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Games Entertainment

Game Consoles on Your Monitor? 27

Posted by Cliff from the better-video-quality-than-composite dept.
steddyj asks: "With the release of the Gamecube and X-Box, along with the slew of games for said consoles, I've been contemplating whether or not to buy one, and keep running into one major roadblock: the TV in my room is on top of the hutch of my desk. This is not only the only place I have room for it, but also the best place for viewing. But, at a mere 13", having the screen 4 feet away and 3 feet above eye level makes gaming all but impossible without standing. However, my computer monitor is considerably larger and, of course, in a much better position for viewing the details needed to play modern games along with the occasional productive stuff." I know that the X-Box supposedly supports VGA out, but do you need an adapter for it? There were adapters available for Dreamcasts to output to VGA, and I'm not quite sure whether such things were relased for the PS2 or the Gamecube. Has anyone used such adaptors, if so, how have your experiences been?

"I remember a time when monitors used to include composite inputs, and my grandfather had his Nintendo (that's the original *8-bit* system) hooked up to his. But alas, those days are long gone. Does anyone else know of any hack or device that will allow me to hook a game console to my monitor? Barring this, I cannot justify the $300 for a system I can't enjoy, and I want to play Obi-Wan and Starfighter!"
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Game Consoles on Your Monitor? More

Game Consoles on Your Monitor?

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  • Excellent Question.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by zpengo ( 99887 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @02:17PM (#2688067) Homepage
    Many video cards these days have TV capabilities...it would be entirely possible to feed it the video line from a console (instead of, say, a VCR or antenna) and play it right on the monitor (and even record it, fiddle with it, etc.)

    I've done this before, and had a reasonable amount of luck with it.

  • external tv-vga converter (Score:3, Informative)

    by silicon_synapse ( 145470 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @02:26PM (#2688129)
    There are several products that convert NTSC signals to VGA for display on your monitor. I have an external tv tuner I once had attatched to my monitor. Using that, I could attatch anything to my monitor that I could attatch to my tv. It's simple, universal among consoles, and requires no software setup.

  • PS2 VGA Box (Score:2, Informative)

    by Ondo ( 187980 )
    I've got a Redant PS/PS2 VGA Box from www.lik-sang.com, and I'm pretty happy with it. They also sell ones for Gamecube/N64, and generic ones as well. In recent headlines it has "VGA Box for the XBox console announced today", so that should be coming soon.

    I'm pretty happy with mine. The advantage over a TV card is that you don't have to turn on your computer, which is significant if your computer makes as much noise as mine does. The disadvantage of at least the PS2 adapter is that it takes a memory card slot, so you can't copy stuff from one card to another while using it.

  • How I do it: (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ieshan ( 409693 ) <ieshan@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @02:36PM (#2688184) Homepage Journal
    I use an ATI TV card in my College Dorm room, and it works great. I shoot the cable into my monitor, and can play video games thruogh the connector it has. It can record as well.

    The picture is pretty darn good, all things considering. I can send you some screen shots if you like, my email is ieshan@aol.com. No, I don't actually use AOL.

    I suggest doing this. Firstly, you can get rid of your little tv in favor of a cable-tv-on-your-comp, and secondly, you'll have a place to plug in your consoles.
  • Sure you could do scan conversion from NTSC to VGA, but the Xbox is capable of 1920x1080 (HDTV), so there would need to be a special output adapter that connects to the back of the console to take full advantage of what your monitor can handle. I have searched the 'net endlessly to no avail for an xbox vga-out "adapter". I read somewhere that because microsoft wants to keep people from thinking that the xbox is exactly like a computer, they will have no vga-out option, no keyboard, no mouse, and no web browsing (note: broadband and web browsing ARE two different things.) I think this is a serious waste of the capabilities of the Xbox, and i really hope that third parties will release keyboards/mice/vga adapters/web browsing software for the Xbox.
    • the Xbox is capable of 1920x1080 (HDTV), so there would need to be a special output adapter that connects to the back of the console to take full advantage of what your monitor can handle.

      Actually this question was just posed on Ask SlashDot about 3 weeks ago here [slashdot.org].

      The problem you get is that HDTV though it uses a 15-pin mini-D connector, just like VGA, is that HDTV is YPrPb instead of RGB based. So to get the HDTV signal on your monitor, you would first need the XBox HDTV Adaptor [amazon.com], then you would have to convert the HDTV signal to VGA with another adaptor. A response [slashdot.org] to the previous Ask SlashDot story found this one [keydigital.com] but that costs $319.

      If you go to the official Xbox homepage (as noted in my previous post last month), they'll just tell you flat out that it can't be done [slashdot.org].
      • Sure, they say it can't be done, but most of that is just PR BullSht. It shouldn't be difficult for third parties to make a component allowing pure vga-out. And besides, they don't want vga-out on the xbox. This is because when the average consumer sees vga for xbox, they will think "Hmm, VGA is a computer term... i hate computers... i think i'll go get a gamecube."
  • i have one...somewhere. i used it with a 17" viewsonic awhile back. worked great. it had composite and svideo inputs.

    dunno what the connectors are on the ps2 so dunno if this works on that. if you really want, i can poke around in the closet later to see if i can find a mfr/model.

  • BT848 cards (Score:3, Informative)

    by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @04:32PM (#2688899) Homepage

    I have a PSX hooked up to the composite input of a BT848 card (actually, a PixelView BT878). I use xawtv to display the composite input inside XFree86. This setup works rather well. I can play fullscreen or switch into windowed mode and IRC/browse at the same time.

    There is some pixel aliasing caused by the capture/scaling process. It's not a big deal. I thought there would be frame jitter due to differences between the capture rate and my monitor refresh rate, but if there is any jitter then I can't see it.

    Combined with some Loki games, wine, mame, scummvm, dosemu, and vice, I have a formidable number of games at my disposal.

  • Jam!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by karnal ( 22275 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @04:39PM (#2688940)
    I recently did a small amount of research for a cable/box to adapt the playstation/PS2 to my second monitor. I figured it'd be an easy quest -- I almost thought I'd just need a special cable for the playstations, since they seem to throw every signal under the sun out of the AV port on the back.

    What I eventually did was search on Ebay, and 30$ later, I picked up a device called "Jam!!". This device takes either composite or S-Video inputs, and outputs them to a monitor. The coolest feature, though, is that you can loop your monitor through it, so that you can use your computer when you're not using the monitor for gaming (currently, I use my Jam!! box on my 2nd monitor, and I see no noticable difference in picture quality when I'm using it in pass-thru mode).

    Plus, I got a free PS/PS2 a/v cable w/S-Video connectors, just for this box. If you're wanting something like this, I recommend this solution; it gives you a dedicated video out to your monitor, and doesn't require that you plug and unplug connectors if you want to still use the monitor on a regular computer.
    • Thanks! This looks like it's exactly what I was looking for. If any moderators are reading this, please mod up the parent to this post. Looks like it even allows thruput for sound into your PC speakers. Now I can buy a console without feeling guilty, an extra $30 isn't too bad.

      Now if I can only find a way to add that extra memory that M$ is leaving out of the XBox...
      • I have an AIW that I can use for input... but when I only watch tv, I would like to turn off the not-so-quiet PC, and get the signal from my VCR. So, this device is good for me too.

        But I can't find it!!!

        Not in ebay, not in yahoo, not in amazon... heck, I even found a review here [streettech.com],but the company they link to, Aimslab Inc [aimslab.com] seems to have banished... and they were the manufacturers!!! Maybe they didn't sell enough of those? :-)

        So, before you fork the money, make sure you can actually get the thing... and tell me where you found it :-)

        And... no, I don't have an "real" TV :-)

        • I searched ebay for 'Jam!' and found several auctions for the device, selling for $30. And because I'm nice (and not bidding yet) I'm attaching a few links directly to the auctions below. Some of them list for one console or another, but if you read the descriptions, they are all the same, with RCA and S-Video inputs. Enjoy!

          Auction 1 [ebay.com]
          Auction 2 [ebay.com]
          Auction 3 [ebay.com]

          This is only 3 of the many auctions I found, all run for $29.95
  • my grandfather had his Nintendo (that's the original *8-bit* system) hooked up to his.

    I _still_ have my 8-bit NES hooked up to my Commodore64 monitor. We've always run it that way. Picture's smaller than on a TV, but much sharper.

    That reminds me, it's been a while since I played Dr. Mario...Excuse me...
    • Commodore64 monitors are all good because they support S-Video input. Just build/buy a converter to go from the 4 pin s-video plug into 2 rcas, one for luminance and one for chromonance and you have s-video, at least a PS and PS2 work S-video in this way.
  • A while back I found an extremely nifty device called an "InstantTV" - it's plugged in in between your system and the monitor, and comes with a remote that you use to switch between your regular system display and TV display. It's completely platform-independent; doesn't have all the niftiness of TV video cards, but still quite effective. I use it for my VCR primarily since I hardly ever work with game consoles anymore, but it's worked with my SNES previously.

    Unfortunately, the company that made them (one "AIMS Lab") seems to have vanished; their website (aimslab.com) is now a list of advertising links, so I think they've gone kaput. I dunno if anyone else makes things like the InstantTV, but it'd be worth taking a look around for, I think.
  • I'm curious about this myself, as I don't have a TV...just two monitors...a pair of Trinitrons (17" and a used 15"). I can't tell you about other consoles, but I do know about the Dreamcast.

    I got a Dreamcast a couple of months ago and Soul Calibur and Shenmue look and play just fine on both of them, thanks to my VGA box.

    You might want to check GameStop [gamestop.com] and Electronics Boutique [ebgames.com] if they have stores near you. I got my DC used from GameStop when I used to work there (nice discount). A quick search of the Gamestop web site didn't turn up anything, but a search using "vga" as the search term at EB turned up 3 adapters for the Dreamcast, including the one I have (the one at the bottom).

    Both stores carry used stuff, which might save you a few bucks. The GameStop return policy on Used items is better than on new ones! Someone at one of the stores might also have info about adaptors for other systems. At GameStop, if they don't have one in stock, ask them to do an "Availability Request". That will search all the stores to see who has one and get it sent to the store near you. That's how I got my DC VGA box.

    As an aside, I also got a connector for my DC that lets you connect a Playstation/Saturn controller, as well as a standard PS/1 PC keyboard to the DC. Haven't used it yet, but it seems pretty cool. Only $4.99 used!

    HTH,

  • I found instructions for building the DC VGA Box yourself not too long ago. It's a good-looking schematic (located here [gamesx.com]), but don't bother looking at it unless you are able to:
    a) Identify electronic components,
    b) Solder those components together, and
    c) take a chance that you might fry your poor DC. ;)
  • The device you are looking for is called a line doubler.

    TVone make one called the cheese video box [tvone.com].$69

    Linux! [lugc.org]
  • I'm using the All-In_Wonder Radeon DDR for this purpose (it's also great for watching and recording cable TV). The card has great performance for the price, and it's got a nice little extension module that has svideo, composite video, and audio inputs. It also has audio and video out in case you want to use your 13" tv as a remote monitor.

    I tend to watch tv in a small window while reading email and waiting for web pages to load, then with a few keypresses switch to composite input and play some GTA3 on the PS2. I hardly ever have to leave the computer desk! Woohoo!

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