External Usb Graphics Cards

[Fortyhands]

Hey guys,

I've been lurking in the background and obsessively clicking the refresh button waiting to hear new details regarding the Pandora. I'm literally frothing at the mouth for this one and I intend to be one of the earliest 3000 adopters. Please release new news or media!!!! The anticipation is driving me insane!!!!!

(I ran a few forum searches in the topic external graphics, but no dice)

Anyways, to my topic -- What is the possibility of running an external USB Graphics adapter to get higher resolution output to a TV? Do any exist that would fit the bill and do any have the necessary linux driver support?

Examples include:

With Linux support (according to this page: http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/AddVGAAdapter)
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http://www.sitecom.com/product.php?product...p;productid=292
http://www.sweex.com/producten.php?sectie&...amp;artikel=460
http://www.startech.com/item/USB2VGA-USB-2...ay-Adapter.aspx

Without Linux Support
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http://www.trittontechnologies.com/products/TRIUV200.htm
http://www.iogear.com/product/GUC2015V/
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=555&type=expert

Here is a lengthy post about getting external VGA adapters to work within Ubuntu, but I'm not sure which product they are using (SiS chipset):
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-260863.html

Pandora has an amazing feature set out of the box, but it would be cool if it could be used to output classic emulated games to a TV at higher resolutions than previously reported + support a usb hub for 4 controllers (SNES Bomberman anyone?).

I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Cheers!!

 

[habib15]

Most TV's will upscale the signal, and if that isn't good enough you could probably find a Third Party one that is higher quality. As for creating content for an external graphics card, I don't think its going to happen. I'm not saying its not possible, but devs are not going to create applications that can run both on native hardware and an external video card at higher resolutions. This is a niche product to begin with if you add in that maybe 5%-10% will get an external adapter if its supported thats like 200 people of the initial release.

On a plus size a usb hub and game controllers for 4 should be supported, its just up to the emulator devs to incorporate it.

 

[nubie]

I don't like USB Video adapters, and I seriously doubt they would work. Even on a PC they are worse than useless. (unless you want to, I don't know, display a page of text, or something)

For $25 I cut a PCI-E video card down to x1 slot so that I can have up to 3 or more video cards in a standard motherboard (non-sli).

The Pandora supports S-Video. If you have an "HDTV" you should have a line-doubler for it if you plan to use standard video sources at all. "scaling" modes look like crap.

I would wait for a version of the OMAP that supports Component out video (or ideally DVI/HDMI and RGB/VGA).

USB has insane CPU overhead and horrible throughput, I doubt it would work on the Pandora, and if it did you would sure feel stupid that you paid for it.

I would investigate turning the LCD into a DIY projector, best of both worlds, a Media Player/gaming console, and 90" projected image all in one. I sure hope that the Pandora will support watching my movies off of a USB HDD.

 

[TaG]

The beauty of something like Pandora is how diverse the uses people are thinking of using it for.
To be honest I never imagined a pocket computer, fancy touchscreen and all and then hooking up a usb graphics card to a big screen. But now I have opened my eyes I'm thinking usb 7.1 sound card too, hooked to the surround sound with huge speakers. Then I'm gonna get one of them luggage trolleys like at the train station, weld up a frame to take it all, and attach a chain from it all to my jeans so I don't forget where I've left my Pandora portable cinema.

Seriously, I can't see many people wanting to hook up this type of stuff, so getting software to take advantage of the extra horses may be scarce, and drivers aren't always readily available in linux for some of these devices either.

Mind you, if you happen to already have the usb card and fancy trying it and seeing if you can hack it up to run full sized linux apps and games does sound kinda fun. Crazy, but fun. B)