Title: HLSL+LCD vs. CRT Post by: ybr on August 12, 2014, 11:16:26 pm I'm putting together an upright MAME cabinet (dedicated to vertical, 4-way games) as a start to my collection. From there I'll keep watching the videos, reading up, and maybe resurrect my own classic cabinet at some point. I've been running a craigslist search daily, ready to pounce on something cool.
But one thing I hated right away: default MAME on an LCD. The square pixels, the razor-sharp perfection...I won't have it. So I started playing around with MAME's HLSL features with somewhat encouraging results. While still sold on putting a CRT into this first cabinet because of how much I hated the LCD in my prototype MAME setup, I've been entertaining the idea of using an LCD and tweaking the heck out of HLSL's potential to yield a CRT-like experience for each game I want to present. What's the consensus thus far? Can HLSL be a worthy alternative to an actual CRT? Title: Re: HLSL+LCD vs. CRT Post by: iankellogg on August 13, 2014, 07:11:03 am CRts are the way to go by far but you can get some impressive results. Griffin built his Mame 2.0 cab using a 50 inch plasma masked off for 4:3 and using HLSL gets a pretty close emulation of the roundness of the pixels, scanlines, and more importantly the curve of the glass.
Title: Re: HLSL+LCD vs. CRT Post by: ybr on August 13, 2014, 09:42:30 pm 50" plasma? That thing must be a beast. Neat idea though, masking it off like that.
I was bummed to discover how hard it is to find a clean (i.e. very little burn-in) 19" CRT, much less a new one. The 25" still seem to have reasonable availability but they're just a tad too big for Mappy, Donkey Kong, etc., IMO. Title: Re: HLSL+LCD vs. CRT Post by: iankellogg on August 14, 2014, 07:13:57 am if you are going to do mame i recommend a 25 inch CRT unless you are ONLY going to play early 80s games, in which case you should build two cabinets.
Title: Re: HLSL+LCD vs. CRT Post by: ybr on August 15, 2014, 10:51:26 am Good point. Lucky for my wallet I don't have nostalgia for stuff outside of the late '70s/early '80s.
The hunt for a Happ 19" CGA (or equivalent?) has begun. I can already tell they're damn hard to find in good shape. As an aside, I think it's interesting that coin-op monitor resolutions are classified using "CGA" "EGA" and "VGA" designations. I suppose it was just out of convenience. But I never imagined I'd be looking for a CGA monitor again. Title: Re: HLSL+LCD vs. CRT Post by: iankellogg on August 15, 2014, 10:59:54 am pretty much any 19 inch arcade monitor you find will be CGA (standard res) just fine one and use it.
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