hey guys! it,s been forever since i posted here, while i do occasionaly pop in the chat.

i have a question. i have a brand new laptop and dual screen display so i'm having lots of fun (i was without my own computer for nearly 3 years, using the job's laptop instead..) and i want to plug my PS2 or Wii's video input into my pc so i can game on my laptop instead of my tv my gf constantly hogs. i don't care about graphics, i just wanna play old psx games and stuff.

i saw alot of rca to usb converters, but these seem more like recorders than actual streaming devices, can it do real time without much delay? what do you recommend i use?

my new laptop is a beast too 6gb of ram and a i3-380m cpu with windows 7 x64. graphics are integrated but it runs republic commando at full quality with no problems and that's plenty for my old gaming tastes.

thanks for everything!

Hey Seb, so you want to plug the Wii into the laptop and display on the screen? I don't think that is possible. (not without another device)

Of course it is possible. As long as you have A/V inputs it can be connected and viewed. I just don't know how well the "pointer" will work.

The key to the setup might be making sure you are not buffering as in a DVR situation. That's going to create most of the lag.

Oh really, because I've never seen a laptop with a/v inputs (not saying they do not exist) and he never said he even had that so I bet he doesn't.

Might need something along these lines: http://www.svideo.com/av2usb.html

OR!!!! You could catch one of these bad boys!!!

'.'

'.-

/_\

**** you, mb.

Gosh, it's almost like he referred to something like that in his opening post.

edit - oh, and nice edit to your first post!

Wookie, I am almost willing to say that, without some special order laptop, no laptop comes with video inputs. They're not just rare, they're extremely, not even worth mentioning rare.

Seb, you will need to get a tuner device with the necessary inputs. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to check if they lag, you have to check the reviews on each model. Generally, ones that have hardware encoding (for DVR functionality) will lag.

He referred to a USB RCA device in his opening post. That's exactly what I've been talking about. I have no idea which one might be better than any other or what lag might be involved which is exactly why I made the DVR comments above. I think he would have understood that I read and understood his post as it doesn't seem that anybody else has.

One thing I notice about the discontinued device that Zanardi linked to is that video comes in on the USB and audio on the 3.5mm plug. Assuming it works as advertised, this would lead me to believe that the "live" audio and video sync up well with little lag. So long as you are able to view the direct stream without being in a DVR situation, lag might be negligible. There's a lot of maybes in this scenario though and the setup will be slightly cumbersome. I've gone through all sorts of wonky setups and, eventually, they all become more trouble that they are worth. Now that I think of it, I had an Xbox running into the ATI All In Wonder that I have in one of my old computers. I never noticed any lag.

Your best option may be an inexpensive monitor that features the input options you need.

Can't you just plug the consoles into your second display?

Here's the answer, dump the girlfriend. She is gonna get fat sitting in front of the TV all day

i'm mostly interested in the PS2. and my second display is only VGA. i was thinking a tv tuner thing might work as well. i don,t have a budget but i,m looking at between 50-150 CAD. i'm not interested in capturing at all, just live stream.

You may be better off with a device to convert composite to VGA and using your second monitor for the game console. Then lag will never be an issue.

Yes, lag could still be an issue, even with that. As I said before, you have to check the reviews for every device to hear what people say about any lag.

If you are JUST playing PSX games, you might be able to use an emulator

I've used such devices without any problems, except for image quality. I was playing Guitar Hero 1 and 2, so any lag would have had an obvious impact.

Yeah, I have no idea what he is talking about on that one. I'm sure you can find reviews where people complain about it, though. It seems that people always make up stuff to complain about.

He means converters could create lag if they are poorly designed. Some of them do, even if most do not. You just need to look into it first to make sure you're getting a good purchase.

This times infinity. Just because some don't lag does NOT mean they all do not lag.

Well, that's just plain good practice for any purchase.

It's a non-obvious characteristic of the product. Stop trying to trivialize CM's comment.

Whatever.

Here's a link for you, Seb.

i've got my local tech guy on it.*says for what i wanna do i'm better off with just a RCA to VGA converter. so he'll find me a few good ones. thanks for being the second opinion!