Topic: Can i play GC on my computer?

[Olmo]

Hello, i'm going to buy a nintendo gamecube and i would like to know if i could connect it to my computer some way so i don't have to use the TV all the time...

Thank you!

[Hemmorrhoid]

yeah you can get a connection vga box and play on your PC monitor

check

www.lik-sang.com
www.lan-kwei.com

[Olmo]

Thanks! I live in Spain, so i'll have a PAL GC. I went to the 1st one but that only worked with NTSC gamecubes. I went to the 2nd one and they had one that worked with PAL. I'm not sure if i should order it from that site or just look around some stores here... is that web site as safe as... www.amazon.com, for example?

[NoVisAnima]

There is the option to use a vga box to let you use your computer monitor to play your game cube. The other way is to use a TV card. This is the method that i currently use, i trust them slightly more than vga boxes (well i have a pal GC and you cant get great VGA out of what we get).

[Grey Ninja]

You can use a TV Tuner or a VGA Box.  The VGA Box will give you FAR better quality, but will only work with a few select systems.  (In this case, the GCN, N64, and maybe SNES).  The TV Tuner will work with any input, such as cable TV, or any console, but will not work nearly as good.

It really depends on what you need out of it.  Myself, I would kill for a VGA Box.

[NoVisAnima]

Ah but the thing is working from a PAL GC you can only do composite or Euro SCART. It doesn't matter how great your vga box it wont make composite look any good. That and after much searching i've learnt that you cant get Euro SCART into a VGA signal. So i went the obscure route of Scart -> s-video  (no we dont get that off our PAL GCs) and that into my tv card. I get a much nicer picture than off composite so i'm happy. It's a very clear picture.

[Scyth3r]

Quote
Originally posted by: Grey Ninja
You can use a TV Tuner or a VGA Box.  The VGA Box will give you FAR better quality, but will only work with a few select systems.  (In this case, the GCN, N64, and maybe SNES).  The TV Tuner will work with any input, such as cable TV, or any console, but will not work nearly as good.

It really depends on what you need out of it.  Myself, I would kill for a VGA Box.

A VGA Box won't look any better than a good TV-Card.

[Kyosho]

I recently bound the RedAnt GameCube VGA box for my monitor.  My monitor is the Viewsonic G73F.  When playing Zelda, they look pretty crisp.  It's definitely not as good as playin on a HD-TV but the quality and colors are much better than my old TV sitting in the living room.  

On the RedAnt box, there's a "Source" button that you click on.  I believe it selects either S-video or Composite source.  The composite source makes the screen look very blurry.  S-video has the images drawn a lot crisper.  My only complaint is.. let's say I'm playing Zelda.  WHen looking at things far away they are blurry.  I am not sure if it's suppose to be that way or not (maybe one of you regular TV peopel can tell me).  However when viewing things close such as watching "Link" moving around, the image is very crisp.

I've done a ton of research on this over at Anandtech, Sharkyextreme, Toms, and miscellaneous forums.  Many say that if you plug in the gamecube into a TV card, the images will be far less quality compared to a VGA box.  I've also read that a platform specific VGA box is better than buying a general VGA box (e.g. the ones that have the composite/s-vid inputs on the side that you plug into the monitor).

[egman]

Interesting thread because I happen to play my GC through my computer. What sucks about all the consoles now is the lack of native VGA support, making VGA boxes currently made much more expensive and more suspect in quality. I have a 14 dollar VGA box for my Dreamcast  that is absolutely awesome.

I use a tuner card right now for the GC. I think you can get a very pleasing image this way, but it involves careful selection of hardware and software. I'm hearing great things about cards based on the new Conexant and Phillips chips (Flyvideo 2000, Xcapture, etc.) They should be fairly cheap. I would combine one of those cards with the latest version of dscaler, a free tuner program that uses direct show filters to ehance your images in a variety of ways. It will run on any computer, but the more extensive use of filters, the more cost it is to your computer's resources. You'll start getting dropped frames or you'll just won't be able to run certain filters like Tomsmocomp (which I prefer to use). I would suggest you have a PC that goes at least at 1.4 Ghz and has a minimum of 256 of the fastest ram your system can support. After all this is done, I would visit the dscaler forums and see what settings people are using to get the best results.

[Stewpot]

I purchased the VGA Cable from Goldenshop.  It simply is a modded component video cable with a VGA end on it.  It works great, however, the games need to work in progressive scan for them to display on your monitor--at least for most monitors.  If you don't have an HDTV, this is a cheap alternative.  As a side note, you may need a gender changer for the cable to work on you monitor.

[o0O MeaN O0o]

Quote
Originally posted by: OlmoI live in Spain. I'm not sure if i should order it from that site or just look around some stores here... is that web site as safe as... www.amazon.com, for example?

I wouldn't even bother looking for it in stores. En que parte de España vives Yo soy español pero vivo en EEUU. E-mail me if you want, I might be able to help ya.

[theaveng]

Wouldn't it be easier (and cheaper) to just buy a small 15" TV?  That way you can watch television on your main TV, and play games on your portable TV.

Troy

[Hemmorrhoid]

To all you europeans out there, can you get progressive scan/HDTVs in europe? If so how expensive are they, because I reckon in the US HDTVs are probably way cheaper.
I have a NTSC cube though.  

[egman]

I just remembered another avantage to running a console through a TV card. You don't have to deal with whether this or that game is progressive, they can all run through that connection.

As for the cost--unless you need to make other upgrades to your PC, I think using a free TV program and a 50$ card is even better than a small TV, considering the things that can be done with dscaler.

[Ifrit]

Have read through all the post and must admit the dscaler application is the best option for pal gamecube owners to connect the console to the computer.
I just want to warn you, stay away from these so called 'VGA boxes'. In most cases they are just cheap scan doublers and only provide inferior signal/picture quality.
TVs use a technique called Interlacing, which means that a screenrefresh only refreshes every second line on your TV. So in the first pass, the odd lines are refreshed, in the second pass, the even lines. It takes two passes to refresh all the lines. The reasons for doing things this way are complicated and again, nothing to worry about.
You may have heard the term "progressive scan". This means that all of your screenlines are refreshed in one pass and not only half of them (Thats the way computer monitors work). The scan doublers read the original video signals (mostly composite) into a solid state memory at the original frequency and, almost simultaneously, write this signal out again at twice the original rate. The output signal is processed to be made compatible with standard, low-cost and easily available monitors used with current PCs.

Ah yeah scrap the default software which comes with your TV card. Most times it doesn't even make use of all the features of your hardware. So it isn't possible to switch into pal60 Modus (which provides clearer images 'cause of the additional ~160 lines) using the Win TV software.

Here are some screenshots showing the resulting image after being processed by dscaler (note: I made the screenies before I got the original nintendo rgb cable, and I captured the pic while running the game in pal 50Hz modus. Ignore the blurry background, 'cause Star fox adventure uses some sort of depth blure to focus on the characters)


http://520050016814-0001.bei.t-online.de/tv1.jpg
http://520050016814-0001.bei.t-online.de/tv2.jpg

[Ifrit]

Quote
can you get progressive scan/HDTVs in europe?

No the pal cube doesn't output a signal which makes use of progressive scan (maybe you get a vga like experience using the component cable which is very expensive and is available at the Nintendo store only). Nor it outputs s-video signal.  Strangly Nintendo scraped the s-video support, only god knows why... The progressive scan selection was replaced by the 50Hz/60Hz selection in Europe.  

[Kyosho]

Do you have any Zelda pics? Cuz from your pics they still seem very blurry compared to my Gamecube VGA box.    

I'll try to take pictures of my monitor tonight for Zelda for you guys to compare but it's going to look bad because I'm using a webcam.  VGA boxes are mere scan doublers, but I heard the image quality on a TV card is worse.  

Of course the BEST way to get the BEST quality is go to the site that sells specific Component VGA adaptors for the Gamecube.   This costs 199$ in addition to the $$ it costs to buy the component cable from nintendo.  

[Ifrit]

No, Zelda will be released at the end of this month in Europe....

Quote
I'll try to take pictures of my monitor tonight for Zelda for you guys to compare but it's going to look bad because I'm using a webcam. VGA boxes are mere scan doublers, but I heard the image quality on a TV card is worse.

I must admit the picture quality on a TV card isn't optimal. I once had the redant vga box for ps2 and the image quality was just horrible (very poor compared to the dscaler output). I don't know if you 're useing the NTSC version of the GC with the vga box. It might be that in this case the box uses the high quality s-video output, your NTSC system provides, resulting in a crisper image. But I wouldn't recommend using the vga box with a pal system 'cause of the missing s-video and the 50Hz modus.    
For Europeans using the original Nintendo RGB cable is the only way to get a better image out of the cube to a 'reasonable' price.

Someone suggested buying a cheap 15'' TV. I mean for me its like you are using build in laptop speakers.... BTW in the region I live a TV cost more than the ordinary monitor. I already got a great multimedia setup including Vision Master pro 452 19'' monitor. Why not use this? Sometimes I have the feeling the companies are throwing stones at us while we are trying to 'share' our existing multimedia system (one examble no progressive output and removal of s-video)... Just buying everything twice (extra screen, extra soundsystem) for just a console feels like a rip off.  

[Tael]

Get a Micomsoft XRGB-2. It's an upscan converter, and can convert nearly any video signal to VGA.

[Kyosho]

I must admit the picture quality on a TV card isn't optimal. I once had the redant vga box for ps2 and the image quality was just horrible (very poor compared to the dscaler output). I don't know if you 're useing the NTSC version of the GC with the vga box. It might be that in this case the box uses the high quality s-video output, your NTSC system provides, resulting in a crisper image. But I wouldn't recommend using the vga box with a pal system 'cause of the missing s-video and the 50Hz modus.
For Europeans using the original Nintendo RGB cable is the only way to get a better image out of the cube to a 'reasonable' price.

I live in the U.S. so yeah I use the NTSC version of the GC so that might be why I feel the image quality is not that great.  On the RedAnt box there's a button that says "Source" that allows you to switch between the S-video output and the RCA output.  Most of the time I have it set on S-video, so the image is alot crisper around the edges.  

If you were an extreme fanatic and did not want to purchase a HDTV, you can get that adaptor i was talking about earlier in the thread.  So far everyone who has bought that has gotten HD quality screens on their monitor but obviously that will come at a very steep price

I had no idea PAL systems were built differently.

[grap3fruitman]

I just remembered another avantage to running a console through a TV card. You don't have to deal with whether this or that game is progressive, they can all run through that connection.

You can't get progressive scan through a regular tv tuner card.
You'd need a HDTV tuner card, and those go for 300USD and up.


Guy, get a VGA cable, I got one and I only played Zelda on my 22 inch flatscreen crt, I refused to play elsewhere.
Though you don't have to worry about your game supporting progressive scan as long as your monitor supports 15khz refresh rates.

[manunited4eva22]

I take it that running it in 1080p would just be overkill?  

[rab]

I saw a VGA box made by LOGIC3 at ukgames.com, goto gamecube then peripherals.

Thats for PAL, and you can play upto 1024*768 resolution i believe.

might buy it myself!  dont know if you can buy it in spain tho

[egman]

graph3fruitman--I understand that clearly, I didn't mean to say that he was getting the real deal. I thought you had to have a progressive enabled game to us a VGA box, but I guess I'm mistaken. However, I still think that my suggestion is not a bad one if you're on a budget. You're not getting real progressive, but you have the ability to make ALL of your games look really nice. It doesn't replace component cables and a digital TV, but I have the feeling the orginal poster was looking for a cheaper solution while also getting quality that is a least a step up from a run of the mill NTSC monitor. If you already have a decent PC, a really good capture card (50-60$ at the most) coupled with the latest dscaler (which is free) can potentially yeild excellent results. I wouldn't bother though if you're running a 500 mhz celeron E-machine--then I would say that it would be more cost effective to search out a VGA box.

[Kyosho]

i've taken some pics with Zelda with my VGA box, and here they are.

this is the logo

this is the picture with S-vid enabled

this is the picture with Composite enabled

this is looking at baby Link

this is when you chat with the boat on how to sail

sorry for the weird angle, I was using a webcam and I was trying to aim it at the screen