Thinkpad + Monitor Setup for Online Poker Grind Station

[thinkpoker]

Hey!

What I am trying to build:

A setup for online poker grinding, so I need an external monitor - 14' display is not enough. I'm thinking 24'+.

The problem:

I can't find a monitor for my ibm thinkpad t60 because it can't handle 1920x+ res.

I've found the majority of thinkpads don't have HDMI.

Questions:

How can one accomplish this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYHzeSr_eFM

Should I buy another thinkpad? Which model?

What monitors should I buy?

What do you guys recommend? Thanks!

..and sorry for being a noob, but I really want to learn and build this.

-thinkpoker

[ZaZ]

Perhaps as a place to start, which ThinkPad do you have? No ThinkPads have HDMI, but more recent offerings do have a Displayport, which is easily converted to HDMI with a cable.

[RealBlackStuff]

This might help some: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-Th ... a-p/397961
(once you have a laptop with HDMI port, such as some Lenovo Edge machines and others)

[thinkpoker]

Perhaps as a place to start, which ThinkPad do you have? No ThinkPads have HDMI, but more recent offerings do have a Displayport, which is easily converted to HDMI with a cable.

Thinkpad T60.

[ThinkRob]

The T60 definitely *can* drive a 1920x1080 display.

[thinkpoker]

The T60 definitely *can* drive a 1920x1080 display.

I know its 1024x768 max, but after viewing that youtube video I thought it might be possible.

Obviously I don't know how its done. That's why I need your help.

[craigmontHunter]

It will drive that resolution with the VGA port on the notebook, or using the DVI or VGA output on a dock - the internal monitor is what limits you to 1024x768.

[ThinkRob]

It will drive that resolution with the VGA port on the notebook, or using the DVI or VGA output on a dock - the internal monitor is what limits you to 1024x768.

Pretty much. While your laptop's internal display may have a resolution of XGA or SXGA+, the GPU in it is at least capable of driving both that and a UXGA (1600x1200) display simultaneously (more actually, but I'm not 100% of what the max. framebuffer size is...) How you go about setting that up will depend on your display and your operating system.

[pianowizard]

I can't find a monitor for my ibm thinkpad t60 because it can't handle 1920x+ res.

I've found the majority of thinkpads don't have HDMI.

I haven't used HDMI on computers (only on Blu-ray disc players) but have read that even though some of the later versions of HDMI could handle higher than 1920x1080, in reality 1080p is the limit for most computers equipped with HDMI. By contrast, all the other common interfaces support higher than 1080p:

VGA, which your T60 has: technically can go up to 2048x1536 although for some reason none of the Thinkpads I have tried could. But 1920x1200 (for 16:10 monitors) and 2048x1152 (16:9) are guaranteed to work.

Regular DVI: up to 1920x1200 and 2048x1152.

Dual-link DVI: up to at least 2560x1600.

DisplayPort (both mini and regular): up to at least 2560x1600.

Thus, if you want to go higher than 1920x1200 or 2048x1152, you need a Thinkpad with either DisplayPort or dual-link DVI. Forget HDMI because it's even worse than VGA as far as resolution is concerned. They really should rename it "LDMI".