Posted by Dave on 13, 2000 at 7:49 PM:
In Reply to: Dave do you have an AArdvark?? or did you just read that somewhere *NT* posted by Andy Geez on 13, 2000 at 7:04 PM:
I was hoping to hear what Happ had to say about pricing from you!
Interestingly, I picked up an old 19" IBM 6091 fixed frequency "industrial" CAD monitor ($50 CDN) which has similar needs to an NTSC monitor in that it will only sync to a certain non-standard frequency. The IBM is completely in the other direction, however. It can only sync in the 67KHz range. But, man, does it do it well!
To get around the fact that it can't sync to the BIOS screen (or DOS modes) I had two choices:
1) Use Linux/X11 and xmame because you have ultimate control over your video timings
2) Buy a fixed frequency video card.
or... I guess 3) Use a G400 and greate custom timings
or even.... 4) Hack DOS MAME so it will support custom timings (someone was doing that out there...)
I did both 1&2. My fixed frequency card is ...ok... but It is only a Permedia2 which does not support VESA modes, so I have to run everything in windows (ie MAME32) and even then I cant get it to fill the whole screen unless I run at 1280x1024. (I'm oversimplifing a bit..) (And DVD playback sucks relative to my Voodoo3.)
It seems that this AArdvark does the same sort of thing in reverse. It scales higher res stuff down to NTSC (and other arcade resolutions) using hardware. Sounds great, but given how much I paid for my crappy Permedia3 ($159 US) I'm not sure how much of a premium these cards would go for.
But I'm going to my first auction next week (at Starburst in Toronto Jan. 22) ....so I am interested.
Dave
BTW details of my *as of yet unnamed* custom cabinet (I'm thinking "Unnamed Beast") will be posted shortly.