Not worth it when you can get a GBS 8200 scaler for $30.

Yes it's worth getting one, but not at that price

If you can get a TV with SCART input, you have a 15kHz analog RGB monitor. With some simple adaption circuit, CGA can be translated to SCART analog level without scan conversion.

mkarcher wrote on 2025-10-29, 17:13:

If you can get a TV with SCART input, you have a 15kHz analog RGB monitor. With some simple adaption circuit, CGA can be translated to SCART analog level without scan conversion.

I've never seen a SCART TV for sale in Australia. Maybe they were sold here, but if they were I think they're very rare these days.

mkarcher wrote on 2025-10-29, 17:13:

If you can get a TV with SCART input, you have a 15kHz analog RGB monitor. With some simple adaption circuit, CGA can be translated to SCART analog level without scan conversion.

Be careful - not all SCART devices support RGB. SCART is purely a connector standard, not a signal (or indeed signal level) standard.

SCART can support composite and S-Video *or* RGB (using the same pins, hence mutually exclusive), and some do neither.

OP, might help if you share with us what you want to hook up to this monitor. "15kHz" could be anything from IBM CGA (or low-res EGA) to some kind of arcade machine board. Options might differ depending on what it is.

What are your goals for using the monitor?

Light pens and lightguns won't work if you use a scan convertor. But for normal gaming, the sharper image of a VGA monitor might be more appealing. A normal VGA monitor can have the image quality of an expensive PVM/BVM display.

Or are you running an old video signal that made use of composite blending to display additional colors?

Many tvs can be converted to rgb via the jungle chip.

It doesnt take much to make ttl/cga into analog

dionb wrote on Yesterday, 11:51:

Be careful - not all SCART devices support RGB. SCART is purely a connector standard, not a signal (or indeed signal level) stan […]
Show full quote

mkarcher wrote on 2025-10-29, 17:13:

If you can get a TV with SCART input, you have a 15kHz analog RGB monitor. With some simple adaption circuit, CGA can be translated to SCART analog level without scan conversion.

Be careful - not all SCART devices support RGB. SCART is purely a connector standard, not a signal (or indeed signal level) standard.

SCART can support composite and S-Video *or* RGB (using the same pins, hence mutually exclusive), and some do neither.

OP, might help if you share with us what you want to hook up to this monitor. "15kHz" could be anything from IBM CGA (or low-res EGA) to some kind of arcade machine board. Options might differ depending on what it is.

SScorpio wrote on Yesterday, 12:04:

What are your goals for using the monitor?

Light pens and lightguns won't work if you use a scan convertor. But for normal gaming, the sharper image of a VGA monitor might be more appealing. A normal VGA monitor can have the image quality of an expensive PVM/BVM display.

Or are you running an old video signal that made use of composite blending to display additional colors?

I'm going to use it for a Pentium MMX system for Windows 95 and 3.x games, as well as DOS games all the way down to 386. I'm also planning to get a MiSTer, so a 15KHz monitor would also be helpful for the systems that were extracted to be used on a 15KHz monitor, rather than a TV.

The One Demon wrote on Yesterday, 21:26:

[...]

I'm going to use it for a Pentium MMX system for Windows 95 and 3.x games, as well as DOS games all the way down to 386

That sounds a lot like VGA, and VGA starts at 31kHz 😮

Win 3.0 has a CGA driver and Win3.1 can be made to run with CGA (640x200 mono mod@15kHz) by upgrading from an existing Win3.0 install. Theoretically you could then upgrade to Win95 too and use the same driver. But good luck getting any games to run playably with that...

I'm also planning to get a MiSTer, so a 15KHz monitor would also be helpful for the systems that were extracted to be used on a 15KHz monitor, rather than a TV.

That sounds like a more sensible application of a 15kHz monitor.

dionb wrote on Yesterday, 22:01:

That sounds a lot like VGA, and VGA starts at 31kHz :o […]
Show full quote

The One Demon wrote on Yesterday, 21:26:

[...]

I'm going to use it for a Pentium MMX system for Windows 95 and 3.x games, as well as DOS games all the way down to 386

That sounds a lot like VGA, and VGA starts at 31kHz 😮

Win 3.0 has a CGA driver and Win3.1 can be made to run with CGA (640x200 mono mod@15kHz) by upgrading from an existing Win3.0 install. Theoretically you could then upgrade to Win95 too and use the same driver. But good luck getting any games to run playably with that...

I'm also planning to get a MiSTer, so a 15KHz monitor would also be helpful for the systems that were extracted to be used on a 15KHz monitor, rather than a TV.

That sounds like a more sensible application of a 15kHz monitor.

Alright, thanks, I didn't realise they were using 31KHz already, sorry my understanding of this era ain't great as I grew up with consoles and we didn't have a computer until like 2007 or later 🤣 (Sega master system, SNES, N64 PS1, PS2, etc). I'll probably skip the 1084S monitor than, but I've come across a NEC Powermate/Multisync II that looks like a good fit for what I was originally looking for (I think it just came packaged with a Powermate system, not sure if there are any differences beyond the label on the front)

The One Demon wrote on Yesterday, 21:26:

I'm going to use it for a Pentium MMX system for Windows 95 and 3.x games, as well as DOS games all the way down to 386. I'm also planning to get a MiSTer, so a 15KHz monitor would also be helpful for the systems that were extracted to be used on a 15KHz monitor, rather than a TV.

Unless you want to use original lightguns with SNAC on the MiSTer you don't need a 15KHz monitor.

Just edit the mister.ini and enable the scan doubler. That will let any 15KHz console work directly on a VGA monitor with no other scaling occurring. There's no lag, but lightguns don't work due to the changed frequency. You can still use a modern lightgun solution like a Wiimote or RetroShooter just fine with any core that supports lightguns.

forced_scandoubler=1

If you go beyond consoles, you may need to use the real internal scaler which introduces a frame of lag. This is on many various arcade cores as those use all sorts of non standard refresh rates. But even the pros that compete in high level tournaments can't detect the difference in latency.

EDIT:

The One Demon wrote on Yesterday, 22:44:

Alright, thanks, I didn't realise they were using 31KHz already, sorry my understanding of this era ain't great as I grew up with consoles and we didn't have a computer until like 2007 or later 🤣 (Sega master system, SNES, N64 PS1, PS2, etc). I'll probably skip the 1084S monitor than, but I've come across a NEC Powermate/Multisync II that looks like a good fit for what I was originally looking for (I think it just came packaged with a Powermate system, not sure if there are any differences beyond the label on the front)

Ignore the above if you get that monitor. It supports 15KHz and can do 24op and 480i/p natively. So real lightguns might actually work on it, that's as long as the monitor itself doesn't do any extra processing of the signal.