DVI/VGA KVM Switches - Bad Idea?

wrwright

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May 11, 2005
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Hi All,

I just purchased a new computer and flat panel display (Sony HS95P), mostly for gaming purposes.

I would love to use a straight DVI cable connection between my new desktop and the monitor, but I also want my wife's 2 year old Dell Inspiron laptop to be able to easily use the monitor when I am not home.

It seems a DVI-KVM switch would be great, except her laptop doesn't support DVI.

First: Would I be losing anything truly significant (think in gaming terms) by moving away from DVI and using a simple non-dvi SWITCH (I think vga is the term?)?

Second: Are there switches out there that can handle one computer coming in through DVI and the other coming in through VGA?

Third: The monitor has both DVI and VGA inputs (again assuming VGA is the right term). Would it be bad to connect my desktop directly to the DVI input, and my wife's laptop directly to the VGA input? How could we switch which computer controls them in that case, and what would happen if both tried at once? LOL

Thanks for any tips (or terminology corrections),

Warren
 

Chuck_Hsiao

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Apr 20, 2005
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1) This is a subjective thing. People say that it makes a big difference; I haven't noticed much on my computer. However, my monitor is using centuries-old technology (it has a response time of 25 ms and has been around for over a year), so any improvement might be "washed out" because of that. In short, the best thing to do is probably to go see for yourself if any improvement is big enough to worry about.

2) No idea about switches. Generally speaking, I'd recommend using a switch unless it's necessary, because of the degraded image quality. Also, as detailed below, one isn't necessary in this case.

3) Yes, if it has both VGA and DVI inputs, you can hook both up simultaneously. I don't know much about the Sony HS95P but I know that for all of our monitors (CMV and Polyview) that have both inputs, it automatically detects which one to use (if only one is connected), and you can also toggle (via the OSD menu) which input to use. I would expect the Sony to be the same. Since which one to use is controlled by the monitor, not the computer(s), you can't have it do both simultaneously, as fun as that would look.

Chuck Hsiao
Amptron