What can I use an old laptop for?

[Pulsar_t]

CCCP isn't the very best if your computer supports MADVR, but it's second best regardless of your hardware quality. It used to be somewhat outdated, but the recent update adds LAV filters and other fancy HD stuff.

madVR is awesome indeed, but I can't turn on the more demanding scaling algorithms. Still bests Windows renderer at any rate! I still use ffdshow-tryouts because I can't find an alternative real-time audio normaliser that works as efficiently (music and effects are usually louder than dialogue using unprocessed audio output), but the video is handled by MPC's builtin LAV decoder. Unfortunately no official or homebrew media-player for the PS360 has that sort of functionality, thereby falling at the mercy of the sound engineers who mastered the DVD/BD's. Gotta love how open-source gives you more options than those overpriced media players!

[o.pwuaioc]

CCCP.

FTFY.

[RCBH928]

So i did connect my computer to the TV room . Here is what I got.

1) After I took Isiolia'a advice and did FN+F5 I could switch between the monitors. I did a restart to check if I needed to do this every time I turn the laptop on. it worked. Next day I tried it from a "shutdown" , even the computer was on the TV had a huge difficulty finding a signal in HDMI4(the port my laptop is connected to) . No display on the laptop or TV was working. I did FN+F5 again to switch between monitors, it worked again.

2)The computer was very hard to use due to the distance of the TV and the sitting area. I did lower the resolution which helped a lot. But still the URL bar is pretty had to read and the right-click menu options are hard to read. Any one has an optimum settings for a computer connected to a 60' TV? Like resolution, browser font size, ...etc?



Yeah thats about it. Thanks for everyone's help. Not sure if I should try and run Duke Nukem 3D on it or not.

[Hobie-wan]

You can try turning off the font smoothing somewhere in the display options. It is probably currently on since it helps when sitting 1-2 feet from a high resolution monitor or screen. But low res and blown up on the TV it probably makes things worse. Otherwise it depends on how the TV is processing the incoming signal at whatever resolution.

[isiolia]

2)The computer was very hard to use due to the distance of the TV and the sitting area. I did lower the resolution which helped a lot. But still the URL bar is pretty had to read and the right-click menu options are hard to read. Any one has an optimum settings for a computer connected to a 60' TV? Like resolution, browser font size, ...etc?

Depends on what version of Windows it's running. In XP/etc, if you go to set the theme there are Large and Extra Large settings that will help somewhat. In Vista and on, you can change the DPI in the Display settings, which will more consistently scale things up.

Inside browsers, you can usually choose a zoom setting, but the easier thing is often to just hold CNTRL and scroll the mouse to zoom in to what's comfortable.

[Pulsar_t]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deve ... ed+Intents

You can use your Android phone as a remote control using the above app. Pretty neat and has plenty of functionality.

[RCBH928]

Thanks a lot guys , you have been a lot of help.