Playing A Console On A PC/Monitor

[Zaza]

Hello! I am going into college where I will live in a small dorm. Here's my problem: The room is so small that I can't bring a very large TV in to watch shows or play my consoles. Luckily, my computer has is able to hook right up to cable from the back. That solves half of my problem. The other half is my consoles. I was thinking that maybe I could hook up my consoles to the back of my computer and have it run through there. I researched a little and saw that this causes a small amount of delay between the controller and the onscreen action. (I later tried this myself through Windows Media Center. I never got it to fully work right, but while trying to set up my XBox as a cable box, the preview image had a very large amount of delay.) I then thought to hook my consoles directly through my monitor, which has a standard VGA in and a DVI-D in. More research showed me that I would have buy a VGA converter box or some sort to convert the composite or S-Video signal to VGA. (Later I found a straight VGA to S-Video adapter here, although something such as that hasn't been mentioned anywhere else.) Apparently if you want to get a quality VGA box, it needs to be one hundred dollars and up according to many forum posts that I have found. But some people still say that the best way to play a console through a monitor is by hooking it up through a video capture card or a tv tuner. One forum poster even stated that the best way is to use a freeware program called DScan with a supported video capture card. Supposedly this method will provide the best visual quality with no delay between the controller and the onscreen action. I tried it, but I have an ATI Theater 550 Pro TV tuner card which isn't supported by DScan. Well, I come here now to ask a simple question: What is the best way? Hook it through the computer or through the monitor directly? It is also worth mentioning that I plan on buying a PS3 and intend on using the HDMI outs. I know that no video card has HDMI ins, (if there is it should be expensive) but I was thinking I could use a DVI-D like I have on my monitor because they deliver pretty much the same picture quality. All help is appreciated.

 

[Rob Williams]

I am not familiar with trying to get a console to work -through- a PC, but I do know that a lot of consoles will offer accessories that allow you to use your monitor instead of a TV. I had one for my Dreamcast, and there is also one available for the 360 and others.

 

[Greg King]

Hooking up directly to your monitor will always be the best bet.

One because it's easy and two, its far cheaper than purchasing more hardware. You can find monitor hook ups for your console that will enable you to play your games through your monitor but through a TV capture card just does not make any sense to me. You would just be adding one other component into the mix and upping your probability of having a problem. Regardless, I will look into this some more for you.

If I were you however, I would just use your monitor directly and skip all the extra shite in between.

 

[Zaza]

Thank you! Now that I've got that out of the way, do you think that using a special VGA box converter or that cable I mentioned before?

 

[Jakal]

I played like that with my Gamecube for a while, through a capture card I mean. It's not fun, or easy. Managed to almost complete SSBM though. The game lag is horrible, and took me forever to get used to it. Follow the previous advice.

Edit: That cable should work just fine.