Basic Components to Look For When Buying An Arcade
Real Arcade Cabinet
There have been many arcade cabinet designs since the early 80's, but in our opinion only 2 cabinets have been established as the front runners in terms of features, size, portability, replacement parts and aesthetics. Many cabinets can be used (new or retrofitted), but they don't look or feel right, and your investment will suffer in the long run. The iconic 19" Galaga / Ms. Pacman cabinet is obviously the clear choice when looking for a smaller machine that plays vertically oriented games. The 25" horizontally mounted monitor cabinet is another story as there have been tons of these styles designed over the past 20 years. We have chosen the Midway 25" cabinet because of its build quality, features and generous control panel surface while remaining small enough to get through residential sized doorways.
Hand built cabinets that mimic the authentic cabinets fall short for many reasons. First of all, they are not built to the same specifications of rigidity and long term abuse that the authentic cabinets are. Also, home built cabinets will lack all of the smaller/detailed pieces that the authentic cabinets have (specialized speaker grilles, coin mechanisms with separate vault, rear access panels, metal trim pieces, backlit marquees, internal test switches, monitor supports, etc. You cannot see it from a cursory glance at a snapshot online, but you can tell instantly in person that a cabinet is not authentic without even inserting your first quarter.
We will never sell a home made cabinet or sacrifice any parts that do not belong in a proper arcade. You're spending the money, don't you want something that will last and retain it's value? Would you buy a Corvette if someone hand built it from parts out of Home Depot?
CRT Arcade Monitor
Up until about 2006 (give or take), all authentic arcade games have been designed around CRT arcade monitor technology. Believe it or not, this technology has not kept up to modern TV or computers. In the 80's to late 90's, over 98% of arcade games were designed for CGA graphics of approx 320x240. Yes, that's right! About the same resolution as your old flip cell phone. Some games went on to use EGA and VGA graphics (640x480)... which is the same as a 480i standard resolution TV set. Still, far from even mid 90's SVGA graphics and today's high resolution TV and LCD panels.
The question is, why wouldn't you use a modern display? The answer is counter intuitive to those not in the video/graphics industry. In short: You do NOT want to use a high resolution display in an arcade game that is designed for low resolution because it will look horrible.
Deeper Dive Into The Differences
If you've ever seen a regular standard definition (SD) TV show on a modern HDTV set, it looks horrible (and that is standing back at a distance). Imagine what it would be like if you had to get up close to the display like you would with an arcade game. There are a couple factors in why SD transmissions look horrible on HD sets, but one of the contributing factors is the problem of pixel aliasing.
Newer technology computer monitors (LCD and CRT) monitors are actually too modern to display CGA graphics as they do not support lower resolutions. You would think otherwise, but these monitors do NOT have a mode to display these slower refresh rates and larger pixel sizes. Low resolution (CGA) graphics pixel sizes are relatively large and in order to translate these pixels to a higher pitch display, the monitor must be able to upconvert. Also, digital monitor pixel sizes are in a set size and position where as analog pixel sizes (excited phosphor elements) can be adjusted for size and position to match an arcade game's output 1:1.
One would think that higher resolution digital displays would result in an output that is just as crisp as the original. However, the problem is that the pixels do NOT line up correctly when converting from high to low resolutions... and therefore monitor needs to decide what do to for pixels that hang off the edges. In our example, for simplicity, we attempt to line up both high and low resolutions using a GRID.
The following example is a very simple "O" shape, single color graphic. On a CGA (Arcade Monitor), you would see this shape pixel for pixel... and you would expect to see it that way. On a modern monitor, the "O" shape gets rounded off and fuzzy on the inside and outside edges. This is because the GRIDS do not overlay perfectly and the monitor has to decide what to do. For example, if a pixel hangs off 50%, the monitor may reduce the luminance of that pixel... or possibly just turn it off. Either way, the image becomes distorted and VERY noticeable.
Note: Upconversion is usually performed in the digital realm. Our diagram shows how this is done with a GRID overlay to simplify the explanation.
Here are actual close-up photos of MsPacman on a proper arcade monitor VS computer monitor. You can see on the computer monitor the blurry dots, wall edges etc. Now, would you settle for this?
Parting Notes
CRT Arcade monitors are naturally much harder to find in good working order as they are out of production and thus will require technical knowledge to properly rebuild, test and install. Also, we will never take an old tube and "rejuvenate" it (which is a process of inducing high current thru the tube to burn off deposits in order to brighten up the output). This process is only necessary when a CRT is beyond it's expected life cycle and ends up being a temporary fix. We always use FRESH tubes in all of our monitors
This is why it is important to find experts such as Castle Classic Arcade for a proper and authentic arcade machine for your home.