need a way to play Consoles on a lap top computer

[calubarn]

I am in the military. I have limited personnal space on my ship. What I wonder is, is there a way to use a lap top to play Console games, such as PS2 or Dreamcast. ATi has a new TV wonder USB, that has a TV tuner. I wonder has anyone played consoles on it, or know of any way to make this happen. If i can find no solution, i will need to buy a flat panel Tv with the SyncMaster being the cheapest at $1600 dollars. I would rather spend that on a nice lap top, and have the benefits of that as well as ability to play consoles, if it is doable some how. Any help would be great.

 

[TonyG]

I would see no reason that would not work, but I have not tried it either. Though, you could always try ripping the console games to your laptop's harddrive and get an emulator to play them with, or at least that should work. It is legal to do that only if you actually own the game though.

 

[Wipeout667]

Well, I don't know of any lappys offhand that support composite video in for display on the LCD... I was going to suggest emulation but you mention that you want to play PS2 and DC, neither one is emulated yet. I'm pretty sure the TV wonder would work, but I hear the quality isn't so great. I don't think that I'd even consider spending $1600 on a flat panel screen to play games, and I'm a gaming superfreak.

Remember, you need the space for the console as well.

 

[calubarn]

well, I just bought a lap top, so I will see. A sales man at another dealer said I can use the Video in on the Intel PC Camera pro for my purpose, but as you say, i believe it will not accept composite video. I will see for I threw one on my order. If it does not work, 100 dollars for the ATI UBS tv card. nto pocket change of course, but worth a try. if that fails, I will just stick to PC games on my dell inpiron 8000 and console it on my inport days I guess. Wife wont cut 1600 for the flat screen as well as the 4k for the laptop I just purchased. I find it hard to believe that no one out there in tech world has had this desire though. I have searched numerous forums and talkted to numerous hardware manufactureres, and to anyones knowledge, it has never been tried. Maby i have a money maker on my mind. lol.

 

[jyrixx]

works and works good, i bring my playstation along for cartrips, along with my laptop.. it's awesome.

 

[calubarn]

Jyraxx, what works for your set up? what are you using as a source for input? Any help much appreciated.

 

[blurredvision]

First off, the video in for the PC Camera Pro IS composite, so you can plug in a Dreamcast. The only problem with this is that the camera in question only displays an image of 640x480, or mabye even lower, so the picture quality is going to suck for the new generation consoles. The reason I know this is because I've done it, and own a DC and the Intel Camera Pro. I would recommend a seperate tv tuner card to plug into USB, and buy a coaxial input cable for whichever console you want to play.

 

[calubarn]

Thank you for the reply friend. I was thinking the same. I guess the ATI TV WONDER USB is the item for me. I jsut purchased my lap top, and with the PC PRO camera as well, so it will at least give me an idea of how it will work. Again, i appreciate the help, my game life on board ship just improved

 

[sirfergy]

You can always buy an RF modulator to convert the RCA output of the DC to composite. Then you can connect it to the ATI tv wonder.

 

[Esoterica]

There are two programs. One called Bleem and the other by Connectix, Virtual Game Machine. I tried the Mac version of Virtual and it works really well, although you should read their web site for their tested games. For some info you might try http://www.cdrom-guide.com/cgi/Ultimate.cgi.

 

[cavingjan]

I wouldn't try that with the Hauppage wintv usb. The bandwidth of the usb is what is the killer. I don't think there is anything on usb of that nature that can run higer than 640x480 at anything above 15 fps. I tried hooking my old atari 2600 up to the wintv and it still looked bad even for it.