Within the last year, I bought myself a Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ80B which is bloody awesome. I decided last night to try hooking up my PC to this with an HDMI cable from my GTX 280 and an optical cable to my amp giving me 5.1 After a couple of games of L4D survival mode at 1080p with booming 5.1 sound and incredibly vibrant colours, I have decided that I can't go back to my 22" Samsung monitor. I have only one major problem. I currently have my keyboard and mouse on a coffee table in front of the sofa and my back is killing me. Having your controls at knee height means you have to lean forward, while looking (effectively up) at the TV ahead of you. My questions to you wise forum folk are... Do any of you game on your TV with a keyboard and mouse while sat on a sofa? If so, what do you do to position said controllers comfortably? I've been looking into some sort of desk that will slide over my lap with my jeyboard and mouse on but I'm not having any luck. I don't want to just get a piece of board and use that. I want something neat that I can possibly slide away or move to the side when I'm not using it. Any ideas would be great. Thanks MajorTom
Ikea have this, although it might not be big enough for both a keyboard and a mouse I guess you could always buy 2
That's not a half bad idea there, Sir Digby. Didn't think of just buying two smaller tables. I think the ideal solution would be a rolling desk like kenco said. But one that rolls forward instead of sideways. If I were to have the keyboard and mouse next to each it would come to 82cm (G15@56cm + func mat@~26) I'm starting to like the idea of having two separate surfaces though.
I game on my big TV. I bought an XBOX 360 controller which works on the PC. (make sure you buy a Windows compatible one) It's great. When I play a first person shooter though, I like to use a keyboard and mouse. For that I have a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse. I can actually play slouched in the couch by having the keyboard on my lap, and if I schootch over far enough, I can use the mouse on the edge of the couch (which is leather so it slides fairly well). Really though, for a good first person shooter, I just get a little table and sit at the table. It's a shame to not be using the couch, but I still have the massive TV and nice surround sound. You can actually just use the xbox controller for those games too, but I don't like that.
Cheers guys. Yesterday I picked up a couple of those tables from ikea. Perfect. The adjustable hight means you can louch back in the sofa for some comfortable gaming, or use them with my desk chair in the centre of the room in the 5:1 sweet spot Very chuffed. I have a 360 so I have controllers knocking about. Don't think windows 7 likes them too much though. Using a wireless controller through a play and charge kit at the moment. I had a windows 360 wireless adapter for them somewhere that I never got to work. maybe it's time to give it another go. Do PS3 controllers work with the PC at all?
*Offtopic* The Xinput Wireless reciever works fine for me in Windows 7!, *Ontopic* I Built a system for my mate the other day cuz he's just come back from Iraq (or Afghan... I can never remember...) and went his place to find that he had something like a 52" TV!!, So I stuck the HDMI cable in faster than the british government can come up with a way to steal our money... and ran Crysis on this new system, and f*ck me, it looked amazing!, and Crysis was also running at roughly 56-60fps with the following settings: 1920x1080 AAx8 AFx16 DX9 x64 (Bin64\Crysis.exe) All ingame settings @ High (Running on W7 x64) After seeing that, I am definately gonna have to start PC Gaming on a HDTV!.
Well for the last week or so I've been loving gaming in the living room. I've been forced back into the bedroom with the 22" samsung monitor and it took me ages to adjust. Not just to the smaller resolution but the sheer immersion that size brings. When it covers more of your field of vision at a comfortable distance to focus, it makes a huge difference. Can't wait to get back in the livingroom with all the fancy speakers too. Love it.
Something like a little angled drawing stand (sort of thing you do design work on) crossed with a TV dinner table thingy might work. Sit back with your feet up, stand over your legs with the keyboard on, mouse by your side.
I don't think they all just work as standard. When I bought mine, I saw a list of them and there was only one wired and one wireless that were listed as being "Windows Compatible". The others weren't. They were pretty cheap. I decided to get the wired one because the wireless one uses 2.4Ghz which pretty much everything in my house uses But the wired one is great anyway and it only cost about £17.99 including VAT and delivery! (From Play.com) As far as I know, the PS3 controller will not work on a PC. There are alternative controllers, PC specific ones I mean, but the Xbox 360 controller is hard to beat. It's comfortable for me and it works great. It installed in about 1 minute flat, and it works in most games. It rumbles, it has loads of buttons, looks nice, and is really nice and accurate for playing. I've been using it mostly in GTA4 which is great. I find the chopper really awkward to fly with a mouse, but with the analogue control on the gamepad it's a piece of cake. It's also nice for riding motorbikes because it's far smoother. Wow that sounds fantastic, I bet that is fun to play like that. It must be a pretty powerful PC to play at those kinds of settings at that resolution! I have an 8800GTX and it struggled at even 1680x1050 on my normal PC monitor. I managed to play it at about 25fps in ultra high settings though which was fine by me. To play on a big TV though, I would need to upgrade Such a shame PC equipment is so expensive.
Please, please, please tell me this is NOT the plasma! If it's the same TV as mine, and it certainly looks like it, you're heading for a serious case of screen burn!
Really? How long before you noticed it? I've always been very conscious of preventing screen burn but also wanted to hear from someone who could tell me exactly what kind of exposure caused it. I basically have a screen saver set to 1 min and make sure I don't leave anything on screen too long :/ Oh and yes it's the Plasma. I'm currently not using it as I need to living room to be free a lot right now.
thread about screen burn on the pz80 panels: http://www.avforums.com/forums/plas...-pz80-plasmas-screenburn-image-retention.html it shouldn't be a huge problem, but be careful while it's very new, is the general consensus.
I won't keep anything paused on mine for longer than 5 mins. HUDs on FPS are a sure way to screen burn. Have you ever noticed channel icons in the top corner of your screen. Sky1 is a good example. If you look at it closely, you will see that it is semi-transparent and with a much softer hue. This means that the image behind it, the overall screen picture, is constantly changing the colour of the pixels within the icon, so no screen burn will occur. This is exactly why many channels have changed their icons over the last few months. It's also why the Sky main menu has a finite 'time out'. Be advised: Screen burn will NOT be covered in your guarantee!
Cheers for the info guys. I am very vigilant when it comes to leaving any part of the screen static. Like crosshair I don't leave anything paused for more than 5 mins and I always turn the TV off when not in use. I have had my TV for about 8-10 months now so I think I'm over the most vulnerable time. That's not going to stop me being a burn Nazi though.
Did you get a home cinema system to go with it as well? Mine's the six speaker 1000 watt audio with Blu-Ray player and Viera Link. Needless to say I don't go to the cinema any more...
I had the cinema system a couple of years before I bought the telly as I didn't have room for one before. The speakers are beautiful but i could use a better amp. Bit old hat but does DTS. was about £200 pioneer amp. I'm always on the look out to improve the gear cos I bloody love good sound. I just can't afford it I'm not buying anything while there's talk of redundancies where I work lol
I'm very careful of retention having experienced full on burn with plasmas at work and i have never had a problem with my PX80. I will sometimes get a little retention, normally after watching a bluray, with the black bars top and bottom but nothing which has not faded after 5 minutes or so.
