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I have a Dell Latitude C840 laptop. It has a 1600x1200 LCD screen and a NVidia GeForce4 440 Go video card (I think). It also has S-Video and VGA connectors.

I would like to convert S-Video or VGA to HDMI, using an adapter, and use an external HDMI monitor. What resolution would I be able to achieve with this?

Do the S-Video and VGA signals come from the video card or the motherboard?

mcu
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1 Answers1

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S-video is unsuitable : The highest resolutions it can transmit are 480i and 576i SD resolutions. It is analog video technology, hence it is limited in its performance.

According to Wikipedia, 576i can do at most 1050×576 with 16:11 aspect ratio. Higher resolutions will cause the image to become fuzzy if pushed too high.

VGA is capable of supporting the resolution of 1600x1200, depending on the hardware and driver.

Regarding your question :

Do the S-Video and VGA signals come from the video card or the motherboard?

All video comes from video adapters, either built-into the CPU (integrated) or on separate cards (discreet). The integrated adapter on the CPU is set into the motherboard.

harrymc
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  • Does the presence of a video card mean that there is not a separate "integrated" video adapter? – mcu Aug 10 '23 at 17:27
  • It means that both exist in parallel. Usually Windows chooses one of the two according to the video needs of the program, but the user can override this for a particular executable. Games typically execute on the discreet GPU. – harrymc Aug 10 '23 at 17:34
  • How do I find out what resolution this particular VGA is capable of? I can't seem to find any Dell or NVidia specs for that. – mcu Aug 10 '23 at 17:35
  • See [Maximum resolution through VGA/DVI/HDMI(/etc)?](https://superuser.com/questions/205453/maximum-resolution-through-vga-dvi-hdmi-etc) – harrymc Aug 10 '23 at 17:49
  • @mcu -- Since you plan on using a VGA-to-HDMI converter, the maximum "*resolution this particular VGA is capable of*" is probably irrelevant. Unless you plan on spending a lot, the typical VGA-to-HDMI converter may only handle a few fixed resolutions. – sawdust Aug 10 '23 at 19:19