GeekwithEnvy

How To

Play PS2 XBOX and More on Your PC Monitor

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It sounds simple enough, you want to play your Playstation 2 (PS2), XBOX, or other gaming console that uses composite video, on your computer monitor. Turns out that doing this can prove to be quite difficult, but here’s a solution.

You may start out looking for adapters on Amazon or eBay and within seconds you find tons of different adapters. Some of these adapters look like they will work just fine, RCA inputs on one side and VGA or HDMI on the other side. What’s even better is that you likely get a great deal on the adapter, perhaps it will only set you back $1.50.

Unfortunately, this will leave you without an image on your PC monitor and you will find yourself trying to figure out how to get your $1.50 back. The truth is these adapters weren’t designed to work the way you think they would. Most of these kinds of adapters were meant to work the other way around and were never intended to be used to hook a gaming console up to a PC monitor. Luckily there is a simple solution that will get you up and running quickly.

PETRH RGB to HDMI PS2 Xbox to PC monitor

You can use the PETRH RCA Component RGB YPbPr to HDMI v1.3 Video Converter or one similar to this. Not many monitors have composite video hookups so this will be very helpful as it will provide you with an HDMI connection to plug right into your monitor. This is the fastest way to get up and running without getting all caught up in the adapter game. This converter also handles audio which is a nice addition that some adapters might not have. The key to finding a working adapter in this case is one that is powered and comes with it’s own power supply.

Please note that you will also need to get a component cable for your PS2 or original Xbox as the original cable provided with these consoles only offers composite video (Red, White and Yellow). After that, the only other connection you need to make is to hook up the power supply to the converter box and you’re ready to game. Of course you don’t have to just use this converter for games, you can use it for just about anything you want to hook up that only accepts and HDMI signal. You can pick this unit up for around $25.00 on Amazon or eBay.

 

How To Quickly Shut Down Windows 8

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With Windows 8 it seems just a bit difficult to simply shut down your computer. Unlike previous versions of Windows, you can no longer just click Start and then proceed to shut down your PC.

Instead, Windows 8 makes you take the scenic route and either go through the process of logging off or flipping through the Charms menu, diving into Settings then pressing power and finally clicking Shutdown. Super intuitive right? Well, there is an easy way to get around all of this and quickly shut down your PC.

  • Head to your desktop.
  • Right-click and select New.
  • Create a shortcut.
  • Type the following in the text box: “shutdown /s /t 0″(that is a zero at the end.)

Once the shortcut is created you can change the icon of the shortcut to something a little more interesting by right-clicking the shortcut, selecting Properties, and then under the “Shortcut” tab, click Change Icon.

Now you can shutdown Windows 8 in record time!

ShutdownHowToSS

Let’s go a little deeper into what we’re asking the system to do when creating our new shortcut.

When we type “shutdown” we are simply asking the system to execute the shutdown.exe file located in the Windows System32 folder. The “/s” lets the shutdown.exe program know that we intend to shutdown our computer. I know it seems redundant but there are a bunch of other options (sometimes referred to as flags or switches) that the shutdown.exe program can perform including restarting the computer after it shuts down (/r). The “/t” lets the shutdown program know that we are about to tell it the time-out period we wish to use for this shutdown, which is then followed by the actual time-out period we want, in this case we used “0”.

For a full list of options to use with shutdown.exe, you can simply type “shutdown ?” in your command prompt or power shell.

 

How To Play Diablo II LOD on Windows 8

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Many of us are enjoying the recent release of Diablo III but some of us still love to play Diablo II Lord of Destruction, and with Windows 8, that can be a little problematic.

Diablo II Lord of Destruction is an outstanding game that became an instant classic when it was released on June 29th in North America. Even over a decade later, Diablo fans still play Diablo II LOD on Battle.net and in single player mode. However, the operating systems we use have changed quite dramatically over the years and with each new version usually comes a new set of problems for gamers who enjoy playing classic titles.

DII LOD Cover Art Diablo II Lord Of Destruction
Diablo II Lord of Destruction Cover Art (Blizzard Entertainment®)

If you have attempted to play Diablo II LOD on Windows 8 you will notice many issues, including some serious lag. Here are a few steps you can take to make sure your Diablo II LOD experience in Windows 8 is just as good, if not better, than it was back in 2001.

This quick “how to” assumes that you have already installed and patched the latest version of Diablo II LOD on your system. If you need patch information you can obtain it through Blizzard’s official patch site.

Before launching the game, right click on the game’s shortcut and select “Properties”, then select the “Compatibility” tab.

Once on the Compatibility tab, select the following options:

  • Check “Run this program in compatibility mode for” and set the value to “Windows XP SP 2/3”
  • Check “Reduced Color Mode” and set to “16-bit (65536) Color”
  • Check “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings”
  • Optional “Run this program as administrator”

Once you dial in these settings click Apply and then OK.

The next step is crucial if you want to reduce or eliminate all of the glitching and lagging that is known to plague Diablo II LOD on Windows 8.

Obtain an 3DFX Glide Wrapper, this is a little application that will allow you to use the Glide interface with Diablo II LOD. I have found that GLIDE3-to-OpenGL Wrapper by Sven Labusch seems to work the best out of any I have tried so far.

Download the files from Sven’s site and read the “ReadMe.txt” file. This will contain the most current instructions for installing and setting up the wrapper. Be sure to re-run the video test after the wrapper is installed and set it to use Glide.

** Note: You Will Also Need to apply compatibility settings to run the Diablo II Video Test (D2VidTst.exe) * *

 

That’s it! Hopefully you will be successful in your attempts to get Diablo running smooth. Just follow the directions closely and have fun!

How to Tell If You Are Taking Advantage of USB 3.0

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USB (Universal Serial bus), how did we live with out it?

gravisGamePad
Gravis GamePad

It’s probably a safe bet to say that most of the people who use USB technology have no idea what the world was like before it existed. Remember PS/2 and RS-232 connectors?It used to be a very different world when it came to how we connected devices to our computers.

Imagine having a different type of connector for each device you connect to your computer, that was reality in the early years of computers. I remember plugging in my Gravis Game Pad into the sound card, yes that’s not a typo, which had a midi/joystick port next to the 3.5mm jacks for microphone and audio out.

Fortunately for all of us, USB which was officially introduced in 1996, standardized the way we connect devices to our computers. We no longer had to worry about which device needed what port and which device would work on what type of hardware, everything became “universal”. The USB standard has undergone a few changes over it’s lifetime with each version slightly more stable and faster than the last.

USB1
USB 1.0

Transfer speeds for USB 1.0 are 1.5 Mbit/s and 12 Mbit/s

USB2
USB 2.0

Transfer speeds for USB 2.0 are 480 Mbit/s

USB 3.0

Transfer speeds for USB 3.0 can be up to 5 Gbit/s

Of course there are many other changes that go along with each USB release besides just transfer speeds. Changes to USB have also included power management and simultaneous two way transfer. The USB connector is really amazing, everything from keyboards to cell phones utilize this amazing interface and USB 3.0 is even better.

Now that we know how much faster USB 3.0 is compared to 2.0 (about 10 times faster) we need to know if were even using it. It may be difficult at first to tell which technology you’re using because USB 3.0 ports are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and therefore look identical to their 2.0 counterpart . If you haven’t bought a new computer in last year or so you probably don’t have USB 3.0.

In some cases an indication that you may have USB 3.0 will be a blue colored USB port on the computer itself, but the best way to tell is to check your hardware configuration via your preferred OS.

Microsoft Windows

You can check your computers hardware on Windows machines by right clicking “My Computer”, then “Manage” and then “Device Manager”.

Locate USB and you should see “USB 3.0” somewhere in the hardware description.

Mac OSX

Similarly, in OSX you can click the Apple logo in the top left of the finder bar, click “About this Mac”, then “More Info” and then “System Report”.

So is it worth all of the fuss? Absolutely! I have a USB 3.0 external hard drive and data transfer speeds are incredibly fast compared to 2.0 models. Any device using 3.0 should perform significantly better.

Looking at The Business of Tech and How To Make a Smart Purchase

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Cellphone with dollarsHave you ever just stopped and looked at the technology around you? Take your smart phone for example, it’s pretty amazing how much power these little devices have. Gaming on your phone was virtually non-existant 10 years ago and now we can do just about anything including having a face-to-face conversation with someone.

When we first get our new shiny device home we feel great about our purchase and can’t wait to use it. However, with todays tech culture we quickly lose this good feeling as internet buzz and advertisements start to roll in featuring a new product that outshines ours. This phenomena isn’t anything new, it’s been going on like this forever, but it’s the pace at which change is happening that really makes you feel left out.

It used to be that when you bought something it would last you for a few years or more before you needed to update, now it only takes about a year or sometimes even just a few months before we feel pressure to buy the latest and greatest. Were are told our current gadget is inferior and won’t be able to have this feature or our current device won’t work with this version of new software, then we are asked to shell out the big bucks again to play catch up.

So, what are we going to do about this? Is this ever going to change?  No, quite honestly it will probably get worse if anything. Is this really a bad thing though? I’m not so sure. I think that keeping the industry moving forward does drive the economy and can breed innovation, although I think that most of these updates are mostly cosmetic to begin with, but I digress.  It’s really about the consumer (us) and how we decide on what to buy and what not to buy. Even if you can afford it, upgrading every year can really put a hurting on you financially.

The idea here is to really think ahead before you make a purchase. Think about what you need the device for and consider all of the features it offers and how it will fit in with your life. Remember, these devices are here to work for you, not the other way around. Also, take the time of year into consideration as many deals can be found earlier in the year, and make sure you’re not buying a product right before a company is about to release it’s next big thing. Making your purchase should be a planned event and not spontaneous, do your research at home where theres no sales person trying to push you. Walk into a store well informed about the devices your interested in and that way you’ll have some confidence when it comes to making smart decisions on what you’re buying.

A little research can save you big headaches later on, look into the details like storage space for example. Do you have enough space for what your doing? Can you upgrade the device later on if your needs change? Answering these questions only takes a few minutes and the benefits are huge.

What’s not so great about the latest and greatest? Well, if you have ever bought something when it was just released you will most likely have figured out that waiting might have been a better idea. Rushing out and buying the latest can leave you to deal with all of the new bugs that come with your device. Although most new products go through varying amounts of testing in-house, the biggest test comes along on launch day. Sometimes it’s best to wait a month or so after a new product hits the market then check online forums to see and any undesirable functionality has been occurring like things failing or major glitches.

Reviews have been an extremely popular way to help you decide on what to buy next, but I caution you to take these reviews with a grain of salt. Firstly, many manufacturers will submit their own positive reviews on a product and can mislead you into thinking they are fellow consumers. This happens on more then just electronic devices, these fake reviews can pop up anywhere, like for apartments.

Sometimes you can get someone who has has a bad experience but it’s only limited to one bad unit. These people have had a truly poor experience because they happened to be unlucky enough to get the oddball defective unit. The best way to jude a review of a defective unit is to see how easily their problems were resolved, find out how their customer service responded to the problem.

Good customer service is unfortunately very rare these days and should also be considered when choosing a particular brand over another. Good customer service should be considered as a feature of the device. Look into device coverage, you may even find that you can receive discounts towards new products by sticking with that brand for the next upgrade, this happens with video card companies quite often.

Resale value is another thing to consider here, the smart phone market is a great example of how easy it is to save money on your upgrade by selling your old device. Chances are that old Android device or iOS device will sell really well, mostly because consumers have realized that they can get a great “last generation” phone for a great price from those who absolutely have to have the next best thing. This means that you too can get a great deal, look on online auction sites around the time a new product like the new iPhone is released and I’m sure you will find a ton of great deals.

The best advice that I can offer is to take your time when making decisions. Don’t be the should have, would have, could have person, be the, I planned ahead and made a smart buy person.