Connecting a TV to your PC

Amaru

Can somebody give me some advice on this? I have an old(probably 8 years) big screen tv that we're not using anymore, and i want to hook it up to my PC. I have a good graphics card with a TV OUT(radeon X800XT i think). I'll be using it mostly for poker, but will probably want to play some games too. My questions are as follows:

Is it easy enough to hook up? I have the TV out slot on my card, and scart/aerial connectors on my TV.
Is it suitable for gaming? Like i said, it won't be my main concern, but i will probably want to log some BF2 hours on it.
Are there any pitfalls to doing this?

Any help appreciated.

mp3guy

Once you've got the right connections its fairly straight forward

_CreeD_

Depending on the capabilities of your TV use the following connections in order of best to worst:

HD Component (Pretty unlikely)
RGB (requires an adapter that likely shipped with your vid card)
SVHS (Round DIN cable, you can plug one straight into the back of the card)
Composite (small yellow cable, requires the adapter that came with your vid card))

Also if you are using XP you'll notice it will only go down to 800x600. Not too much of an issue for games but you may want to drop it to 640x480 if text isn't clear enough for you. You can download Powerstrip or just Multires to allow you to force 640x480

Amaru

I have A in this picture



Although i also have the port on the left from B.

Will resolution be a big issue? Being that its an older TV, not a HD or plasma, is it really suitable if i'm going to be browsing the internet? Also, is frame rate refresh an issue(i remember hearing something about this when using LCDs for gaming).

Sam Vimes

what you have is standard s-video. you can get an adapter to a scart lead in maplin or peats cheap enough. you'll need a cable for the sound too of course. i don't know about the whole using a tv as a monitor thing. whenever i hook my tv up i have to use the maginifier in the accessibility options to read any text

TimTim

The quality isn't going to be great regardless of the connection. (I haven't got anything which supports HDMI though, not too sure about it)

I'm using the VGA port (yes on my TV) to VGA port on my laptop, dropping the resolution is the only way to go. For general use its fairly pants. But for watching videos you downloaded off the net its fscking brilliant.

Amaru

So whats a better alternative? 2 tft's multi monitered?

KdjaCL

Use ATIs control Centre with an Svideo cable and force the resolution on the tv to 800x600.

Games will be a bit of hassle some work on Tv out (ie the monitor still displaying ehh windows) GTA SA does not like this setup but it will run the picture on both no problem.
All games run with the picture on both tho.
Reading webpages is near impossible so use it for games and movies only. If you want poker on it that will be fine the likes of Vcpoker are grand on tv.

Car games are superb on tv out with a bean bag and sterring wheel
As are old arcade games.

kdjac