In case anyone else looking for the same answer finds this thread, i found this link which pretty much answers all my questions.

http://www.ultimarc.com/monfaq.html

this thread on arcade controls seem to confirm for me, that a cheap old tv with the proper cabling to accept a arcade screen signal will be authentic and cost efficient.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=120798.0

Awesome, looks more authentic then a lot of other mame type cabinets.

Hah, thanks for the link. So yeah there are patterns you have to learn to get really high burger time scores.. It does kinda remove the magic but hey, whatever works.

Hey, also dutch here. Isn't it hard to buy a used cabinet here? Because all the arcades were gone in the 90s right? I finally found out why

http://www.johnsarcade.com/forum/index.php?topic=1459.0

I am looking into just getting a galaga pcb and then figuring out how to build a cabinet around it. I will probably try and make the shape as authentic, but then go with cheaper prints of the side art, since it won't ever be a real cabinet the time and money spent will not be worth it imho.

Looking into switching info on our efforts.

Regressing with retro video games is the best. Maybe even better when all the arcade cabinets are set to free play and you don't need to beg your parents anymore for quarters ;). Welcome.

I might attempt to build my own Galaga machine, hope you won't mind lending advice to me.

There are arcade monitors to vga or even tv options. There are also a lot of lcd flat monitors which accept a arcade monitor signal. You might not get 100% authentic scanlines, but it will show your game. Seeing as they used one in the actual anniversary cabinet as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vEoIyOMgmU

http://www.uniarcade.com/video_converters/rgb_to_video_converter.htm

http://www.jammaboards.com/store/cga-ega-yuv-to-vga-arcade-hd-converter-pcb-gbs-8220-gbs-8220.html

I am getting inspired by all these vids to try and find all these different videos. But with a limited budget the main obstacle is still a real cga 15k hz arcade monitor. But I did find these cga to tv rgb converters.. This would be ideal since crt tv's are dirt cheap..

http://www.uniarcade.com/video_converters/rgb_to_video_converter.htm

Since they still are both a 15k hz signal. Does this preserve the actual scanlines and give as a authentic screen as an actual arcade monitor?

I will probably still have to go this route regardless..

All of these things might be self evident for people who have been playing this game for longer, but I only seriously began playing it again lately. For now I discovered that the difference in height in the level will evt get the enemies closer together as long as you don' kill them but drop them and they go back as one instead of spawning in four different points.

Ah, really cool, looks more like a regular Neo Geo cabinet already .

Just wondering, did you look into the multi carts for Neo Geo? I don't know if you want a cabinet capable of Neo Geo and more or just want Neo Geo games, but there are chinese manufacturers who make a 181 in one Neo Geo MS cart, with a lot of games on them.

Thgis guy even made a huge chart, showing which games are on which cart to help people decide which cart to get.
http://www.tighelory.com/2010/01/choosing-neo-geo-mvs-multi-cart.html

I read some videos and guides. There seem to be a difference in opinion on getting rid of the top items first or to get the lower ones and making sure you get points from getting a enemy to drop with it with each layer of the burger. I guess that is the classic risk versus reward on getting more points later-on or pushing it now.

I've seen videos of them manipulating all four enemies on the first screen until they occupy the same place got the ultimate ammount of points when dropping them off a burger item. Is there any trick to this or is it just learning a pattern on each board and learning how to execute said pattern?

Since you are interested in using a VGA monitor, and show interest in playing older arcade titles, is there any particular reason you don't want to use a MAME PC? 

Consider this: Mame has the real arcade versions of most titles, and there are other emulators that support the games Mame doesn't have.
Scanline support is typically built in to emulators and it can output to a VGA monitor directly, with no hacking,  or a PC can also be made to interface with a arcade monitor very easily with the proper drivers, and a JPAC will allow you to interface it directly with any Jamma cabinet.
If you aren't using a Jamma cab, a IPAC is also available that works great too.

Not saying you can't go with an old console to get games running, but it isn't the easiest thing to get going, I originally threw a Sega Saturn into a cab many years ago when I was just starting out, and I was pretty unhappy with it pretty quickly as home ports are usually inferior to the real arcade games, not to mention sticking my hand into a cab to swap discs hurt my arms pretty bad after a while. 

Not trying to be a jerk or anything I'm just curious.

Hah it's ok. I guess I don't want to have too much emulation. It may not  be entirely rational but I like the idea of a game running on actual hardware. As far as home ports being close to the arcade no home consoles comes closer then on the Dreamcast. It even had a special function where if you used 2d, you could turn the 128 bit cpu functionally into two 64-bit cpu's to both read and write.

That and I'm also a big Dreamcast fanboy ;).

As far as arcade accuracy with older games, They come as close as any platform. I dpn't see any significant difference oin the neo geo ports either.  This discussion explains a lot http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?117207-Need-arcade-perfect-ports-for-Dreamcast.
So you have the naomi ports, which only might have less high resolution textures and some of the better ports of older 2d games. In order to get true scanlines a CRT VGA monitor would work fines with the hanzo VGA box which has the option of half scanlines/scanline wthickness. Since you get some scanlines on a 31k hz vga monitor, but you need half of one added for the higher resolution to get as close to true scanlines without buying an expensive actual arcade monitor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiCsiZFs6DE  (a very bad game to use a scanline generator on, older pixel games are much better to show the difference).

Any reason you want to use a dream cast over a naomi?

All the older arcade ports for the Dreamcast, Street Fighter Third Strike or Super Street Fighter II Turbo, it might be a japanese release but it is considered to be the only arcade perfect homeport. The HD version was reportedly made off of that version instead of the arcade version.

You might get extra memory on the noami, but a home Dreamcast will get me more older games.

When I was little, I remember seeing an arcade in the closest big city once, but I was like four and my parents said I wasn't allowed in (of course it cost money and I was too young yet to be alone there in a dark arcade room with lots of older people). I then grew up but never could find a proper arcade anywhere in my country of the Netherlands. For a long time I had no clue why there were not any.

I went to class with a fellow nerd, he talked about how the local video game specialist store used to have a couple of SNK cabinets and he played King of Fighters on it a lot. But then people from the local city government came in and told them it was gambling. I found that so very bizarre.

When a competing video game specialist store opened he had a Virtua Striker cabinet, not even hooked up yet when someone from the local city government came by and told them it was gambling. When asked how they would be allowed to have an arcade game in their store they were told he needed to make the store 18+ and hire an expensive security guard.


Now I finally found why the local city was so strict on it, or at least why they could ban it. In our gambling law, article 30 saying that game machines in which people can win prizes, including the right to play longer for free, are gambling machines, with the same classification as actual gambling machines like video poker or fruit slots.

They made it illegal for something as stupid as being able to play longer, since that is clearly skill, even if the barrels in donkey kong can seem random. For a country famous for it's free laws where prostitution and cannabis smoking are allowed this seems so bizarre.

It all feels like an extra injustice since I saw one an arcade as a kid and was told I needed to get older,, and now I was older they were gone! As to why people would stand for it I don't know. I can't find online documentation but I remember seeing a major update to the gambling law in the 90s, which coincided with the arrival of the 32-bit consoles. So people needed the arcades less and the arcades also began to get less profitable.

There are a few minor arcades where the local city government isn't stupid and sees the difference, but the games aren't really worth visiting.

I do have the day dream fantasy now of finding a place of business which won't mind having an or an another classic arcade game, even when the inserted coins go to a charity. It would be at least a worthy attempt if they insist is gambling if the inserted coins go to a serious charity. If they insist on you removing it in spite of it being for charity, a newspaper might want to report on it being so stupid..

Upscaling a 15k hz signal would actually get rid of the scanlines, which would be the point of getting a lowres signal. After looking at different things, including the very expensive, one of the very last crt screens to be produced of makviision, is that they do accept all three inputs, but there is a switch inside it which has to be altered.

The much cheaper options would be getting a vga box, with a scanline generator included. Hanzo makes some good ones. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sega-Dreamcast-VGA-Cable-with-Scanline-Generator-instead-of-VGA-BOX-HANZO-/171368267720?pt=US_Video_Game_Cables_Adapters&hash=item27e6583fc8