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iMac for Games console display

R

Ry.

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 6, 2011
50
0
Is there ANY way to use the 2011-2012 iMac's as a display for your xbox/ps3?

There HAS to be a way. Why would apple restrict this if not?

Thanks.
 
To be honest I don't really see the point, majority of games are 720p, so it wouldn't be taking advantage of the iMac's screen anyway. I suppose it would make sense if you wanted to go the minimalist route having only 1 screen for 2 devices in which (if I remember correctly) there's nothing out yet that lets you do this with thunderbolt equipped Macs but I'm pretty sure there is a device you can buy to do this with pre-thunderbolt equipped Macs :)
 
mixel said:
Does anyone know if http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/capture-convert/GameCaptureHD.html offers a full quality live preview? I used a similar solution in the pre-HD days to play Dreamcast games on another display with no visible lag.

If it does have a lagless (or close enough) live feed you also get the obvious bonus of being able to record all your gameplay. :D
Click to expand...

well, they claim:

The gameplay is passed through to the TV via HDMI – in pristine quality, without delay.
Click to expand...

But I haven't used it personally. But this is a different device than what the OP is looking for. He/She wants to use his iMac as a display for a PS3.
 
I know, but if it works how I my old capture card did - it shows the screen on both the external display and the computer that's doing the capturing, in a window that can potentially be maximised.

It was really nice back when i used to do it as i could run consoles in a window and carry on doing "important" stuff still. :) I have no idea if the elgato HD thingy works the same way though.

edit: "The image in the Elgato Game Capture HD software on your Mac or PC will be delayed from live by at least a second, so it will not be possible to play the game while viewing it in the Elgato Game Capture HD window. There is no way to turn that delay off." - So.. No it's nowhere near usable. That's a shame. :/ I wonder if it would be faster with SSDs or if the bottleneck is the USB. (my old capture card was PCI)

I remember people being pretty surprised when they added video-in on Displayport iMacs in the first. That was a great feature. Sad to see its not in the latest models.
 
Last edited:
So why would Apple restrict the use of a product that is more than capable of doing the job? I just dont see a reason why they wont allow people that have paid £2000 for this product to simply use the screen as an external.

Am i right in saying that the majority if not all AIO's allow people to use the screen as an external display? The fact that feature coul be utilized on the earlier model and they've removed it reeks of snobbery from apple. It seems like there saying your xbox/ps3 is t good enough to be displayed on our product.
 
The thing with the Mac is that it can output video, but it can't input video except from another Mac.
 
Ry. said:
So why would Apple restrict the use of a product that is more than capable of doing the job? I just dont see a reason why they wont allow people that have paid £2000 for this product to simply use the screen as an external.

Am i right in saying that the majority if not all AIO's allow people to use the screen as an external display? The fact that feature coul be utilized on the earlier model and they've removed it reeks of snobbery from apple. It seems like there saying your xbox/ps3 is t good enough to be displayed on our product.
Click to expand...

It's not snobbery, it's technical. It's because of the move to Thunderbolt. The video-in circuits need a thunderbolt feed. I agree an HDMI-in port would be useful. I'm hoping the development of the Apple television set means they find a way to fix whatever engineering limitation they ran into.
 
Same reason why Apple doesn't put a lot of time to MacPro anymore.
Same reason why Apple sells iPhone without replaceable battery while most phone does.
Same reason why Apple sells computers with mediocre graphics.

I use Apple, love SOME of their products (the number is getting smaller and smaller each year). But being an Apple fanboy has been long way off to me.

Apple doesn't make all things that fits me. I wanted a MacPro with GTX690 and SNB-E CPUs instead of gaming machine. But instead Apple only came up with iMac using a mobile GPU.

So I stopped asking questions, took the slap in the face and just use whatever tools available at hand. Just get 1080p HDTV like most people do for games console.

iMac use 1440 display.
So anything lower than that looks crap anyway. PS3 or Xbox doesn't come with AA/AF adjustment and everything is upscaled from 640p or something except for the UI. I doubt you can enjoy it. So, why bother?
 
My mate plays his xbox on his 2009 imac and it looks just as good as my tv. The only hinderence is the amount of glare but the vivid colours make up for that.

I believe it outputs 720p so the sane as my tv.

People say you only take advantage of 1080p when above 30 odd inches anyway. Apple should make the new imac with an hdmi in/out socket.
 
Ry. said:
Apple should make the new imac with an hdmi in/out socket.
Click to expand...

I have the same frustrations, but you can take this the other way too.

- Why don't consoles have Thunderbolt ports? (This one's a little unrealistic, but it's something that's possible in next gen.)
- Why doesn't Intel make the chip that allows for HDMI-Thunderbolt conversion? (There's at least one company dying to make the converter but the part just doesn't exist.)

Apple has moved on. Nobody else has caught up.
 
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