Tinted plexi...Necessary on games with no burn?

GameyMcGame

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For games that we have in our personal game rooms....Assuming they have new or no burn monitors, do we 'need' plexi? Meaning, was it only there to hide burn? I put a no burn monitor (I suppose this will be the new term now that truly 'new' monitors are so damn expensive) into my galaga and I'm thinking 'why the tinted plexi'?
 
Yeah, it makes the blacks look a lot better. I've yet to see a game look worse with tinted plexi, for what it's worth.
 
I put tinted plex on my Tutankham a long time ago because of wicked burn. I've since replaced the monitor but never put the original mirrored plexi back on because I thought the tinted looked better.
 

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I have it on my atari vectors and sys 1 cabs. Only thing it does really is eliminate seeing the bezel. Just crank up the brightness and looks as good as anything else. I guess it sort of smooths out the graphics a bit since edges become darker, i dont know...
 
Well it does hide the bezel and is part of the cabinet style on some games, like Crystal Castles and Missile Command. They wouldn't look "right" without the tint. On the other hand, Dig Dug or Centipede would look strange with an extra layer of tint under the glass bezel.

On the other hand, a LOT of games don't have tint, especially after around 1990 when the tubes started having the tint right on them. Notice how a lot of early tubes look light grey when turned off? Most new tubes already look dark when off. If you add tinted plexi to one of those, you're just cutting out more light and not getting any real benefit. Most of my 25" monitors clearly already have tint on them, and a lot of 1990+ 25" games don't have tint on the glass. (My 91 Virtua Racing's do have tint, my 92 MK and 98 Daytona 2 do not).

My Mspac cocktail has a newer monitor and no tint, and honestly I think very few people would notice the lack of tint because the monitor has plenty of contrast already.

I would lean towards what was original, with the exception of having a NICE monitor, I might remove the tint if it was no longer needed or was damaged.

Wade
 
I bought a reprinted DK bezel a while back...

The screen tinted green.

I had to turn down the green signal.
 
There's definitely one game that looks INFINITELY better with a layer of tinted plexi over it and that is 4-player Gauntlet...
 
MsPac

After cleaning the monitor, the tinted plexi, and the bezel, my MsPacman looks practically brand new (well, with the monitor recapped as well). If you didn't know there was some burn-in you wouldn't be able to tell! I was going to leave it out (figuring it was just something else to get dirty.
 
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