teedoe Posted April 15, 2015 Share Posted April 15, 2015 I am a long time lurker here and wanting to start a build but I have a dilemma. I will keep it short. I have an old PC that I need to upgrade for my personal workstation (used infrequently): Intel Core 2 Duo, old graphics card (raedon 4500 or something), 4 GB RAM (max is 8), Win 7 - 64bit. Even after all the possible upgrades to this (SSD, Graphics Card, RAM), I don't think it will perform well enough for digital pinball machine. Let me know if I am wrong, but pretty sure it just won't cut it. So my idea is to build a PC to perform as both the digital pinball machine and the workstation. Basically running 5 monitors, 3 for the pin and 2 for the workstation, the pin would be near my desk and keyboard, mouse, monitors and USB cords could easily reach. Everything else would be housed in the pin cabinet. Would this solution work? Or will it be such a pain in the ass to achieve and not really save me any money on the bigger PC build compared to two dedicated pc machines? All thoughts are appreciated. Thanks. Here is a doodle of the idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dark13 Posted April 15, 2015 Share Posted April 15, 2015 Upgrading the videocards should work for pinball arcade and pinballFX (i'm running them on a p4 3ghz on my htpc), future pinball with zed physic need a beefier cpu. The main problem is you can't run 5 monitor with a single videocard, and honestly I don't know how easier will be screen assignment using 2 videocards. In terms of windows using autologging one user for pinball and ctrl+canc+alt on pc keyboard to disconnect and log another user is possible. You can assign user-dependant shell in xp and seven. I think it may be possible but a lot of troubleshooting would be involved... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tredog Posted April 17, 2015 Share Posted April 17, 2015 First off, Nice IDEA... Depending on your settings, your current video card may get you by on lower graphic settings. However, If you did build a new PC with 5 Monitors, I would Duplicate Monitor 1 (MAIN) as your play field and main PC Monitor on desk. Duplicate Monitor 2 as Back Glass and 2nd Monitor on desk. Then Monitor 3 could be a dedicated DMD monitor for pinball only. This would be the most practical setup, using a splitter cable on Monitor 1 and 2 to split the signal (Just make sure your monitors support the same resolution) your pc would not even be aware of the extra 2 monitors. You could go from 2 monitor PC Setup, flip a switch turning on the 3 monitors on your cab, fire up pinballx/hyperpin, and be instantly transformed to pinball mode. Just flip off the desk monitors... My 2 Cents... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teedoe Posted April 17, 2015 Author Share Posted April 17, 2015 @Tredog: I hadn't thought of splitting the monitor cables. That would make things a whole lot simpler for switching from desktop mode to pinball mode. - Thanks for your input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agrajag Posted April 18, 2015 Share Posted April 18, 2015 You may also need to use DisplayFusion (or similar) to set up some monitor profiles that you can select with hotkeys. I have 3 monitors and a TV connected and use it to switch between various configurations including pinball. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moritz Posted April 20, 2015 Share Posted April 20, 2015 I actually have a dual use notebook pinball, I have my notebook inside the cabinet and using wireless keyboard/mouse and a d-link widi adapter to connect wireless to my desk monitor. You can see pics here. nice pic btw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teedoe Posted April 21, 2015 Author Share Posted April 21, 2015 I actually have a dual use notebook pinball, I have my notebook inside the cabinet and using wireless keyboard/mouse and a d-link widi adapter to connect wireless to my desk monitor. You can see pics here. nice pic btw What kind of distances can you get with this setup? I would love to not not have to run cords. Is the response time on the display and mouse workable or is there considerable lag? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moritz Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 What kind of distances can you get with this setup? I would love to not not have to run cords. Is the response time on the display and mouse workable or is there considerable lag? You can't notice any input lag with keyboard and mouse (microsoft desktop 3000 kit), it works fine with 5 meters distance, it should work up to 10 meters. The widi adapter has some input lag with full hd resolution, but swithing to HD resolution i have almost zero input lag, my desk monitor is a 23" full hd, but I have to use HD resolution because of this lag. But in your case I would have wireless keyboard/mouse and only one long HDMI cable to connect to your desk monitor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dazz Posted April 21, 2015 Share Posted April 21, 2015 On VPUniverse.com we have a member, Itchiago, that has his pincab setup splitting from his main computer. I believe that he is only using 2 screens and splits video between his main PC and his pincab. I'm not sure exactly what his setup is, but you may want to ask him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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