Anybody trying to restore vector games? Read This!!!

[Giddygoon]

Hi Everyone!

I currently restoring a Starwars cockpit, but as you know finding a working 25" amplifone is a rare as hens teeth.... And if do find one it might not last long before it has a fault. So until then i was looking into other ways to get the game running. Theres mame but it doesnt look right...there is also ZVG board and vector mame but its a bit out of date and you still need a vector monitor!
I have come to the conculsion that AAE emulator (Another Arcade Emulator) is the way to go, of couse you can use a pc monitor but you dont get monitors any bigger than 24" i need 25" for Starwars......in the past older AVGA cards didnt work this emu because it needed a gfx card higher than Nvidia Fx5200 or ATI 9550 to work because it use openGL but the good news is that i contacted Andy at Ultimarc and asked him to test the AAE emu with his new Arcade 3000 vga card which uses the ATI RV630 chipset and results are that the emu works. (:
This could be a good way to get vector games running on cga monitors until the real parts turn up if ever thay do!

Just thought Id spread the love

[jcp]

A very good topic thread (in french, but there is a few english words in the last pages) about vector game restoration is here  .

[polaris]

hi giddygoon
it has been mentioned here before in various restore threads i seem to remember, but updated and concise info is always good, cheers for posting.

[Spyridon]

A good option for a temporary fix, but it will never have the same effect as a true vector monitor.

[Giddygoon]

Your right! But have you ever tried to find working 25" vector monitor!

[Blanka]

Guess a high-res monitor is better for vector-simulating then a CGA one.
I feel like a nice project coming up: put a disco laser in a vector cab

[Giddygoon]

Tried that! First of all finding large hi-res monitors particularly at 25" size and cheap is very hard and surprisingly enough the vector glow from AAE was better on a crt TV and CGA arcade monitor than a high res monitor! The monitor had better defined lines but less glow......the cga monitor had less defined lines but a better glow! This test was done with a vga to cga convertor at 640x480 but with the new Arcade Vga card you will get better defined lines and the glow! Its never gonna be perfect but from what ive seen......its pretty close

When I can, i'll post some comparison pictures

[Alpha1]

John,

Have you seen http://www.vectorvga.com/

Oliver

[Giddygoon]

Good link Oliver!

But again, ive checked this and there are limititations......ie no Starwars, certain types of raster monitor which take Svga signals... They dont usally come in 25" );

[Alpha1]

Good link Oliver!

But again, ive checked this and there are limititations......ie no Starwars, certain types of raster monitor which take Svga signals... They dont usally come in 25" );

Yeah I did notice that -  I was hoping they would bring out support for it.

[level42]

John,

Have you seen http://www.vectorvga.com/

Oliver

Do not curse when talking about vectors please

[Alpha1]

John,

Have you seen http://www.vectorvga.com/

Oliver

Do not curse when talking about vectors please

It's a good way to go when you have an original machine without a monitor like John has. You can then keep the original hardware, pcbs and wiring with just a replacement monitor until you can buy / import / find a vector monitor for your machine.


It saves it from being completely MAME'd.