Please post your impressions of the system for those who weren't able to attend.

Yes, please do!

It is safe to say that I was very impressed.

I think alot of people didn't get a chance to play because some tall guy with curly hair was hogging the machine all day...

Graphics looked great.

The LCD made a huge difference. I noticed some things that I had never seen before in the game. Very crisp very cool!

The loading screen was very cool, compared to the old test pattern / white screen.

I don't know if it was the upgraded sound system or if it was the Nucore software, but the audio was more clear in my opinion. You could easily hear and understand all the great sound clips.

Juke Box was great!

It was great putting a face with the names.

FatTony wrote:The LCD made a huge difference. I noticed some things that I had never seen before in the game. Very crisp very cool!

Er, what?? Not taking anything away from Nucore, but I thought the LCD looked just as good/bad as a regular CRT in good working condition. Maybe the LCD had a *smidge* less contrast, but that was really hard to tell at PATZ since it was really bright in there.

Regardless, I, too, was impressed by Nucore. Very very tough to distinguish between the original and Nucore.

I now have my rfm running the original computer and monitor sitting right next to my epsiode 1 running nucore and lcd. My original rfm monitor is one of the best I've seen in a pin2k system and the lcd does blow it away IMO. The color saturation is far better. The contrast ratio is slightly better. The fact that you don't have scanlines also makes for a better picture IMO. There is only one issue with running an LCD over a CGA arcade monitor. The graphics on the lcd are a little blocky compared to the original. If it were a video game and the main focus was the monitor I might choose a high quality crt to the lcd. In this case where the LCD is secondary to watching the ball on the playfield the lcd is a clear winner IMO.

Your opinion may vary

Chuck wrote:I now have my rfm running the original computer and monitor sitting right next to my epsiode 1 running nucore and lcd. My original rfm monitor is one of the best I've seen in a pin2k system and the lcd does blow it away IMO. The color saturation is far better. The contrast ratio is slightly better. The fact that you don't have scanlines also makes for a better picture IMO. There is only one issue with running an LCD over a CGA arcade monitor. The graphics on the lcd are a little blocky compared to the original. If it were a video game and the main focus was the monitor I might choose a high quality crt to the lcd. In this case where the LCD is secondary to watching the ball on the playfield the lcd is a clear winner IMO.

Your opinion may vary

Chuck,

I totally agree. I have a HUO RFM with under 2000 total plays so imagine the monitor as being one of the best out there and the images on your lcd screen were super crisp and sharp. BLEW the original monitor away!

As far as the animation the nucore system was a HELL of a lot smoother than my original system. It NEVER seemed to bog down like my original.

Eric A.

The new graphics pipeline uses things the original developers didn't have back in 98.

Wait til you see the anti-aliasing on the LCD. Makes it look even better. Take a day trip over to the zoo and I'll show you =)

Do any of you guys have a video amplifier on your original P2K monitor? Putting one on mine made a huge difference in video quality - the contrast is much higher without having to set the brightness too high. Black is black (no raster glow) and colors are vivid now. I got the one from Ultimarc that they use for MAME cabinets. I got the idea from Pinrepair.com.

-Matt
RFM, SWE1, TAF, TZ

I don't have one. Until I installed the lcd in my swe1 cab I thought my rfm monitor looked great We did add gamma adjustment to nucore which is basically a software version fo what you're talking about. Plus the gamma adjustment will allow you to adjust the drive of each color independently. Which is important if the color balance of your monitor is off.

Chuck wrote:I don't have one. Until I installed the lcd in my swe1 cab I thought my rfm monitor looked great We did add gamma adjustment to nucore which is basically a software version fo what you're talking about. Plus the gamma adjustment will allow you to adjust the drive of each color independently. Which is important if the color balance of your monitor is off.

The gamma adjustments will certainly be a huge benefit of using the Nucore! But the way I understand it is that the VGA output from computer video cards is limited to 1V compared to what the arcade monitors can accept (5V from a JAMMA board, for instance) and I don't think the gamma will help raise the output, only optimize what range was already available. Using the video amp restores the full dynamic range which makes bright objects a whole lot brighter and helps bring out the darker details.

I don't know if this is the case with the original Ducksan monitors that came in P2K - they might properly decode the 1V signal (some montors have a switch), but whatever monitor that is in my P2K now doesn't have the option. Pinrepair seems to indicate that the original monitors were set up for a 5V signal.

http://www.pinrepair.com/pin2000/index.htm#monitor

The one I used:

http://www.ultimarc.com/vidamp.html

It made a world of difference on my ancient technology arcade monitor, that's for sure. For people who want to stick with the original monitor, but get better picture quality out of it, this is a cheap way to go with great results.

I should have said no matter how good the gamma is that the hardware amp will yield better results.

So I would suggest people trying gamma first then if that doesn't do it use thye hardware amp.

Chuck wrote:I should have said no matter how good the gamma is that the hardware amp will yield better results.

So I would suggest people trying gamma first then if that doesn't do it use thye hardware amp.

Hmm, reminds me of a 'discussion' we had on previous occasions..

I hope I didn't step on any toes - that certainly wasn't my intent. I'm very excited about everything you are working on, and will be in line to buy whatever type of product you come out with! One of the things that annoys me the most about P2K is the choppy animation during explosions and it looks like you've solved that and then some...

mjannusch wrote:I hope I didn't step on any toes - that certainly wasn't my intent. I'm very excited about everything you are working on, and will be in line to buy whatever type of product you come out with! One of the things that annoys me the most about P2K is the choppy animation during explosions and it looks like you've solved that and then some...

You certainly didn't step on anyone's toes. The more suggestions to improve pinball 2000 machines the better. Steve just had to get a little dig in since he and I have discussed this issue ad nauseum. =) Steve and I spend an average of an hour a day (sometimes three hours) on the phone discussing all things nucore. If I'm really lucky Steve will go into the story on how he actually became a hippy