Console on monitor: Vidcard ViVO or TV-In PCI card?

[EZ-Spidey]

Hi guys!

I'm trying to put together a gaming station.

The monitor I'm planning to use is a 19in CRT. Right now the rest of
the specs are pretty much figured out but I'm stuck on the videocard.

Playing consoles on this system is a must, the very nature of this
project :)

So beetween a vidcard with ViVO (MSI 6600GT or X800XT PE) and a
TV-In card like the WinFast TV2000 XP Expert, which will provide the
best image quality?

I did a small search and the Winfast card appears to be a winner!

[bchur83]

The main concern with VIVO and PCI cards is the lag between your actions and what shows on the screen. Playing a console through a computer isnt a very good idea.

[EZ-Spidey]

Hmmm, ok.

Is there any way to use the monitor right away rather then go
through a vidcard or pci card?

Maybe a device or something that'll let me hook up the console
onto the monitor.

[Yuriman]

I'm sure those do exist, but thats not what I'll comment on.

I've tried several input cards, from All-in-wonders to an Ati TV wonder usb 2.0, to Hauppauge's and Leadtek's. Out of all that I've seen, I've been very impressed with the Ati's image quality, but they tend to lag the worst. The Leadtek has very little lag, probably to the point of being perfectly playable. Still, its not the same as playing it on my HDTV :p.

[godofgorks]

EZ- I'm thinking the same way as you. Going off to college here in a month and condensing everything (tv, stereo, console) to my computer with my crt. From what I found from reviews and other people, leadtek has least lag, and the expert is $47 at the egg now with free shipping. I've been meaning to order one but haven't got to it yet, hopefully in the next week.

[godofgorks]

I believe the reason the leadtek TV2000 XP doesn't have the lag of others is because of the lack of a hardware decoder. This puts the decoding load on your cpu, so depending on system specs you might find shuttered recordings if you use your computer while recording. But since your looking for least lag, like me, thats the sacrifices you have to take. The reviews complaining of shuttering while recording had fairly older cpu's (xp1600, P4 2ghz) so if you plan to record just know it'll eat up a lot of your cpu.

[EZ-Spidey]

Hey godofgorks

I looked on eBay and got this thing called VGA Box.

I don't know if you heard about it but it basically lets you hook up
your console straight to monitor and with a flick of the switch, you
switch from your console to your desktop.

Hopefully it'll get here soon enough, I'll gladly post back about it.

PS: Nice system spec man! Mine is almost identical ;)

[someoneElse]

Hey godofgorks

I looked on eBay and got this thing called VGA Box.

I don't know if you heard about it but it basically lets you hook up
your console straight to monitor and with a flick of the switch, you
switch from your console to your desktop.

Hopefully it'll get here soon enough, I'll gladly post back about it.

PS: Nice system spec man! Mine is almost identical ;)


Just a note, but those universal 'vga boxes' are just scan converters/line doublers. There will be an image quality hit, but hopefully it won't be enough that you will care.

Use S-video or better if you can, the better going in the better you'll get out of it.

The only real VGA box is for the old Dreamcast, as it was the only console to output VGA signals natively. The xbox is also capable of VGA, but the last I heard you needed to hack it to be able to use it, and build your own cable to boot. (xbox info possibly outdated)

Just a pet peeve of mine, nothing to see here, move along...



Oh, and if your VIVO/TV capture card has a TV-on-demand/pause live TV feature, turn it off to almost remove any delay, it's worked well for me in the past.

[godofgorks]

I've heard of VGA boxes, but I wanted to be able to have TV tuning/recording capabilities also. So I'm opting out for a tuner card that is capable of playing consoles throught them. Ordering my leadtek today, I'll post back once I play around with it awhile.

[godofgorks]

Well I said I'd post back and here I am.

Well the tv tuner came in today and I threw it into the computer right away. I then loaded up the software, plugged the xbox into it, fired everything up, and was moderately dissapointed. I was expecting a hit in the quality but it was fairly drastic for my taste. The best thing, no hesitation at all, which is exactly what I wanted. Also by using the tv tuner I can have the game in the corner of my screen while I do other things, like homework, lol. Actually the screen is good until you hit fullscreen then it fairly blurred, no distinct detail, but i'm satisfied for what it will be used for. Good buy for $50.

Now I just have to set it up to record tv for me, and maybe another HD to store shows on.

[EZ-Spidey]

Cool!

I got my VGA BOX yesterday.

Anyway, I installed it which was fairly simple and started the PS2. I ought to admit, I
was surprised by the quality. The colors and images were sharp, games played smooth.

There's even an audio jack on the box to hook up headphones or speakers.

Glad to see we got what we wanted in the end, godofgorks. :)

[whitebloodcell]

You could try setting your monitor to a lower resolution when you are playing, since most Xbox Games dont output any where near high enough to fill a monitor with 1280x1024 Pixels. Or research Games that have HDTV Output, like Soul Calibur 2, looks great,

[godofgorks]

White, it never even occured to me to try that, but it makes a ton of sense. I changed it to 640x480 and got an annoying flickering of random colors along the bottom quarter inch. So I bumped it up to 800x600 which fixed the flickering and made it a little sharper then my normal 1280x960 setting. Thanks for the input.

[someoneElse]

Also try sitting at a further distance from the monitor than you normally would for PC use.