Looking for suggestions for LCD monitors for Rush 2049 project...

[purbeast]

I am planning on converting both of my Rush 2049 cabinets into emulation racing machines in the not too distant future. I want them to be able to play modern racers so I am planning on replacing the CRT's with LCD monitors.

I am looking for recommendations on what to put in there.

I was initially looking at the Unico 26" monitors because they would basically be perfect, however from what I have gathered, they will not be able to display 16:9 HD content properly in their 16:9 aspect ratio, and not in HD. I think if it could even display them in the 16:9 aspect ratio (with bars on top/bottom) and it wasn't even actually 1080p, I would be okay with that since the monitors aren't even that large so it would still probably look just fine. However from what I've gathered, that isn't even an option, so if someone can prove me wrong that would be my ideal monitor so that 4:3 games will be full screen and just aesthetically it will be the perfect fit.

Aside from that though, I am open to a 16:10 monitor or a 16:9 monitor. I basically want what would fill the stock 27" 4:3 space the best with the least amount of empty space above/below from a physical point of view, but also the empty space on the sides and/or the top/bottom when actually gaming on it.

Thanks.

 

[CamoYoshi]

I have a pair of 16:9 LCDs and pre-cut bezels from some 2049 cabs that someone hacked up when I picked up a couple cabs a little while ago. If you want them they're yours for the price of shipping.

 

[streetfighterken]

Why both? Do you plan on playing linked thru emulation? Seems complicated but I'm no expert. Do modern racing games support LAN? My advice would be to use one for 4:3 and the other for 16:9 if you're not linking. Playing 4:3 games on a 16:9 that already doesn't fit the cabinet will look super-scuffed. And playing HD content downscaled for 4:3 loses a lot of fidelity.

 

[purbeast]

I have a pair of 16:9 LCDs and pre-cut bezels from some 2049 cabs that someone hacked up when I picked up a couple cabs a little while ago. If you want them they're yours for the price of shipping.

Wow man thanks. Do you happen to have any pics of them and/or know the sizes of those? The bezel part is actually what I am really wondering about making look "good" and not all hacky with a non 4:3 monitor.

Why both? Do you plan on playing linked thru emulation? Seems complicated but I'm no expert. Do modern racing games support LAN? My advice would be to use one for 4:3 and the other for 16:9 if you're not linking. Playing 4:3 games on a 16:9 that already doesn't fit the cabinet will look super-scuffed. And playing HD content downscaled for 4:3 loses a lot of fidelity.

Yes they are going to be linked together.

And not to be a dick about anything, but I'm not really asking for people's opinions about 4:3 vs 16:9. I know the tradeoffs as I have 4 cabinets with CRT's in them right now. I can't play modern games like Mario Kart or Cruisn Blast on the 4:3 CRT medium res monitor so I'm going to be swapping for an LCD of sorts, which is what I am asking for suggestions on in this thread. I know 4:3 will be "boxed" and be smaller, but I'm guessing the newer games will get a lot of play. This is also why I was wondering about 16:10 monitors so there is less of that.

EDIT:

I would be VERY curious if anyone has a Unico monitor hooked up non HDMI to a PC, who could try to see what a 16:9 modern game looks like on it. Someone in the Unico thread did it with HDMI however it doesn't let you adjust the size of the picture when using HDMI, the option is grayed out. So it potentially could work for 16:9 content to be it's normal aspect ratio on those monitors, however it won't be 1080p, but if I can change my PC resolution to be like 720p or something and that can be "native" on those after adjusting size, that tradeoff may be worth it to me.

 

[CamoYoshi]

Wow man thanks. Do you happen to have any pics of them and/or know the sizes of those? The bezel part is actually what I am really wondering about making look "good" and not all hacky with a non 4:3 monitor.

I will take some photos. The bezels have been cut specifically to fit the 32" 1080p LCDs that my 2049 cabs came with. I have both the LCDs and the bezels. They are not pretty cuts, but they will work for what you want.

EDIT:

I would be VERY curious if anyone has a Unico monitor hooked up non HDMI to a PC, who could try to see what a 16:9 modern game looks like on it. Someone in the Unico thread did it with HDMI however it doesn't let you adjust the size of the picture when using HDMI, the option is grayed out. So it potentially could work for 16:9 content to be it's normal aspect ratio on those monitors, however it won't be 1080p, but if I can change my PC resolution to be like 720p or something and that can be "native" on those after adjusting size, that tradeoff may be worth it to me.

I have a 26" Unico Phoenix and could try this out as well.

 

[purbeast]

I will take some photos. The bezels have been cut specifically to fit the 32" 1080p LCDs that my 2049 cabs came with. I have both the LCDs and the bezels. They are not pretty cuts, but they will work for what you want.



I have a 26" Unico Phoenix and could try this out as well.

Awesome man thanks a bunch for both of these!

Here's where the discussion about it started in the Unico thread just for reference so you can see what I'm talking about:

Post in thread 'Unico phoenix monitors - Opinions?'

Jun 4, 2025

Does anyone have any idea if the Unico 26" monitor is able to display 16:9 content in the correct aspect ratio of 16:9, with black bars on top?

I am in the market for an LCD because I'm turning my Rush 2049 cabs into emulation cabs, and if I can get a 4:3 monitor in there to play 4:3 racing games in full screen, but also get 16:9 games to be basically the exact same size they would be if I had a wide screen monitor in there. However the 4:3 games won't be "smaller" like they would be on a 16:9 monitor with bars on the side.

I have one of these monitors on my work desk with a PC...

• mattsoft

He has a screen shot of Outrun 2 running on it and you can see it's stretched vertically to fill the screen, and he has another pic showing that the screen adjustment section (where you change screen size with the remote controls) are grayed out. And he didn't have a non-HDMI way to test it out either.

Much appreciated!

 

[Zepherino]

I have a ULM26 on hand which I haven't used in a long time, but frankly I wouldn't recommend it anyways. Too expensive, and the low resolution, slow pixel response time, and unusual subpixel layout (it's RGB, but turned 90deg...) has a negative effect on image quality. The only benefits are it's 4:3 shape and low input lag. I also recall that HDMI has awful scaling problems in Windows, so I imagine wide screen content wont look great.

If you have the space, the best fitting monitor would probably be any of the 16:10 30" 1600p monitors that were available from several companies (most commonly Dell and HP). Assuming you have a good scaler/doubler for 1600p, this size is comparable to a 27" CRT in vertical screen space. I've done this with a few DDR cabs which also use 27" CRTs

 

[purbeast]

I have a ULM26 on hand which I haven't used in a long time, but frankly I wouldn't recommend it anyways. Too expensive, and the low resolution, slow pixel response time, and unusual subpixel layout (it's RGB, but turned 90deg...) has a negative effect on image quality. The only benefits are it's 4:3 shape and low input lag. I also recall that HDMI has awful scaling problems in Windows, so I imagine wide screen content wont look great.

If you have the space, the best fitting monitor would probably be any of the 16:10 30" 1600p monitors that were available from several companies (most commonly Dell and HP). Assuming you have a good scaler/doubler for 1600p, this size is comparable to a 27" CRT in vertical screen space. I've done this with a few DDR cabs which also use 27" CRTs

Thank you for that. I did see some of them but I did not think a 30" one would fit in my Rush space without any modifications to the blue bezel around the CRT. Or are you saying that it will fit but may be cut off on the sides?

When you say have a good scaler/doubler, what exactly do you mean? This is going to be running directly from a PC so there won't be any arcade hardware involved in the display pipe. It will be PC directly to the monitor.

Also in regards to the Unico, I wouldn't be using HDMI if I did end up going that route since you can't adjust the screen size. I would be going VGA most likely.

 

[Zepherino]

The 30" would need modifications to the bezel for sure (wasnt sure until I glanced at what a 2049 cab looked like). 27" with a wider bezel on top and bottom is probably more appropriate if you're OK with the smaller vertical screen space (you may not have a choice if you dont want to cut the bezel).

The scaler/doubler comment was mainly directed at running real hardware with fixed resolutions. If you're running only a PC you can disregard since you can control scaling/resolution in software.

VGA on the ULM26 has some major and unavoidable problems with gamma, so colors (red in particular) will look overblown and washed out. On top of that, the resolution of the panel is very low, so squishing an image to 16:9 just wont look very good, even if you somehow made that work.

 

[CamoYoshi]

Awesome man thanks a bunch for both of these!

Here's where the discussion about it started in the Unico thread just for reference so you can see what I'm talking about:

Post in thread 'Unico phoenix monitors - Opinions?'

Jun 4, 2025

Does anyone have any idea if the Unico 26" monitor is able to display 16:9 content in the correct aspect ratio of 16:9, with black bars on top?

I am in the market for an LCD because I'm turning my Rush 2049 cabs into emulation cabs, and if I can get a 4:3 monitor in there to play 4:3 racing games in full screen, but also get 16:9 games to be basically the exact same size they would be if I had a wide screen monitor in there. However the 4:3 games won't be "smaller" like they would be on a 16:9 monitor with bars on the side.

I have one of these monitors on my work desk with a PC...

• mattsoft

He has a screen shot of Outrun 2 running on it and you can see it's stretched vertically to fill the screen, and he has another pic showing that the screen adjustment section (where you change screen size with the remote controls) are grayed out. And he didn't have a non-HDMI way to test it out either.

Much appreciated!

Here is a photo of the cut bezel + LCD. I have two of these. Feel free to DM me if you are interested and to get a shipping quote. They are 1080p60 32" with VGA input and they accept 640x480 over VGA as well. You will need to rig up a mount with wood or a VESA mount but it shouldn't be too hard.

 

[purbeast]

Here is a photo of the cut bezel + LCD. I have two of these. Feel free to DM me if you are interested and to get a shipping quote. They are 1080p60 32" with VGA input and they accept 640x480 over VGA as well. You will need to rig up a mount with wood or a VESA mount but it shouldn't be too hard.

Thanks for the pics man that looks decent.

I was trying to figure out exactly what was modified on that and I couldn't even tell what was cut. Can you let me know just so I can pinpoint it lol? I'm surprised those 32" fit like that to be honest I would have thought they would be way wider than that.

Also it looks like the 32" is still a bit larger to fit as far as width goes (I see the bezel on the right side in the other space next to the monitor cutout) so does that mean that like part of the screen would be cut off the whole time if using those monitors?

 

[purbeast]

I have a ULM26 on hand which I haven't used in a long time, but frankly I wouldn't recommend it anyways. Too expensive, and the low resolution, slow pixel response time, and unusual subpixel layout (it's RGB, but turned 90deg...) has a negative effect on image quality. The only benefits are it's 4:3 shape and low input lag. I also recall that HDMI has awful scaling problems in Windows, so I imagine wide screen content wont look great.

If you have the space, the best fitting monitor would probably be any of the 16:10 30" 1600p monitors that were available from several companies (most commonly Dell and HP). Assuming you have a good scaler/doubler for 1600p, this size is comparable to a 27" CRT in vertical screen space. I've done this with a few DDR cabs which also use 27" CRTs

Do you have any specific model numbers to look for in the 16:10 30" 1600p monitors?

I have been googling a little bit and found a few but I don't know if they are any good for gaming or anything.

The HP Z30i looks somewhat promising I think, it'll just be tough to find one if I did go that route.

 

[Zepherino]

The LCD panels are pretty much all the same no matter the model (LG), and every model is also pretty old (except the U3023, but is expensive and still discontinued) so I don't think a specific model matters too much. I would just buy whatever is cheap and available.

These monitors are pre-2010 era wide gamut productivity displays, so don't expect good gaming performance. The use case for these monitors is purely for the fit. I personally used a Dell (the U3011 I think it was) and at least the input lag for those were decent at around 10ms when I tested it. The only ones I would avoid would be the models released by Apple and Gateway.

 

[CamoYoshi]

Thanks for the pics man that looks decent.

I was trying to figure out exactly what was modified on that and I couldn't even tell what was cut. Can you let me know just so I can pinpoint it lol? I'm surprised those 32" fit like that to be honest I would have thought they would be way wider than that.

Also it looks like the 32" is still a bit larger to fit as far as width goes (I see the bezel on the right side in the other space next to the monitor cutout) so does that mean that like part of the screen would be cut off the whole time if using those monitors?

Apologies that the photo doesn't show it super well. The inside edges have been cut to fit the 32" monitor; if they were not cut, the bezel would sit on top of the monitor in that photo.

Yes it will have some cut off but the previous owner just adjusted the image to make it 4:3 and *technically* off center to fit it appropriately within the bezel. When installed on a cab it looks very good. You could also have it adjusted to have a more narrow 16:9 image as well.

 

[purbeast]

The LCD panels are pretty much all the same no matter the model (LG), and every model is also pretty old (except the U3023, but is expensive and still discontinued) so I don't think a specific model matters too much. I would just buy whatever is cheap and available.

These monitors are pre-2010 era wide gamut productivity displays, so don't expect good gaming performance. The use case for these monitors is purely for the fit. I personally used a Dell (the U3011 I think it was) and at least the input lag for those were decent at around 10ms when I tested it. The only ones I would avoid would be the models released by Apple and Gateway.

Awesome thanks.

10ms is fine for me that is what I play with for my fighting games on modern consoles and I don't notice the lag. I saw the one I mentioned appears to have 20ms of lag, which even that, is fine for me for racing games I don't even think I would notice that as it's like one frame if at 60fps.

EDIT:

A quick google search resulted in that it looks like the U3011 actually had 23ms of input lag or so.

 

[purbeast]

Apologies that the photo doesn't show it super well. The inside edges have been cut to fit the 32" monitor; if they were not cut, the bezel would sit on top of the monitor in that photo.

Yes it will have some cut off but the previous owner just adjusted the image to make it 4:3 and *technically* off center to fit it appropriately within the bezel. When installed on a cab it looks very good. You could also have it adjusted to have a more narrow 16:9 image as well.

Ah okay yeah I know what you mean now.

I will keep you posted about this. I want to see if I can find a 16:10 monitor at a decent price because ideally that is what I would like to go with since that is really 4:2.5 so to get to 4.3 it would have minimal bars on the side, and then 16:9 would still fill the entire width of screen with minimal bars on top.

If I have no luck however, I may hit you up. I am not going to begin working on this for about 2 months probably so it may not be super soon or anything. I'm just trying to get the planning started for it now.

 

[CamoYoshi]

Ah okay yeah I know what you mean now.

I will keep you posted about this. I want to see if I can find a 16:10 monitor at a decent price because ideally that is what I would like to go with since that is really 4:2.5 so to get to 4.3 it would have minimal bars on the side, and then 16:9 would still fill the entire width of screen with minimal bars on top.

If I have no luck however, I may hit you up. I am not going to begin working on this for about 2 months probably so it may not be super soon or anything. I'm just trying to get the planning started for it now.

If you want just the bezels I'm happy to pass them on. I don't want to throw them away but they are useless for me since they look horrible when paired with a 4:3 CRT on the cabs.

 

[purbeast]

If you want just the bezels I'm happy to pass them on. I don't want to throw them away but they are useless for me since they look horrible when paired with a 4:3 CRT on the cabs.

Awesome I appreciate that too. I will keep that in mind as well. If I end up getting a monitor in the not too distant future I can see how it fits with it stock before snagging those from you.

 

[Zepherino]

Awesome thanks.

10ms is fine for me that is what I play with for my fighting games on modern consoles and I don't notice the lag. I saw the one I mentioned appears to have 20ms of lag, which even that, is fine for me for racing games I don't even think I would notice that as it's like one frame if at 60fps.

EDIT:

A quick google search resulted in that it looks like the U3011 actually had 23ms of input lag or so.

TBH the bigger issue with this monitor will be pixel response/refresh time anyways. High speed scenes look a bit blurry, and I struggle with this when I increase the note scroll speed in DDR/ITG. For racing it may give a smear effect, although I don't know how severe.

I haven't looked into the testing methodologies of how 23ms was determined, but I personally measured a U3011 with a Leo Bodnar tester (which is based off a photo diode, similar to the Time Sleuth) many years back, which is where I got my number. This was done at 1080p since Leo Bodnar devices are locked to 1 resolution. Time Sleuths can test different resolutions, but it's probably not worth the effort for me to dig out my gear and retest everything.

I tend to ignore numbers I claimed online unless I can verify how they tested for a variety of reasons.

 

[purbeast]

TBH the bigger issue with this monitor will be pixel response/refresh time anyways. High speed scenes look a bit blurry, and I struggle with this when I increase the note scroll speed in DDR/ITG. For racing it may give a smear effect, although I don't know how severe.

I haven't looked into the testing methodologies of how 23ms was determined, but I personally measured a U3011 with a Leo Bodnar tester (which is based off a photo diode, similar to the Time Sleuth) many years back, which is where I got my number. This was done at 1080p since Leo Bodnar devices are locked to 1 resolution. Time Sleuths can test different resolutions, but it's probably not worth the effort for me to dig out my gear and retest everything.

I tend to ignore numbers I claimed online unless I can verify how they tested for a variety of reasons.

Gotcha with the input lag, and yeah if you measured it like that, then I'd say that is proof haha.

Do all panels of that era have pretty poor response rates? Or does it vary depending on the actual LCD?

EDIT:

Any experience/opinions on the HP Z30i ?