Image quality on frontend (game selection) screen?
Moderator: dee2eR
Image quality on frontend (game selection) screen?
I have my Arpicade installed in my NBA Jam which has a recently rebuilt Hantarex Polo 25 monitor. I need to adjust the horizontal alignment (was fine on NBA Jam) and working on figure out which pot to do that lol. Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has this same monitor and if so, how good the image quality is on the frontend? Mine is not that great and I had the monitor dialed in by a great tech before I installed the Arpicade. It was suggested that I try going from 480i to 240p in the frontend which I might try but I wanted to ask first. Thanks.
Re: Image quality on frontend (game selection) screen?
Image quality will be down to your monitor. Using the default settings (ie booting in 480i) can look worse than the 240p setting if your monitor doesn't handle interlacing well.
If your monitor handles interlacing well the stock settings should look good.
One thing to keep in mind is the Attract-Mode layout can also have an effect the on monitor image quality. If a layout is made for 1080p it could look a bit off in either 480i or 240p due to having an uneven number of lines skipped or compressed/averaged into one (I'm not sure how Attract-Mode actually deals with too many lines). Also themes like the one used in the service menu can look weird as it has a CRT looking filter that looks very odd on real CRTs.
No harm in trying '240p only' mode (not well named, it should be non-interlaced only as there are a lot of not 240p modes included, eg. 256p and 288p at various refresh rates), it's just an option from the service menu and you can easily change back to default 480i using the service menu if you don't like it.
If your monitor handles interlacing well the stock settings should look good.
One thing to keep in mind is the Attract-Mode layout can also have an effect the on monitor image quality. If a layout is made for 1080p it could look a bit off in either 480i or 240p due to having an uneven number of lines skipped or compressed/averaged into one (I'm not sure how Attract-Mode actually deals with too many lines). Also themes like the one used in the service menu can look weird as it has a CRT looking filter that looks very odd on real CRTs.
No harm in trying '240p only' mode (not well named, it should be non-interlaced only as there are a lot of not 240p modes included, eg. 256p and 288p at various refresh rates), it's just an option from the service menu and you can easily change back to default 480i using the service menu if you don't like it.
Re: Image quality on frontend (game selection) screen?
Yeah I forced it to 240p and it looks fine now. As you mentioned, the service menu doesn't look great but fortunately don't have to spend a lot of time there 
It's a great product though and totally enjoying it. It really breathed new life into my NBA Jam. I'm thinking of adding one to my Mortal Kombat and using a jamma switch to go between my MK2 boards and Arpicade so I can add the other MKs and other fighters. Thanks!
It's a great product though and totally enjoying it. It really breathed new life into my NBA Jam. I'm thinking of adding one to my Mortal Kombat and using a jamma switch to go between my MK2 boards and Arpicade so I can add the other MKs and other fighters. Thanks!