Quick vectormame question ........

Big Arn

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I have searched but have not found an exact answer to my question:

How do the "colorized" b&w games (like Star Castle, and Armor Attack) look on Vectormame with a color vector monitor?

I know they will not be as sharp, but do they still look good?

Thanks!
 
I have searched but have not found an exact answer to my question:

How do the "colorized" b&w games (like Star Castle, and Armor Attack) look on Vectormame with a color vector monitor?

I know they will not be as sharp, but do they still look good?

Thanks!



its just my opinion but I would say No.
I can live with it, but I am still planning on a 2nd ZVG for the BW games
 
Frankly, you're going to have more of a problem with the lack of an overlay for games like Armor Attack, Warrior, etc...
 
Do they look as good as an original b/w monitor with the overlay? From what I've seen of originals, not quite, not even with an Amplifone. Not quite as sharp, and (more importantly, in my opinion), not quite as bright. I dunno, if I had to attach a number to how my color monitors emulate a b/w monitor with an color overlay, I'd say that (compared to a standard LCD monitor) the 6100 gets you about 60% of the way there and the Amp gets you about 80-85% of the way. Not very precise, I know.

Having said that, they look more than good enough for me, mainly because any vector monitor is still miles better than any other technology for displaying vectors and I mostly play the color games, anyway. Just my two cents. If SC or AA were my all-time favorite game, I might feel differently...
 
Thanks for the replies.

I was trying to avoid building a color and a b&w machine....... :)

This is from the VectorMame page at Zektor's site:

"Mark Perreira who added the vector overlays needed to play Armor Attack and Warrior. He also added colorization to B&W games such as Star Castle and Battlezone, where color was originally done with overlays."

I understand how Star Castle and Battlezone are colorized, but how are the vector overlays handled with Armor Attack and Warrior on a vector monitor?

Thanks!
 
Do they look as nice on WG6100 than they would on a true B/W monitor? No. Do they look nice? Yes.

The games that had overlays on them have been colored so that they have the same color as the originals...
 
Thanks for the replies.

I was trying to avoid building a color and a b&w machine....... :)

This is from the VectorMame page at Zektor's site:

"Mark Perreira who added the vector overlays needed to play Armor Attack and Warrior. He also added colorization to B&W games such as Star Castle and Battlezone, where color was originally done with overlays."

I understand how Star Castle and Battlezone are colorized, but how are the vector overlays handled with Armor Attack and Warrior on a vector monitor?

Thanks!

Warrior did not have an overlay. The "playfield" is reflected from above onto a half silvered mirror beneath which sits a monitor. The monitor only displays the knights and their accompanying effects (pit drop, explosion, resurection, etc. )

A color vector, or color raster for that matter, will never be as sharp as a B&W. This is because B&W monitors did not have a shadow mask, a fine metallic mesh inside the front of the tube. This was used to "separate" the colors and when you see a dot pitch (i.e. .28) this refers to the size of those little squares.
 
I understand how Star Castle and Battlezone are colorized, but how are the vector overlays handled with Armor Attack and Warrior on a vector monitor?

Thanks!

In those two games, the overlay or reflection actually defines part of the playfield, so vectors showing the walls/pits/stairs/roads have been added to vectormame even though those elements were not represented by vectors in the originals. If you look at the Warrior screencap, for example, the pits, stairs, barriers, etc., are shown by vectors in vectormame, while the only actual vectors in the original are the players, scores, and timer.
 

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In those two games, the overlay or reflection actually defines part of the playfield, so vectors showing the walls/pits/stairs/roads have been added to vectormame even though those elements were not represented by vectors in the originals. If you look at the Warrior screencap, for example, the pits, stairs, barriers, etc., are shown by vectors in vectormame, while the only actual vectors in the original are the players, scores, and timer.

This answers my question. Thank you very much.

The Zektor site does not provide this information, but it makes sense.

As an aside, has anyone played with AAE? You can get some pretty good results, but nothing really compares to the black blacks and bright lines of the vector monitors. :(
 
In those two games, the overlay or reflection actually defines part of the playfield, so vectors showing the walls/pits/stairs/roads have been added to vectormame even though those elements were not represented by vectors in the originals. If you look at the Warrior screencap, for example, the pits, stairs, barriers, etc., are shown by vectors in vectormame, while the only actual vectors in the original are the players, scores, and timer.

Yeah. in Warrior, the game is impossible with out the background... :)
 
As an aside, has anyone played with AAE? You can get some pretty good results, but nothing really compares to the black blacks and bright lines of the vector monitors. :(

I tried AAE, but my video card didn't support the new-fangledy API calls that the software requires.

That's what happens when you spend all your money on obsolete gaming equipment instead of upgrading your PC :)
 
Funny how much interest in the ZVG latley, as it's not in production anymore...
I really didn't expect the overlays to work on a vector monitor but I guess I'm wrong. Armor Attack looks sweeet in mame.137 with the overlay art in place, on a nice bright VGA CRT.
AAE needs a good graphics card and some decent CPU power to run. It does not accept joystick controls and I don't think it can rotate games vertically. There has been no progress on that emulator for quite some time, kinda a dead project stuck with one guy trying to run it.
 
It is funny about the surge in interest in the ZVG lately.

Armor Attack does look real good in AAE or Mame with a bright VGA CRT ....... until you look at the real mccoy. The brightness of the vectors against the black background just can't be beat.

I couldn't stand it any more and had to pick up an Armor Attack...... ;)

I do hope the AAE project picks up though.
 
BTW, the B&W games look sooo good on the B&W monitors, my VectorMame will be B&W. Going to put it in a RipOff cabinet (make it convertible).
 
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