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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: punkpie on February 06, 2004, 12:17:57 PM
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Hi all,
I recently bought a Mediator and S3 Virge video card and have got it up and working. This is all well and nice but it's extremely irritating when I need a TV or external monitor to run some games etc.
I've had a couple of ideas of how to get around this:
1/ Scan Doubler - I fit my internal scan doubler with a monitor switch box so I flick between the 2 outputs. My question is, does anyone think this will work or have any conlicts with with each other?
2/ Fit a TV card in another PCI slot and output the signal onto a RTG desktop. Unfortuantly, I have no idea how to do this and would apreciate any input of any kind.
Any other ideas/comments?
Cheers in advance,
Lee
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I have a mediator and voodoo 3. The way I do it is to use a VGA box. Since I have a scan Doubler built in to my A3000. If you have one for your 1200 its the best way. You can use a TV card too, but disk based games the boot will not work that way.
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I have both SD/FF and TV-Card, and at the moment i actually use the tv-card more for gaming as i don't bother with booting stuff from disk anymore...except for SWOS as that will never work proper HD installed it seems!
I can recommend the tv-card that elbox sells that has lots of connectors.
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@haymiggan
If you only have one monitor, and that's connected to your Voodoo card, how's the TVcard connected? And how do you have your SD/FF connected?
Or do I err, and you've got 3 monitors connected, one to each item's output?
As it stands right now, I'll probably have to get a VGA switch box for my Voodoo 3 3k and PicassoIV.
@Acill - before you ask, no I STILL haven't gotten around to configging screenmodes for the Voodoo 3 yet. Still too damned busy with work and sleep, though I pop in here for a few minutes as I'm able. :-)
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Tanzyr:
I have just one monitor, but I have a 2-port switch, so that's VOODOO + SD/FF, at the moment my pc-tower is not even allowed to use the switch anymore...
and I don't have any zorro gfx card, if i did, i'd have a 3 port switch, and if i also had BVISION, a 4 port switch then!!!
The TV-Card runs a window in Workbench of course, fullscreen resizeable of course. But all workbench activity is halted as long as you're using games this way.
Cheers,
Haymiggga
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So the TV Card connects it's output, if it could be called that, directly into the Voodoo?
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I can recommend the tv-card that elbox sells that has lots of connectors
Be careful with with this! The suggestion itself is sound, but remember that Elbox are based in a European country (is it Poland or something) and therefore if you're ordering overseas it may be that the TVCards supplied by elbox will not work. Composite Video would most likely work ok, but TV itself may not if the front end on the tuner is different, which it will be if they're using a different standard to your country's.
Brian
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@punkpie
Blatant Advertising plug
I make a nice internal electronic switcher for doing exactly that $80.00
Switch box's while cheap have problems at the higher resolutions and tend to ring.
what I mean by that and I had this prolblem with the old ezmon switchers from eyetech. looking at the left of right side of the sreen you would notice a couple of vertical lines that appear at the higher frequencies.
My switcher has several advantages.
Electronics switching.
Buffered Video switch the same that would appear on most High end VGA cards. Allows for high resolutions displays with out signal degredation
Manual and software switching.
Lighted push button on the front of your case allows you to simply push a small button and switch video.
Sofware is a simple command that swiches the video.
It allows switching of video from a keyboard shortcut or added to your scripts so when a certain game or program is started it automatically will switch modes for you . This is done in a nonintrusive and nonresident method. you run the command it switches the video and closes down and exits from memory so there is no issue of software compatibility.
The lighted button tells you at a glance what mode the switcher is in.
It has an internal header for your internal scan doubler and a VGA output header and one low profile VGA input cable for your virge card.
www.revanchellc.com (http://ww.revanchellc.com)
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Hi All,
I finally got it all and working, thanks for the help. The scandoubler work likes a treat.
@kgrach
The switcher sounds interesting. Can you send me a PM to talk about it more?
Cheers.