Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
invictius

Did anyone here ever play on a tv connected to their pc?

Recommended Posts

I just booted up a machine that had tv-out and connected it to my beloved sony trinitron - my god, I forgot about how bad the flicker was.  But I think I remember playing doom on it.  Was anyone else here desperate enough for big-screen doom to endure this?

Share this post


Link to post

I connected my Acer laptop (back when I had one - never again, thank you) to our TV through VGA and played some Skulltag deathmatch on it once. It was a pretty fun experience - no noticeable problems with visuals either.

Share this post


Link to post

I played doom a few times on a tv through an android tv box. Using D-Touch and a bluetooth controller.

 

It was... a challenging experience.

Share this post


Link to post

My upstairs media PC is connected to a 1366x768 "HD" television that I can't wait to throw out. Other than that, no, and especially not an analog NTSC TV. CRT TVs using NTSC were garbage compared to a CRT monitor of any reasonable quality. Maybe PAL was more acceptable but I don't live in Europe.

Share this post


Link to post

Played through both a CRT and a more modern LCD tv plenty back when I lived with my parents and had school friends over regularly. S-Video to Composite adapter for the CRT, VGA cable for the LCD. Both looked quite crisp and clean on their respective displays, no issues I ever noticed anyway.

Share this post


Link to post

I kinda-sorta did, not on a PC but on my Amiga 4000T. Amigas by nature have both NTSC and PAL output, and I bought a 20-inch Toshiba TIMM specifically for gaming. The TIMM was a combo TV/Monitor that could handle up to 800x600. I used it for bigscreen goodness when playing the wonderful Amiga Doom clone Breathless. I eventually wondered how Doom would look on it -- I typically played the Amiga port DoomAttack on my 17-inch monitor -- and I gotta say, it looked bloody incredible. We're talking 320x200 on a 20-inch TV. The colors were vivid, there was very little pixilation, and no performance issues at all. It was without question the best 320x200 Doom I've ever seen.

 

I later hooked the TIMM up to my TV after I bought a video card with TV-out. Doom was alright, but Duke3D looked fantastic.

Share this post


Link to post

I've used a modern-ish TV with VGA/HDMI built into it as a monitor and it mostly worked fine although it had problems with a few obscure resolutions.  I never got any adapter to supposedly make an old-style TV work as a monitor actually work right though.

Share this post


Link to post

I did this a few times to play Stepmania, but my bedroom at the time was too small to play efficiently.

Share this post


Link to post

Yes. I did it 20 to 15 years ago. My setup was monitor in the middle, TV to the left and stereo system to the right. The cable to output PC to TV was $50 at the time.

 

I used to travel a lot so I would bring it with me to put my laptop on a hotel TV.

Share this post


Link to post

I tried playing on the TV a couple of times (connected through an HDMI port) but it doesn't really work for me, I prefer smaller screens.

 

That and the sound wasn't very good.

Share this post


Link to post

Yup, tried both Playstation Doom (on PAL) and a laptop connected to a standard 20" CRT TV via composite video. Let's just say I wouldn't want to play like that for any significant amount of time. The refresh rate of the TV (50Hz) just didn't sync up well with the game, moreso with the laptop running a Doom source port locked at 35 Hz. A port with uncapped frame rate set to work at 50 Hz might have looked better, but as it was, it simply didn't feel good on the eyes.

 

Edit: it would have looked even more of an eye-straining, jerky flicker-fest if I turned the option on to "avoid interlacing" in the video output: this effectively reduced the frame rate to 25 Hz, in excange for (slightly) crisper static images.

Edited by Maes

Share this post


Link to post

Back in the 1990s, we never used a TV as one of the main displays.

 

It hasn't been until recently that I found one of our old ATI Rage Pro All-in-Wonder cards to output to a TV. I put it together with a 200MHz Pentium system. (It's a powerhouse for the time it existed in.)

 

There's something strange about the input/output. They need a special output adapter, otherwise the video appears distorted. (Simply connecting the pins to their respective output ports doesn't work very well.)

 

It's actually pretty surreal, because you can use your TV not only as an output monitor, but you can also watch TV broadcasts ON the TV with the computer acting as a pass-through. Furthermore, you can record broadcasts to your hard drive. (I'm sure a lot of computers can do this today, but keep in mind this is an old system I built with spare parts.)

Share this post


Link to post

Well, the All-In-Wonder was actually a graphics card + TV tuner + video digitizer card, so not very surprising at all. It's just that normally you'd need at least two separate cards for the job ( a regular graphics adapter card, plus a video digitizer card, with or without an analog TV tuner). Separate video digitizer cards usually had standard composite/S-video/audio connectors, the All-In-Wonder had its own splitter cable. The distortions would usually be caused by not separating composite/s-video signals properly (as is the case with many switchable SCART adapters).

 

In any case, those cards were a product of their own times. Modern computers just record digital streams directly to disk, as analog TV broadcasting is all but dead in most parts of the world. Only if you digitize analog video you still need an oldschool video digitizer card, and the TV tuner section will be all but useless unless you're capturing  an Atari 2600's RF output.

Share this post


Link to post

Yep, the TV in my living room is 42" or more, so I once connected my laptop to it and played a bit of Doom II, most of TNT and also Plutonia. It was really cool, but the cable stop working somehow and we've never bought a new one. 

 

:'(

Share this post


Link to post

I did that few times, but some parts of computer display (edges) are outside of the screen of FullHD TV which connected via HDMI.

Share this post


Link to post

Modern TVs with HDMI inputs or even VGA inputs are not quite in the same league as connecting through composite or S-Video, or through the limitations of conventional PAL/NTSC video in general. The former are not really all that different from a somewhat less refined monitor. The latter, well...let's say they are not really bearable with anything more sophisticated than a 16-bit console.

Share this post


Link to post

Unless you went oldschool through composite or RF, nope.

 



casual.jpg

Share this post


Link to post

It's strange to hear it was so bad for you, Maes. The composite input on my old-ass tube TV I had years ago displayed Doom fine. It wouldn't be usable for browsing forums or reading text simply because it was too blurry, but it was plenty crisp for the gameplay itself. Refresh rate never seemed to be an issue for me although I'm sure my TV was PAL too.

Share this post


Link to post

Yes, I did: one day, my laptop's monitor simply died (the computer itself worked, though), so I had to hook it up to my television. Playing Doom was awkward, to say the least.

Share this post


Link to post

It wasn't so much about the display quality, as it was about the combination of frame rate mismatch, no radiation emission limitations (we're talking about a conventional 21" CRT TV here), and low refresh rate (PAL 50 Hz interlaced). It just didn't feel right for playing, and hurt your eyes really quick.

 

FWIW, the source port I used to test this out was Doom 95 back in the day, so we're talking 640 x 480 @35 Hz capped, shoehorned into 50 Hz PAL interlaced over composite. ZDoom existed back when I tried it (2003) but I don't know if it was uncapped. Maybe with the resolution limited to 320x200 or 320x240, unlocked frame rate limited to 50 Hz and a flicker fixer so that 50 "progressive" fields could be displayed, I'd get somewhere.

Edited by Maes

Share this post


Link to post

I currently play on a 40" Element LCD TV.  It's great for fullscreen games, but when in desktop mode it switches to 1080 interlaced and is hard to endure visually.  Luckily I have a second monitor for browsing the web and such, but for fullscreen gaming the TV is all good.

Share this post


Link to post

I use my Steam Link to beam to my RokuTV for split screen EDGE, or when I just wanna play DOOM/etc I'll use EDGE through the Steam Link itself. Occasionally I'll minimize big picture and do stuff on the TV from my computer using the Steam Link also, but its in the living room so I really have to be in the mood to be lazy on the couch ^^

 

Other than that, when my daughter wants to play something like Cuphead, DOOM, or anything on Steam I'll use the Steam Link (but that kid uses a Logitech controller, which she loves over the 360, PS2, or the Steam çontroller). 

 

Occasionally I'll use her 360 to beam TV shows or movies to her tiny portable VHS combo in her room for her to watch also. :D

 

Either that or we just use my multi monitor setup in my room.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×