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Potential dmd monitor

connorsdad

By connorsdad
in HyperPin Cabinet Forum

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Agrajag Newbie

Agrajag

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I've not built a pincab yet but I have used a 7 inch USB monitor for the DMD while checking out a few fullscreen tables, and didn't notice any problems. I've got a Haswell i5 overclocked to 4.2GHz though, and an Nvidia 660Ti.

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mjrhp Newbie

mjrhp

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I'm using a Hanns-G HL161ABB - found one on eBay for about $40. I'll bet that these USB monitors use the same physical panel, since they look like the same size and resolution - there probably aren't that many different panels being manufactured at this size. If it is indeed the same panel, I can tell you from experience with the Hanns-G that it will have a rather poor viewing angle range. With the Hanns-G, you really have to be directly head-on to get the best image. When you are head-on, it has a nice image, but if you move a little off-axis (side-to-side or above and below) you lose a lot of contrast (the black level changes to a fairly bright gray). It's acceptable from the typical playing position but not great - you're standing straight in front and slightly above axis, so you lose a little contrast from being off-axis above.

The Hanns-G takes VGA input instead of USB, which I think is an advantage for a gaming rig - I think keeping the USB subsystem busy with continuous video data can have a noticeable performance impact on some systems.

I've been trying to find a good modern IPS laptop display in the same size class - I think that's going to be the best bet short of a real plasma pinball DMD (which of course has drawbacks of its own in terms of price and complexity). But so far I haven't found a good source of stats on the raw panels. I'll probably have to look for reviews of laptops with displays in the desired size range and figure out which panels they use.

One interesting data point: I was in a local arcade this weekend and happened across a Medieval Madness tricked out with a ColorDMD. It's a pretty nice mod. The ColorDMD site says they use a "standard laptop LCD panel", but they don't have details on which one (understandably - they don't want make it too easy for any potential competitors :)). Anyway, the one they're using is quite good on viewing angle - I made a point of observing it from a wide range of angles and I didn't see any drop-off in brightness or contrast from anywhere I could stand. So clearly a panel with the right characteristics *exists* - just have to figure out which one it is!

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mjrhp Newbie

mjrhp

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Mmm ... interesting about that Laptop LCD panel the Color DMD guys use ... they don't want to reveal their secret .... mmmm .... now I want to find out!! lol

I bet there is some information in the panel itself ... just need one people that have it to look it up. :D

Well, I'm not sure they're keeping a secret per se - they might just assume no one is interested in that level of technical detail on their Web FAQ, and I haven't actually asked them. :)

But, yes, if there's anyone here who owns one of these things, it's just a matter of looking at the back of the panel and finding the manufacturer labeling. I should have asked the attendants at the arcade where I saw the MM to open up the backbox and let me take a look. :)

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vampirolatino2 Newbie

vampirolatino2

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So am I right in thinking all I need is one of those displays (£40ish on the bay) and one of those controller boards (£20ish on the bay)?

It says 12v so could it be powered via the 12v line?

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

Yeap. This will be my next project/upgrade from my Plasma DMD Cherry (almost dying) that I have. Why? Because I want color separation in each game, it make them unique and fun to look. That thread have a nice start in the color scheme in some games, I will use that to color them in PinMame.

I have a dead laptop somewhere ... let me see if I can use that screen. If not, that LG LCD looks great, good contrast. I will be buying the controller that have the HDMI output or DVI, will see.

As for powering it, I will be using my 12V PSU, it have plenty of Amps to all the toys, so 4 more Amps that this takes will be ok. I think it have 12+Amps in it. I will use a power connector/converter to power the controller board :)

this was the picture that sold me:

post-92519-142870628148_thumb.jpg

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mjrhp Newbie

mjrhp

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Found it :D

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/diy-addams-family-poor-mans-color-dmd

Have fun peps!!! I think I will do the same.

Good find! That looks very promising on the panel. And all the ideas for color settings for different games are a great bonus - I've been wondering if you could get a decent color effect by playing with the brightness palette, but haven't had the time to experiment with it. Looks like a fun enhancement, and another small point in favor of LCD over a real DMD.

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mjrhp Newbie

mjrhp

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Sadly I'm afraid not. Don't know if is a limiter of VpinMame or it need to be modified. We can contact the authors of VpinMame and ask, maybe?

I took a look at the source code, and it looks pretty trivial to add this feature. There's a point in the initialization (src/wpc/core.c) where it generates the DMD color palette, which it currently does by using percentages of the brightness of the base color. It looks easy to change that to use a set configuration from the registry for each brightness level instead. The only complication looks to be anti-aliasing; I'd have to investigate further to figure out how calculate the interpolation points (although if that turns out to be hard, an easy solution would be to just disable anti-aliasing if a pre-set palette is in use). The caveat is that I've only looked at the code so far and haven't set up a build configuration - I've seen a couple of threads suggesting it's tricky to set that up. I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to play with this, since I'm busy with my physical cab build at the moment.

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vampirolatino2 Newbie

vampirolatino2

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I took a look at the source code, and it looks pretty trivial to add this feature. There's a point in the initialization (src/wpc/core.c) where it generates the DMD color palette, which it currently does by using percentages of the brightness of the base color. It looks easy to change that to use a set configuration from the registry for each brightness level instead. The only complication looks to be anti-aliasing; I'd have to investigate further to figure out how calculate the interpolation points (although if that turns out to be hard, an easy solution would be to just disable anti-aliasing if a pre-set palette is in use). The caveat is that I've only looked at the code so far and haven't set up a build configuration - I've seen a couple of threads suggesting it's tricky to set that up. I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to play with this, since I'm busy with my physical cab build at the moment.

Mmm... interesting, I didn't look at the code. Let me see what you are saying. Make sense .. when you have some free time investigate further ok, I wil see what I can dig too.

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vampirolatino2 Newbie

vampirolatino2

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You are right ... you can see the construction of the dotcolor (on and off) ... the key to make it happen is around there.

Changing the Look of the DMD

----------------------------

Changing Color:

Every dot in the DMD uses an RGB(red, green, blue) color triplet to specify

the color of each dot to display. To change colors properly, you must know

the appropriate RGB numbers of the color you wish to use.

For example, PinMAME's default is a yellowish color: Red = 255, Green = 224,

Blue = 32

For an orange color, you could use: Red = 255, Green = 64, Blue = 0

For red dots, you could use: Red = 255, Green = 0, Blue = 0

Experiment with the #'s, until you find colors that look good to you!

Changing the Intensity of the DMD Dots:

The DMD uses 3 levels of intensity (100%,66%,33%) plus an "unlit" state

to create graphics on the display. 100% are dots that are fully lit,

where as 66%, 33%, 0% will each be darker than the fully lit dot,

by a certain percentage.

You can control these percentages yourself to change the appearance

of the DMD. You can change the intensities, using dmd_perc66, dmd_perc33

and dmd_perc0. You cannot change a fully lit dot's intensity. It must

always be 100%.

For example, to make the DMD Dots much closer in intensity, you could adjust

the settings to (100%,90%,80%), by setting dmd_perc66 = 90, dmd_perc33 = 80.

This would result in animations where the contrast between each of the 3

intensity levels would be minimal.

To make the contrast even more drastic, you could use (100%,50%,20%),

by setting dmd_perc66 = 50, dmd_perc33 = 20.

These are just examples to demonstrate the functionality. Using these

#'s, would probably not look very good! :)

As with the Colors, experiment with the intensity levels, until you find

#'s that look good to you!

So .. this means that we need to change the color of each contrast 100, 66, 33 and 0

another thread about the same request, like the one I made there :)

link: http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=26193

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  • 3 weeks later...
connorsdad Newbie

connorsdad

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Found it :D

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/diy-addams-family-poor-mans-color-dmd

Have fun peps!!! I think I will do the same.

Received my controller board today so just had to try it out :)

I ran a hdmi from my G4D cab and moved the dmd over to the screen for test purposes, very happy with the results :)

Long boring video but you get the gist of it.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

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