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Best Cabinet for Cave Games?

Started by moebinkay, January 20, 2010, 06:23:36 PM

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moebinkay

As we all have noticed Cave games have been played on almost every arcade cabinet to date from 1994 Astro City, to the latest in gaming RS Delta 32. Despite the fact that arcades are being replaced by home systems such as the Xbox360 that projects such games in brilliant High Def, most people still remain loyal to the traditional arcade cabinet. The question is what would be the best cabinet that supports todays Cave games?

emphatic

I would suggest a Taito EGRET II or a SEGA New Astro City or some other sitdown/"candy" type cabinet as long as they sport the superior low res screens made by Nanao. EGRET II and New Astro City both have the Nanao MS9 as standard.

EOJ

Topic moved to the hardware section.
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moebinkay

Quote from: emphatic on January 20, 2010, 07:14:40 PM
I would suggest a Taito EGRET II or a SEGA New Astro City or some other sitdown/"candy" type cabinet as long as they sport the superior low res screens made by Nanao. EGRET II and New Astro City both have the Nanao MS9 as standard.

Hmmm I thought so too, there are so much Astro Citys and egret 2s on the market with screen burn. whats your take on Taito Vewlix?

moebinkay

Im surprised that such games seem to play better on low - res screens?  :oogle:

brentsg

I play my hori games on a Neo25 and my verts on a Super Neo 29.  For each I use a Jammaboards JAMMA->MVS adapter.  It works great but I won't be making any arguments about "best".   :laugh:

jonny

SEGA Blast City with original Nanao tri-sync chasis as this allows for all Cave games as well as any other hi-res systems such as naomi (Ikaruga!)

The monitor in a Blast City is mounted more vertical in respect to the player than Astro/Egret II. In an Astro or E2, the monitor leans away from the player more than with a Blast City.

croikle

Quote from: moebinkay on January 21, 2010, 02:43:47 PM
Im surprised that such games seem to play better on low - res screens?  :oogle:
Despite their graphical glitziness, all Cave games (pre-DS2, at least) run in low-res, so people like to run them in their native resolution, with no scaling required. LCD cabs are sexy, but perhaps frowned upon for low-res games, due to scaling and lack of precious scanlines.

croikle

Quote from: moebinkaySo how exactly would a high res par vs a low res screen. For example an egret vs a vewlix. Will the game screen spoil if projected on an lcd? Or will it look better? I have been thinking of playing DFK on a vewlix I just need more feedback.
I'm hardly an expert, better to post this here than PM. ;)

ave

Here's a picture that shows nicely why Cave-games ought to be played on low-res cabs with low-res monitors:
http://www.insertcredit.com/reviews/ketsui/img/ketsui.JPG

These games were made to be played like that. I couldn't imagine them on an LCD with upscaled, scanline-lacking picture... you could probably use an XRGB2 or similar devices to recreate artificial scanlines on an LCD-like cab, but as you're asking for the cab that works best with CAVE-shooters, I wouldn't recommend that to you. Get an EGRET II (the ordinary cabinet type they use for shooters in Japanese Arcades) or an Astro City.
東亜プラン4ライフ

bitkid

I'm going to have to agree with Egret 2 or New Astro City. If you can swing it you might consider the Egret for the easy monitor rotate mechanism. I've heard that not all Egret's have the easy-rotate feature; would need someone to clarify that for me. I have a New Astro City with the original Nanao monitor and low-res games look excellent. The screen in a New Astro City can also be rotated but you must lift it out of the cabinet and turn it.

zlk

I can tell you a cab to stay away from: an atomiswave cab.  The graphics are too wide for the screen even after the dials (the normal one and s17 on the chasis) are turned as far as they can go.  There is no physical coil that I can find to adjust so I am always missing part of the screen. 

kernow

Quote from: zlk on December 17, 2010, 12:11:10 AM
I can tell you a cab to stay away from: an atomiswave cab.  The graphics are too wide for the screen even after the dials (the normal one and s17 on the chasis) are turned as far as they can go.  There is no physical coil that I can find to adjust so I am always missing part of the screen.  

When I had this problem, it was a slight chassis/tube mismatch. On another AW cab it was fine. Could also be a failing capacitor on the chassis also. 99% of them are normal. But yeah, the monitors in those things aren't as nice as an MS9 found in an astro or EII.

SuperPang

Only buy a Vewlix if you're going to play HD stuff such as Type X2 or your Xbox 360 (I imagine tate 1360 x 768 DFK looks pretty great). They're excellent cabinets (I have one) but low res games will look as crappy as a retro console on an LCD and high res games will look like 480p does on an LCD, acceptable.

All of Caves arcade releases are low resolution except for Deathsmiles 2 and will look their best on low res/dual sync monitors. You can also get cabs with tri-sync monitors which would support DS2/Naomi/Type X but how well these display low res varies depending on model. They do tend to be overly sharp with more pronounced scanlines and less depth of colour than dual sync/low res monitors.

If you want to play horizontal and vertical low res games and only have space for one cab, the Egret 2 is a no brainer due to the rotation mechanism. It's the tri-sync Egret 3 that doesn't have this.

Loads more info at wiki.arcadeotaku.com

zlk

Quote from: kernow on December 17, 2010, 01:21:23 AM
Quote from: zlk on December 17, 2010, 12:11:10 AM
I can tell you a cab to stay away from: an atomiswave cab.  The graphics are too wide for the screen even after the dials (the normal one and s17 on the chasis) are turned as far as they can go.  There is no physical coil that I can find to adjust so I am always missing part of the screen.  

When I had this problem, it was a slight chassis/tube mismatch. On another AW cab it was fine. Could also be a failing capacitor on the chassis also. 99% of them are normal. But yeah, the monitors in those things aren't as nice as an MS9 found in an astro or EII.

I have two atomiswave cabs and they both have the exact same problem.  Is there any simple way to check for a chasis/tube mismatch? (I am so hardware incompetent I have no idea where to start to look for this.)

kernow

It's a bit tricky I guess, if you note down the model of tube (will be on the back when you take the wooden board off), and the model number of the chassis on the flyback, it would be a good start :)

Or take photos of both ;)


Mine had a tube replacement after I necked it trying to play ibara (facepalm), and the tube put in to replace it was compatible, but I used it on the existing chassis, I had to replace the chassis with the one that came with the replacement tube for the size adjustment to fit properly.

They were both wei-ya trisync chassis mind you, just ever so slightly different models.

I think the original tubes are usually samsung and my replacement was an LG, I've seen philips tubes used also.

ratsflif

I love both my Blast City and Naomi universal.  Hard to say whats better.


Runefaust

For the horis, i love my little MVS-4U. Progear looks awesome on it :o Mayor drawback: no tate mechanism.

erzane

personaly I tried at home some cabs before buying the one which really fitted to my taste

I can tell you that awsd have very very bad 15k but very good 31k (I think awsd is good only for 31k after my xperience)
I changed chassis two time on my 2 awsd and studied them a long time, I made a very instructive topic about pots and all in other forums and finaly I sold them and bought an egret2. the 15k pic on egret2 is totally different, hot, shape.
awsd havent a good 15k result, it's the baddest result you can find between any jp candy cabs existing. so, I reflected a lot on which cab to buy for playing 15k stg and after trying some I can tell you that e2 is the best. include for screen settings that you can do only by taking off the front door. I had astro to in the past and I think it's totally the same quality like e2 because as you know already, same monitor and chassis but I think egret2 you can handle pots on chassis more easy.

about blast city, it's considered as the best of the best but it can be a little bit expensive if you use only 15k games
but if you want to use both 15/31k it will be the best cab for you
perhaps blast city will be more luxury for your eyes because it have a more straight monitor, not so inclined, so bigger confort

about net city/nnc they are very good to (the only problems on those cabs is the place inside for the system (not enough ventilated as I heard, but it will fit well for 15k no prob, and you can add a rear fan if you need)

for be back on e2 talk I think its rotative system is very cool because turning an astro or other sega cabs monitor is really hell.
e2 is the best because you can make it alone and quick, if you want to play fighting games with friends you can turn the monitor in 10 min.

concerning e3 it dont have rotating system unfortunately but handle toshiba monitor to, so it's same monitor quality as blast or nnc

skykid


Taito Egret II monitor rotate is a 1 man job, takes 5 mins.

Can't get a more practical shmupping cab than that.
Quote from: SuperPangWhere DOJ rapes you, DFK grabs your boob then runs away

erzane

5min is a little bit to quick if you want to replace the bezel well with minimum 4 tips

norrkoping

Nothing probably irks me more than convergence issues, where it looks like there are either blue, green, or red borders on the sprites. So I'd get the cab that has a good monitor with proper convergence, low burn-in, no magnetic interference problems, etc. The SEGA Naomi cabs will require you to get a JAMMA to JVS I/O (AFAIK) to run most all of the CAVE games that are JAMMA standard, so it will take a lot of extra time to get your games to run since you have to track that down (if you want a good I/O at least). On the newer cabs with LCD screens you'd probably want to run the RGBS video signal through a quality deinterlacer that is good for video game graphics to avoid a lot of video picture artifacts showing up (unless the monitor already has a good built-in deinterlacer).

MmSadda

Quote from: moebinkay on January 20, 2010, 08:51:10 PM
Quote from: emphatic on January 20, 2010, 07:14:40 PM
I would suggest a Taito EGRET II or a SEGA New Astro City or some other sitdown/"candy" type cabinet as long as they sport the superior low res screens made by Nanao. EGRET II and New Astro City both have the Nanao MS9 as standard.

Hmmm I thought so too, there are so much Astro Citys and egret 2s on the market with screen burn. whats your take on Taito Vewlix?
Vewlix are great, but if you're going to play Cave JAMMA boards, you're actually far better off with an Astro or an Egret.

Ever played an old-school console on an HDTV? If so, the reason you want a low-res cab for Cave games should be apparent.