Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

JT! Wrote:Well, I could get a digital tuner and switch to superior pc gaming!

spdif as in optical? No.

You could do that. What kind of TV service do you have? Cable, antennae, or satellite?

Spdif can be optical or coaxial. Most TVs have some type of spdif output these days. Your TV manual says you have coaxial spdif output. It should be just to the left of the 3.5mm TRS output according to the diagram.

For $100 you could get a half decent chinese external DAC on ebay that might improve audio quality noticeably. That could be hooked up to your TVs spdif output on one end (as an input) and your speakers on the other end (as an output). Although it wouldn't offer as much benefit as an audio card or a good external DAC (which cost $600-1,200 unfortunately).

Antennae.

I think I'll stick to a digital tuner so I can't watch tv through my pc. Then I can also record it which is an added bonus. Screw the ps3, only ever used it as a blu ray player anyway.

So my monitor came today, I connected it up to by laptops VGA port but couldn't extend the desktop to all 3. I see that many people have the same problem. This isn't really a big deal as the rest of the computer parts are coming in the mail tomorrow and I'll be back to two. But at some point I'd like to be able to extend the desktop over 3 monitors. Would I have to buy a special graphics card to achieve this? And also, will a desktop extend when using different ports (for example HDMI and VGA?).

JT! Wrote:Antennae.

Good. You don't need to spend lots of money on a cable card then.

I haven't bought a TV tuner card since the days of ATI tv wonder cards. But everybody seems to love hauppauge: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116036

JT! Wrote:So my monitor came today, I connected it up to by laptops VGA port but couldn't extend the desktop to all 3. I see that many people have the same problem. This isn't really a big deal as the rest of the computer parts are coming in the mail tomorrow and I'll be back to two.

Most likely your laptop GPU doesn't support it.

JT! Wrote:But at some point I'd like to be able to extend the desktop over 3 monitors. Would I have to buy a special graphics card to achieve this?

What graphics card will the desktop have?

JT! Wrote:And also, will a desktop extend when using different ports (for example HDMI and VGA?).

Depends. I need the answer to the above question.

Also you really shouldn't be using VGA anymore.

Are you planning on buying a second monitor since you mentioned doing triple monitor on the desktop? If so why?

Wow, why so expensive?

I won't for now, but down the road a decent one like a GTX 660 like you suggested.

I meant DVI/HDMI

I don't plan on it. But maybe one day I'd like a dual monitor setup and then also maybe to connected the living room TV up to it too, to total 3.

JT! Wrote:Wow, why so expensive?

Because TV tuners contain some very complex chips?

The cheapest that you can get a good new TV tuner for is around $70:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116034
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116028

$50-60 if you go with a used one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0014YFC18/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B001DEYVXO/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1376188522&sr=8-1

As you can see usb and pci-e tuners are both widely available.

I assume that while you plan to have three displays you'll only be using one of them for gaming, correct?

You should have no issues running some displays off of DVI and others off of hdmi at the same time. However unless you have an AMD graphics card triple monitor spanning can be difficult. Especially with gaming.

I'll have to keep an eye out for a good deal on newegg... or maybe I'll just buy a $10 one from China and then complain in here that it doesn't work.

Well, it would be my setup now (main monitor for everything then my cheapy asus for internet browsing) then i would possibly have the 3rd be the lounge TV or something.

Does it have to be AMD to be able to go more than 2 monitors? How can I tell what graphics cards would allow 3 or more?

Quote:Does it have to be AMD to be able to go more than 2 monitors?

Any Nvidia cards 600/700 GTX series support 3 + 1 monitors

What do you mean by 3+1?

I don't know how to explain it in English .Anyway , here is the demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FqQ9VIKEHM

So 3 monitors plus 1 monitor? Why not just say four is what I'm getting at.

Would using two graphics cards be a better option than one?