Topic: Major delay when playing gamecube on computer

[saw789]

I hooked my gamecube up to my new HP Pavilion Media Center PC (model m7334n) with a 19" LCD monitor by running a S-video cable and RCA audio cables in the back of the CPU. The games play using my TV tuner and media center but there is major delay preventing normal play. I push buttons to attack and then watch the move happen a couple seconds later. This was amusing for a very short while....is there any way to play my gamecube games normally on the computer without this delay?? Thanks for any help

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Nope.

The TV conversion/scaling hardware on your PC was poorly designed resulting in a slow display.  Providing such hardware is not worth the trouble; the people who decided to include it in the PC were morons or just inconsiderate.  Similar scaling-related delays occur in some modern TVs as well.

If you wish to view GameCube games via your PC, rip out the old TV hardware and get a better vidcap card, like from Avermedia or ADStech.

[Pale]

This happens constantly with the media pcs.  Back in my retail days we used to get so many angry customers wondering why their 2000 dollar PC didn't do one of the main things they bought it for.

Don't get pissed at HP either.  My company bought a $2800 Sony media box to carry around to trade shows and what not...  We of course tried to hook a Gamecube up to it right away.  After noticing the delay we were quite bummed.  I feel your pain.

[hudsonhawk]

If that monitor has a component video input on it then you're much, much better off getting the progressive scan kit for the 'cube and plugging directly into the monitor.  The video quality will be orders of magnitude higher, and you won't have any delay.

You're always going to get latency with anything short of a high-end video processing machine; think about what you're doing - bringing in analog input, (essentially) digitizing 60 frames per second of 320x200 video, windowing it, and then turning it back to analog again in your video card's ramdac.

That's not an easy task, and requires a lot of throughput.  Media center pc's work because they're made for tv - where you won't notice that it's 1 or 2 seconds behind the live feed.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

In the GameCube's case, it's 720x480i @ 60Hz video, s-video.

This delay bullsquash is totally inexcusable.  My Matrox Marvel G400, a 6-yr old video card, running 8? yr old vidcap/tuner technology, displays 60Hz-interlaced feeds *just fine*, in a proper video overlay stream, no perceivable delay.  The ATI All-in-Wonder cards of the same era also performed just as well.  What the heck happened to TV tuning technology since then?

[Pale]

See, now I don't really have any idea what I'm talking about here so Pro can prove me wrong if he sees fit, but it almost seems to me that it could be a windows issue.  In all of the prebundled Media PCs they use Windows Media Edition to handle the playback...  all the stuff you mentioned Pro uses their own software.  So, I wonder which the problem is, the hardware, or the software.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Hey, software could very well be the case; i'd think twice about anything with "Windows Media" in the title.

For the past few years, I've been using a tiny free program for all my viewing and video captures called "Free VCR".  It simply auto-detects my capture hardware (like Virtualdub) and displays video feeds just as well as the bundled software; this is all based on the Video For Windows (VfW) specs designed for win95/98 back in the day.  Maybe there's something legitimately borked about the home theater software.

Or it just goes back to the utter weakness of the HTPC components.

[saw789]

I was using the the Windows Media program...I will look for some other playback program options.

I was also wondering if a cabel exists that would change the S-video end to a D-sub or DVI-I connection that would go directly into my monitor since it does not have the other inputs.

In case you were wondering the video card on this computer is an ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics with 256MB shared video memory.

Thanks for the replies! :-)

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I've never heard of S-Video To DVI converters, short of visiting google.

[hudsonhawk]

Quote
Originally posted by: saw789
I was using the the Windows Media program...I will look for some other playback program options.

I was also wondering if a cabel exists that would change the S-video end to a D-sub or DVI-I connection that would go directly into my monitor since it does not have the other inputs.

In case you were wondering the video card on this computer is an ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics with 256MB shared video memory.

Thanks for the replies! :-)

You probably won't find that, but again - get the component kit and use this: Component to VGA cable

You definitely won't be able to adapt to DVI - it's digital, so you would essentially be doing the same thing you're doing now - turn it to digital, and back to analog again.

Unfortunately, now you're talking $80-some dollars just to play your cube on your monitor, which would almost be the same price difference for you as selling your monitor and getting one with component inputs on it, like that one from Dell that everybody loves so much.  Of course you still need the Gamecube's component adapters, but they make such a huge difference you'd be silly to not get them!