HLSL+LCD vs. CRT

[ybr]

I'm putting together an upright MAME cabinet (dedicated to vertical, 4-way games) as a start to my collection.  From there I'll keep watching the videos, reading up, and maybe resurrect my own classic cabinet at some point.  I've been running a craigslist search daily, ready to pounce on something cool.

But one thing I hated right away: default MAME on an LCD.  The square pixels, the razor-sharp perfection...I won't have it.  So I started playing around with MAME's HLSL features with somewhat encouraging results.  While still sold on putting a CRT into this first cabinet because of how much I hated the LCD in my prototype MAME setup, I've been entertaining the idea of using an LCD and tweaking the heck out of HLSL's potential to yield a CRT-like experience for each game I want to present.

What's the consensus thus far?  Can HLSL be a worthy alternative to an actual CRT?

[iankellogg]

CRts are the way to go by far but you can get some impressive results. Griffin built his Mame 2.0 cab using a 50 inch plasma masked off for 4:3 and using HLSL gets a pretty close emulation of the roundness of the pixels, scanlines, and more importantly the curve of the glass.

[ybr]

50" plasma?  That thing must be a beast.  Neat idea though, masking it off like that.

I was bummed to discover how hard it is to find a clean (i.e. very little burn-in) 19" CRT, much less a new one.  The 25" still seem to have reasonable availability but they're just a tad too big for Mappy, , etc., IMO.

[iankellogg]

if you are going to do mame i recommend a 25 inch CRT unless you are ONLY going to play early 80s games, in which case you should build two cabinets.

[ybr]

Good point.  Lucky for my wallet I don't have nostalgia for stuff outside of the late '70s/early '80s.

The hunt for a Happ 19" CGA (or equivalent?) has begun.  I can already tell they're damn hard to find in good shape.

As an aside, I think it's interesting that coin-op monitor resolutions are classified using "CGA" "EGA" and "VGA" designations.  I suppose it was just out of convenience.  But I never imagined I'd be looking for a CGA monitor again.

[iankellogg]

pretty much any 19 inch arcade monitor you find will be CGA (standard res) just fine one and use it.