I've been thinking about grabbing one again, mainly for Mortal Kombat and the Supergun. But I've been thinking and since the LCD can never really serve my needs fully I'll have to have a CRT around. And the CRT I have around is a cheap chinese made 19" with only composite video input. So I think I've justified to myself that it would be worth it to replace that CRT with a much better one like a Sony PVM. I've been looking at one that is 19" and has Composite, S-Video (Y/C), Component Video (whatever those letters are), and most importantly RGB. But I'm wonder how much would you think I should spend on one? Does anyone know what the usual going rate would be? Be sure to specify including or not including shipping and what you'd expect shipping would cost for one of these things. Would about 130$ shipped be a fair price for a used one?
Yes I realize that now that LCD's aren't ideal for arcade games that don't sync at NTSC frequency. Normally that wouldn't matter, but Mortal Kombat is one of my favorite games of all time and thus support from midrange 50hz frequency is a must. The monitor appears to be in good condition. Not sure about that last picture of the rear. Seems somewhat odd. One thing seems to be a cable for you to connect something to it I guess, and theres that metal box that's strange.
LCD would be roughly 5th best. CRT w/ Component would be a close 2nd to RGB, CRT w/ S-Video a very, very distant 3rd, then composite. Finally, LCD. This is of course for 15khz PCBs, which I'm pretty sure we're talking about. $130 isn't bad, but they're pricey to ship. Check out military auctions. In Hawaii, they had an auction that I'm pretty sure ended at $50 for four of them. 3 x 25" and 1 x 29". Hang on a sec. PVM's are low-res monitors only. What kind of signal does MK output? Generally when you're buying an arcade monitor, there are three kinds. Low res (15khz: most arcade games), Mid res (22khz: Sega System 24.... very few other arcade games), and high res (31khz: Naomi, G-Net ). I think you're confusing these w/ the monitors 50hz or 100hz refresh rates. AFAIK, many new Sony CRTs (at least in Europe) are 100hz which absolutely suck big hairy balls for games. This can be a problem. W/ the PVM, you should be good to go w/ any standard low-res Jamma PCB. If you get into Naomi & G-Net, sounds like you've got an LCD to take care of those. That leaves the handful of mid-range games out the window . The only two I've ever wanted are Gain Ground & Crack Down. Both are pretty expensive boards though. Anyways, welcome to the world of RGB. You will laugh at your friends crappy setups after you get yours going. But don't stop at the Super Gun. You should hook up all your old systems to it. The only one that requires a hardware mod is the PC-Engine/Turbo Duo. So, Super Famicom, Megadrive, Saturn, PS/2 -- hook them up. You'll thank me later. One thing though: You'll not find a 25-pin D-sub RGB cable anywhere. You'll have to make it, or pay someone to do it. If you make your own, I know someone in the market for a PS2 one. So if you want to make a few bucks along the way, PM me. EDIT: I'm not sure what model that is. Keep in mind, it ain't got no speakers!
The monitor shown has RGB+SYNC as BNC connectors which means it's not that hard to make up a cable to make it work with a Supergun and even consoles. MK still outputs a low res 15Khz signal but like a number of arcade games, it doesn't out a refresh signal at exactly 59.97Hz which the NTSC spec requires and what most LCD monitors would expect (or 50hz for PAL), its a weird 54Hz signal...
The 25-pin D-SUB connector on a PVM is the one labeled RGB. CMTPR is that ugly green thing. VTR on mine was S-video. Not sure what the BNC inputs are mapped to. Maybe Line 1 & Line 2.
Yes with Mortal Kombat it is a low-res game, it just has a non-standard refresh rate, I believe so it can have some more lines of vertical resolution, not really sure. The game is something like 400x300 which isn't exactly your standard. My current CRT being the cheap thing it is, won't sync to anything other than 60hz (or 59.whatever) and the LCD won't sync to anything other than 60hz or 50hz (it supports PAL). And because MK is so far off NTSC and PAL refresh rate the LCD doesn't even try to display anything. The Sony PVMs have much broader specs it seems. So I'm not looking for something to support the odd 24khz or 31khz like a PC monitor. I'm looking for your regular 15khz monitor that has a vertical sync range of atleast 50hz to 60hz to support Mortal Kombat's strange 54hz refresh rate as well as be my standard CRT for regular gaming but with RGB color input. It would certainly make the Genesis look sharp. So for RGB I just have to wire up my own 25pin dsub? I've done that for my Supergun controller so that's no problem. The hard part I think would be finding the connectors for consoles to wire up to. I think I'd have to buy SCART RGB cables for them and hack them up or something.
The really simple way is just to make a 25 Pin or BNC (I'm 99% sure that the row of three (in and out) BNC conectors on the right are RGB with Sync coming from the two BNCs at the bottom left) to a SCART socket, then you just need to buy SCART leads and plug them into that. Simple huh? You'll need audio though...
I could just wire off the SCART socket's audio left and right to RCA jacks. For the Supergun I'm thinking about mounting a 15pin VGA style jack to use one of those HD15 to BNC cables you can get to use to hookup the SuperGun in RGB that way. Also I found another decent 19" PVM that is cheaper and seems to also be in good condition and is shown displaying a TV image.
Again, no experience with the BNC connectors. I can tell you w/ 100% certainty that the 25-pin D-Sub is RGB, and that when you select "RGB" from the front, that's the input it takes. What's easier to make is probably up to you. Matt, of the famous "Matt Supergun's" at shmups (who is now way too addicting to diving to give a shit about video games) used to make the cables in the following fashion. Seems cumbersome, but it worked: 1: 25-pin D-sub to 15-pin D-sub (male) on a 2 meter cable 2: console output --> 15-pin D-sub (female) The idea was you don't have to get behind your monitor. Once you make the 2 meter cable, you just make converters for each console. To make those, he would take a standard RGB cable, cut it open, and solder the leads. Also had audio jacks on the 25-pin D-sub which you would need to connect to an external audio source. A stereo, in my case.
Curious, did he use 15pin VGA style (3 rows) or 15pin NeoGeo style (2 rows)? It seems to me from what I've read the PVM is supposed to take RGB from the 25pin connector as well as via BNC connectors. I suppose I'll find out when I get the monitor and cables together. I ended up getting one for 95$ shipped. I'll need to pickup a decent set of speakers to put next to it. But I think 95$ isn't too bad considering the CRT I have now cost I think 80$+tax. Either way it should be an improvement as the CRT this will replace only had composite video and this will have Cvbs, S-video, Component, and RGB. I've also got the wood work cuts figured out for building the Supergun's box. So my Supergun will actually probably end up with RGB output in addition to Composite and S-Video which I never imagined. I'll have to go buy some connectors and map out where I want to mount everything still but atleast I'm moving along. Eventually I'll be good and satisfied with a nice working Supergun setup. =)
NeoGeo style... but of course, it's all up to you. Post picks in the Arcade section when you're done.
I'll have to find that digital camera but I definitely intend to take pictures once I get my Supergun completed the way I want it. Hopefully everything will come together the way I want it to and I'll have lots of arcade gaming ahead of me.
Step 2 of the "Sick arcade setup" is to get an arcade VGA and make an RGB cable for that. MAME has never looked better! Old console emulation as well is tight as shit.
The Sony PVM 1910 I had been expecting any day now was returned to the seller FUBARed. He said it didn't even make it out of the city. So I got refunded and luckily I found another Sony PVM 1910 which hopefully will survive the trip to me! My Supergun is coming along. The wooden case is cut and just need to be drilled and screwwed together, all the components put in place and such. Shouldn't take too long, I still need a few parts for wiring it up. I also have a CPS2 A+B board set, Marvel Vs SF which the B board had suicided and I seem to have confirmed it was suicide that caused it's death and I'll be able to get that fixed. =) So once I get the SG finished, the Monitor here, and the board revived I'll really be in business.
Well, sounds like you made out okay. Never heard of the buyer not getting fucked when an item gets kicked around in the delivery truck.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I was disappointed it wouldn't be coming, but then I was quite happy that it didn't make it to me all fucked up and cause a huge delay of returning it to him to claim insurance or anything like that. Like I said, just as easily I've got another one on the way that seems good and should be well packed. I really hope this one makes it. I was hoping to play Mortal Kombat on it when it arrives. In the mean time I removed the EPROMs from my dead board for 'fun'. I actually find it kind of creepy though, just awhile ago I saw the thread about what you do in a power outage and days after that my power went out! And then on the Neo-Geo forums I read about people getting their candy cabinets all fucked up during shipping and now my monitor got all fucked up during shipping. I think I might have to stop reading forums until my monitor arrives!
