Best Monitor for RPi3 Arcade Machine?

jmferris

@Gosenbach I am using a readily available Focus Attack SCAN.DL VGA Scanline Generator. It is right around $20USD, and they shipped very fast. Very, very happy with it. Put a few pictures up on my blog (link in the signature, below). Have more captures that I need to put up today. Captures don't give it justice, though. Going to need to pull out the camera and take some real pictures.

Agreed on the Dells. Cheap, readily available, and they just work. I know that if I need to replace mine, I likely will be able to find the exact model in a condition that is acceptable.

Bilbo1161

@Capeman just need to find something like that in the UK then 😀

Bilbo1161

Can see plent of used Dell 19" monitors. But most have a response time of 5ms.
Are these any good, or does it need to be below 5ms?

jmferris

@Bilbo1161 For a lot of older monitors, between 3ms and 5ms is the normal response time. That is one advantage that a CRT will always have over an LCD, most likely. Some people say that 5ms is "intolerable", which I have never found to be the case, personally. Just taking it at face value, 5ms is 1/200th of a second. Unless biology has bred a new generation of superhumans, I think that is completely acceptable for this application.

You will see a lot of people using Dells for builds on the internet. They are inexpensively had and were pack-ins on a lot of computers in the time. That means that it is not uncommon to find one completely new in the box, like I recently did. Not sure if it is the same in the UK as it is over here in the colonies, but if you have electronics recycling programs, you can always check with them. Since those are destined to be destroyed, they usually do not have a problem giving them to someone who will extend its life. I have a friend in Washington state who checks his recycling center once per month, and has at least a dozen 4:3 and 5:4 monitors in his garage now.

Gosenbach

@Bilbo1161 Your games are probably going to be running a max of 60 fps anyway so that 5ms is going to get you several updates per frame. The difference between 5ms and faster will be un noticeable.

Unless you want to start an "analog vs digital" conversation lol :)

Gosenbach

@jmferris Oh that is awesome! Bookmarking that!

jamesbeat

I have a 19" LCD in my cab.
I actually have three spares too, because I don't believe anyone is making non-widescreen monitors any more. Every time I get the chance to grab a spare, I do so.

nitrogen_widget

I have a few 20" flat tube CRT TV's with component in and was planing to use a gert VGA to somehow get a signal to one of them in hopefully 240p for an arcade cabinet.

I also have some flat tube 20" crt tv's someone gave me with composite in.
figured i'd hold onto them just in case.
Kept declining free curved tube TV's because they only had composite & RF inputs.
kicking myself now because there is new firmware that will allow you to output 240p over composite.
I've tried it out and it looks good.
but, flat tube crt's have more of a grid mask opposed to the standard scanlines of an older curved CRT.
so now i'm thinking of all the curved one's i let go.

jmferris

@jamesbeat Same here. There are still some made, but a lot of them are touchscreen, seeing as they are meant to be used with POS systems. That makes them more expensive than this route. My problem is that I want to hoard monitors, despite not needing them right now. I'll just need to plan on building more. :-)

nitrogen_widget

@jmferris said in Best Monitor for RPi3 Arcade Machine?:

@jamesbeat Same here. There are still some made, but a lot of them are touchscreen, seeing as they are meant to be used with POS systems. That makes them more expensive than this route. My problem is that I want to hoard monitors, despite not needing them right now. I'll just need to plan on building more. :-)

Every time i goto a thrift store and find a 4:3 LCD i buy it. i've got anywhere from 15" to 20" square LCD monitors on a shelf in my basement. it's a big basement that i plan to turn into a gaming room so i'm going to also stock pile CRT TV's for classic consoles.