell you can probably get two widescreens and use them with one of the newer cards.

Personally, I couldn't imagine trying to play on side-by-side screens, mind the gap!

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:02 am

Really, is this game worth all this work? I remember trying some time and feeling very dissapointed. I prefer R-Type any day.

Emph

bkk · Post by **bkk** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:49 am

A full HD projector seems to be the ideal solution. No gaps or driver issues, and you can even have fake scanlines.

FIL · Post by **FIL** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:57 pm

emphatic wrote:Really, is this game worth all this work? I remember trying some time and feeling very dissapointed. I prefer R-Type any day.

Emph

Darius? probably not, Darius II? maybe.

doctorx0079 · Post by **doctorx0079** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:04 pm

I LIKE DARIUS. I never said I had "good taste".

Fudoh wrote:With emulation it's not this easy to get 3 screen running smoothly. Due to the fact that you need two graphics cards, there are synching issues. On my 52" LCD 3-screen darius is approx. the same size that on 3 21" LCDs And no borders of course.

Yeah, this is the way to go. I need to save up for a 52" screen.

J-Manic · Post by **J-Manic** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 4:45 am

doctorx0079 wrote:
J-Manic wrote:I enjoy playing Darius II in looong widescreen on my Saturn.
I've been trying to find somebody who does this! Do you leave it zoomed out all the time??

Yes. I actually played a little bit this morning. Major fun!

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 6:38 pm

This:

http://picasaweb.google.com/julian.erte ... 8509794050

Emph

Balzac · Post by **Balzac** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 9:27 pm

Playing that last winter was one of my akiba highlights.

You know that "whoa" feeling that you get the first time you use a new piece of technology (ie: first time with an HD TV, first time with a cutting edge graphics card, etc).

I was getting that vibe from a late 80's piece of hardware.

The game itself wasn't too special, but it was interesting how the large playing field + huge screen size allowed for manic style bullet barrages to be manageable, even with such a big hitbox.

ZOM · Post by **ZOM** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 2:42 am

emphatic wrote:This:

http://picasaweb.google.com/julian.erte ... 8509794050

Emph

WHOA!!! me...want...that...!

dmzach · Post by **dmzach** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:35 am

what did the OG 3 screen Darius cabs even look like?

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:09 am

FIL wrote:You'd need 2 cards for 3 monitors, unless there are cards which support triple heading now.

Yes there are cards that support triple-head (Nvidia and Matrox each have such cards - Nvidia's actually support 4 screens), but they are generally expensive.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadronvs.html
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/produ ... rhelia128/

Alternatively, you can find a card with dual-DVI out and a HDMI "TV out" floating around as well, which would work.

Sinneslöschen · Post by **Sinneslöschen** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:13 am

Have a look at Youtube for "taito 3 screen darius" for the original cab - sorry but I cannot paste any links at moment.

TodayIsForgotten · Post by **TodayIsForgotten** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:50 pm

I've played this on 2 22" lcd monitors in mame. The only issue i found is, no matter what settings i selected both were displaying at more than double the original resolution. This caused some sever slowdowns. So i just manually moved the windows and it was smooth as butter, but hard to get use to by looking inches ahead.

FIL · Post by **FIL** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 4:55 pm

Whats the best autofire setting for Darius? Or is using autofire a bad idea entirely? i'm sure I read that your rate of fire affects the rank in the original Darius.

MadScientist · Post by **MadScientist** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:57 pm

I just got my computer hooked up to a 42" LCD screen. Darius 2 looks pretty sweet.

Is the fast autofire option in the dipswitches for Darius 2 allowed for posting high scores? (not that I have a score worth posting yet anyway...)