Video card scaling is good on modern cards with modern drivers and operating systems.

But we are interested in MS-DOS / W98 games, this is VOGONS after all 😀

So we are trying to get some database going that list monitors that CAN letterbox 4:4 VGA signals without any issues.

Dell U2412M

4:3

5:4

16:10

Aspect Ratio Selection

Youtube showing windows 95 in action, I shot this in a dark room so you cant really tell where the screen is cut off for the 4:3 aspect ratio, obviously it looks heaps better in real ife, I think its more usefull to show how good a 386 can run windows 95 if you give it enough ram, afast disk controller/hard drive combo with a windows accelerator card.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laMzPYhFSHE&feature=youtu.be

Excellent!

This does indeed look pretty amazing. Could you show off some games in action? Something like Doom preferably. CRT monitors are really smooth with that game where as TFT monitors appear a little bit slower.

I'll do a dos video later, I spent most of today playing around with a new camera to shoot this, like ive said before the monitor sometimes goes blank at random when running a game, you can exit the game and restart it, the monitor does'nt always click into action, I suspect a DVI card will fix this but it would'nt be an option for an older 386/486 or earlier machines, I never had any troubles with windows.

Amazing! Thanks, dirkmirk! 😀

Is Dell U2412M an LED monitor?

Yes

Also IPS panel too.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdet … en&sku=320-2676

Best monitor for pre-widescreen gaming - although very hard to find now (at least in good condition) - is probably the Diamond Mitsubishi range. I had the 22" version and the 17" for my second machine, back in the day.

The 22" was easily the best choice for the professional gamer back in 2001. The superbright button switched between just greatly increased brightness of colour (even made Starcraft look amazing) and a cinema bright mode which worked just as well.

Picture quality was amazing - one of the best (if not the best) available on a CRT. 1600x1200 ran at something crazy like 120Hz or 100Hz (i dont remember now). The only downside? They weigh a ton and are extremely deep.

I hear good things about the lacie electron blues also - but I have not owned one. Any large CRT on ebay for years now are usually pickup only, and I haven't seen a Diamond Mitsubishi for a long, long time.

Small Update:

I booted my cyrix 5x86 system into windows and 1600X1200 looked fine running off the Voodoo3, however, Keen 1 & 4 still did'nt display a picture.

I then turned to my P3 700 with a 9800SE running off DVI, booted into dos and hey presto, we had action and keen looked good, Tried prince of persia and it worked, better still, those artifacts(vertical lines) were gone, everything looks nice and smooth.

IMO, Its definately a good idea to run DVI into this monitor, however this would rule out most machines under pentium class, gives me some considering to do, Do I run my old 386 & 5x86 into a brand new old stock 17" CRT and the Newer pentium pro and pentium3 into the 24" DELL?? I think im going to head down that road and do most gaming on the pentium3 and use the older machines for a bit of nostalga/testing or to run the odd game that dont work properly.

I have a Dell U2410, the U2412M's bigger brother. Well not bigger but older I guess, you can still buy the U2410 but it will set you back more about $550. And that is what makes the U2412M so attractive, it's a fraction of the price while still having good picture quality of a IPS panel. The U2410 does however, have slightly better color quality, cool interface buttons and a slew of hookups, just in case you want to hook up your NES to it. 😁

I havent had any issues like dirkmirk has running VGA, but of course he has different hardware. Sounds like refresh rate went out of range. I don't think the U2412M will disappoint, especially if you play new AND old games, and the price only sweetens the deal. Go and buy a one of these two monitors today, just let your budget pick the one to get. 😉

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdet … en&sku=320-8277