Video card with TV out...how does Stepmania look on your TV?

Joshua B · Trick Member Joined: 22 Dec 2005 Location: Hudson, MA, USA

I'm almost finished building my Stepmania system for the basement.

P4 1.7 / 512 ram / 20 gig hard drive
ATI 256 meg card with S-video out
Wireless internet
Wireless keyboard & mouse
Dual Cobalt Flux pads (status=shipped)

I've been weighing my options for a display. Monitor vs TV. Big, bulky, and cheap vs. thin, pretty, and costly.

I'm thinking about a cheap brand TV, Sanyo--24 inches tube TV with flat screen. It's about $180 at Walmart. It has 400 lines of resolution. I'm hoping I'll be able to do some basic computing (song downloads and Stepmania updates) as well as playing Stepmania.

For those of you who play on standard definition TV (via TV out from your graphics card), on the Select Music screen, are you able to see the song titles as you scroll through the songs?

LAN040 · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 12:13 pm Post subject:

Im using a Philips 27" Television, and it works good at 1024x768 or whatever that res. is. My GPU is an Nvidia 6600, and my computer monitor is a Hyundai 19" LCD. The television makes the text in Stepmania kind of small, but thats okay. It runs smooth...

EDIT: I suggest the 640x320 (Im bad as memorizing resolutions) in the Stepmania OPTIONS menu. You will be able to see everything on the screen that way...
_________________

I miss the old time DDR...

Joshua B · Trick Member Joined: 22 Dec 2005 Location: Hudson, MA, USA

Thanks for the feedback.

You said "the text in Stepmania kind of small, but thats okay." I hope you mean you can still read the text.

So I bought a 27" tube TV last night and Stepmania looks nice. Sometimes the smaller Artist fonts are hard to read depending on how small those fonts have to get, but the Song Titles are very clear.

wschmrdr · Trick Member Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Location: Central NY

We use Stepmania and TVs during DDR club meetings all the time, and it works just fine, even in 640x480. I can see the titles just fine.

Kalek · Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:28 pm Post subject:

I would suggest running StepMania in 640x480 since that is standard def resolution.

If you run Windows at that resolution, everything should be pretty clear. Anything higher would be pushing it (I think it only allows up to 800x600 for TV).

Razor LOL · Trick Member Joined: 04 Oct 2005 Location: Clarksville, MD

I've never used StepMania on a TV, but I use 1280x1040 for my Dell 19" flat panel, and it runs flawlessly and beautifully.

_________________

Recall
Groovestats (Now completely filled in, challenges plz)

ThePandemonium · Trick Member Joined: 05 Jul 2005

I have a PC in on my TV but its not so great since... My 57 inch rear projection TV is huge and buttocks-rapes the quality
_________________

Nintendo Wii Friend Code- 0484-4722-2393-6025
Nickname- Moz

lostsage · Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 9:37 am Post subject:

Try this:

Under graphics options, change refresh rate to 60 (instead of something higher or on default).

And set your resolution at 800. ANd lower your Display Color, Texture Color, Movie Color to 16 bit.

If that doesn't work, try dropping your texture resolution to 512 (or less).

Hope that works.