Console gaming on your monitor

[OhHenry]

When the all the tvs are hogged up at my place. I am forced to bring my console right next to my computer so I can connect it through my ATI 9700pro AIW. I am using the ATI Mutimedia Center (MMC) program to allow me to play my console on my monitor. I notice that it does not look clear or sharp as it does on tv which prevents me from enjoying my games. I can clearly see difference between S-video and component on my monitor then the tv although I am wondering why it looks so much better on my tv then on my crt monitor. Is it the program (MMC) I'm using, my video card, my connection (which is an external input connector for video and output that runs to my card) or its my monitor? Also, would a VGA converter help (or i think that's what it is called)? Anyone has the same issues and is there a solution to this?

 

[BlueWeasel]

I think it's the monitor. I had a VGA converter that allowed me to use my 19" monitor as a TV, and it looked pretty bad when compared to your average TV.

Just chalk it up to the differences between a monitor and TV.

 

[vazel]

awww. sad news. i was saving up to buy a tv card so that i can play my ps2 on my monitor because i thought it would look much better.

 

[klah]

Are you viewing it in a 640x480 window, or stretching it to full screen?

 

[mitchafi]

What about on an LCD?

 

[Mik3y]

it doesnt matter if u use an lcd or crt. its all about resolution. consoles run low definition resolutions of 640x480 on tv's. thats how they manage to run better and new games with better graphics off the same gpu and etc over the years. about all monitors are high definiton and can support resolutions far greater then tv's. to play the game smoothly on a computer monitor, you'll have to set the resolution to 640x480 and run perhaps 256 colors in color mode for best console performance. of course, a computer is stronger then consoles in processing power and video performance, so you can run 32bit color mode.

 

[OhHenry]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
it doesnt matter if u use an lcd or crt. its all about resolution. consoles run low definition resolutions of 640x480 on tv's. thats how they manage to run better and new games with better graphics off the same gpu and etc over the years. about all monitors are high definiton and can support resolutions far greater then tv's. to play the game smoothly on a computer monitor, you'll have to set the resolution to 640x480 and run perhaps 256 colors in color mode for best console performance. of course, a computer is stronger then consoles in processing power and video performance, so you can run 32bit color mode.

Yeah... I read an article on HDTV here at anandtech that relates to the TV resolution. I don't think I could get that resolution, the lowest I could adjust to is 800x600. But I never tried changing to 256 color.

 

[OhHenry]

Ok, looks like 256 color isn't an option. I know that you can force programs to run at 256 color for older programs but this is a different situation.

 

[ViRGE]

Just as an FYI, unless it's a modern console, this is exactly why you should use an emulator. All major console emulators have at least one scaler/AA filter that cleans up the picture immensely, and smoothes out jaggies.

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Just as an FYI, unless it's a modern console, this is exactly why you should use an emulator. All major console emulators have at least one scaler/AA filter that cleans up the picture immensely, and smoothes out jaggies.

exactly! i totally forgot to mention that earlier. but then again, i dont think they're going to play console games through a computer. they're just using the monitor as a display (i think).

 

[OhHenry]

Originally posted by: Mik3y

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Just as an FYI, unless it's a modern console, this is exactly why you should use an emulator. All major console emulators have at least one scaler/AA filter that cleans up the picture immensely, and smoothes out jaggies.

exactly! i totally forgot to mention that earlier. but then again, i dont think they're going to play console games through a computer. they're just using the monitor as a display (i think).

And you are correct mik3y. Also, i'm running low on HD space. So i would need to think about what I need to purchase next. I found a way to get into 640x480 but 256 color, i don't know. I would like to thank you guys for the ideas.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Just as an FYI, unless it's a modern console, this is exactly why you should use an emulator. All major console emulators have at least one scaler/AA filter that cleans up the picture immensely, and smoothes out jaggies.

The old consoles didn't even run at 640x480. They ran at less than that! The modern consoles run at 640x480 and the xbox even supports higher resolutions somtimes.

 

[darkswordsman17]

There's only a couple of ways to get your console to not look like crap on your monitor: get a VGA adapter, or buy a video processor.

All TV tuner cards suck in picture quality. I was very disappointed in the display of my Xbox on my PVR-250. It was laggy, so much so that it was totally unplayable. I would be steering and then several seconds later it would start steering, causing me to overcompensate and so I'd oversteer. It was terrible. My TV2000 Expert was much better, but it suffered bad blurring.

I eventually want to get the Viewsonic Nextvision N6. It can upgrade cable or other input (from video, S-Video, or component) to resolutions up to 1280x1024, or 1280x768 or 720. Its supposed to work very well, but it unfortunately costs about $175.

I am going to give my 2001FP a try with Xbox input through S-Video when I get it. If it is suitable enough then I'll just use it.

My real wish is that nVidia would've made use of the onboard video processor (or the sheer power) of their 6800 cards to make it look a lot better. It would've been easy to do I would think, but oh well. Maybe they'll make an absolutely awesome Personal Cinema card...

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
I was very disappointed in the display of my Xbox on my PVR-250. It was laggy, so much so that it was totally unplayable. I would be steering and then several seconds later it would start steering, causing me to overcompensate and so I'd oversteer. It was terrible. My TV2000 Expert was much better, but it suffered bad blurring.

The PVR-250 is a hardware MPEG2 encoder card, so the delay is due to its buffering of video data in order to make the MPEG2 stream. Unless you get a direct feed from the card, it(and all other MPEG2 cards) will do exactly that.

 

[OhHenry]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
I eventually want to get the Viewsonic Nextvision N6. It can upgrade cable or other input (from video, S-Video, or component) to resolutions up to 1280x1024, or 1280x768 or 720. Its supposed to work very well, but it unfortunately costs about $175.

The nextvision N6 looks neat and has potential, but I won't have much use for it yet. Anyone has LCD monitors that has video/audio inputs on it use it for their consoles? I'm assuming it would just act like a tv. I would like to upgrade to an LCD but they are way too expensive but the sad thing about me is that when I want someting, that thing needs to be top of the line.