Portrait monitor stands much cheaper than they used to be!

[slotsmagic]

I was working in the garage and had a spare old Korean 2560x1440 monitor sat there doing nothing - upgraded my main rig to a 4K panel a while back. This monitor had a broken stand, but I wall mounted it a few years back as monitor stands were expensive (except for those ones you vice onto a table, but given the weight of this monitor I never did that).

I see proper stands have now come down a fair bit in price, so have put it back in service. It's not ideal for everyone I know, and doesn't even fully work on this setup (my little Alienware Alpha in the front room only outputs 1080p maximum, so in portrait mode I'm limited to 1920px vertical despite the monitor being capable of 2560px vertical). Might move it to a better PC at some point for full resolution but this works for now.

Anyway, £23.95 of Amazon Prime later and I'm now running this as my office PC. OK, it's weird. But assuming you have a monitor with VESA mounts it might be worth playing about with.

Toilet roll added for scale (this is a 27" panel).

Even a basic 1920x1080 full HD panel, which can be bought cheaply (or you might have a spare knocking around) will provide a not insignificant 1920 vertical pixels - a lot more than 1440p panels running in landscape, and the extra physical size you get from mounting in portrait.

Edited November 18, 2020 by slotsmagic

[slasher]

Looks decent.

We seem to be having Happy Hour overdose here.

Posh git with bog roll, and Trump to wipe your trump marks away!

[slotsmagic]

4 minutes ago, slasher said:

Looks decent.

We seem to be having Happy Hour overdose here.

Posh git with bog roll, and Trump to wipe your trump marks away!

Wanted to start with a layout that I knew had lovely crisp artwork so I could judge how bad the monitor scaling 1080x1920 to 1440x2560 was. Turns out the scaling isn't great, if anything I would be better with a cheaper 1080p panel mounted this way. This was almost going to be scrapped though

As for the bog roll, a family member posted it to us as a joke. First thing that came to hand for a size comparison since most people know what size a bog roll is

The monitor looks rather washed out in the photo, but in reality it's lovely and clear (IPS panel), but my phone has made a hash of photographing it

Edited November 18, 2020 by slotsmagic

[slasher]

Yeah, monitors don't exactly photograph very well, so have to use your imagination a bit.

[serene02]

That's where it's at fella

Ideally you would have a 5:4 aspect ratio in portrait mode.  You just don't seem to be able to buy non widescreen monitors any longer.  Still that looks awesome mate

J

[slotsmagic]

17 hours ago, A:E said:

That's where it's at fella

Ideally you would have a 5:4 aspect ratio in portrait mode.  You just don't seem to be able to buy non widescreen monitors any longer.  Still that looks awesome mate

J

I'd probably struggle to get a decent 5:4 panel but 16:10 is still a thing and would definitely be an improvement

Got this running a bit better now, still can't get 1440x2560 which is odd, but I seem to recall the monitor might have only supported higher resolutions over DisplayPort. I did move from HDMI to DP when I first got the screen and that was probably the reason. The Alpha I'm using down here only has HDMI so I'm a bit limited there. Windows had defaulted to 150% scaling but with that switched back to 100%, it's actually pretty usable. I'd much rather run at native resolution but this isn't too bad.

I'm debating what to do now. Since I've got a few real machines, I'm wondering if I stick with those for playing for cash, and rather than going for a full MFME cabinet with payouts, I just build myself a button panel... or maybe a simple bar-top cabinet with buttons and speakers? I've got a set of spare buttons here from a Betcom (yuk), including circular ones for machines with DOND type boards.

Plenty to ponder

Edited November 19, 2020 by slotsmagic

[slasher]

Which snorecom have you broken up then?

[slotsmagic]

3 hours ago, slasher said:

Which snorecom have you broken up then?

No idea which machines, don't recognise the decals but have barely touched a pub machine in the last 10 years. Got these very cheap from a local supplier I get on with (bought a few machines off him in the past, as well as spares, and visited his arcade a few times).

In fact it would appear to be two sets worth - 14 square buttons, 4 small round, 2 larger round, an even larger disco style, and a triangle. 21 in total, should be sufficient for pretty much any MFME layouts  

Will probably scan all the decals in as they'll all fit in an A4 scanner and then chuck them, and just use a coloured plastic filter or something in each one. 

Got them for something else but do like the idea of a button panel... keep being tempted to build a MAME cab too though, and that wouldn't make a lot of sense in monetary terms as my gaming rig is still pretty good and plays anything I throw at it.

Edited November 19, 2020 by slotsmagic