Josh asks, "I'm building a home theater, and I'd like to know if I can use my gaming PC with an overhead projector so I use my gaming computer with my overhead projector."

The short answer is: yes, you can use almost any overhead projector with your gaming computer, provided it has either a VGA or DVI input. The bad news is that you're going to spend quite a lot of money on the projector, because the cheaper projectors will only run at resolutions of 640x480 or 800x600.

Projectors are pretty awesome for gaming because they take a normally small screen - say 24" - and blow it up to 60 or more inches. So, instead of gaming on a smaller screen, they let you game on your entire wall. It's some pretty cool technology, but it has its downsides:

• The lamp inside the projector needs to be replaced at regular intervals, otherwise they dim and eventually stop working. With heavy use, a lamp may need to be replaced once every 6 months.
• They're loud. Most projectors need extensive cooling in order to keep the lamp from killing the electronics (and itself), so large, fast spinning fans are used to push that heat out of the unit. Some projectors also have other moving parts that can distract you. Of course, this isn't a problem in a theater environment, since the sound system will generally drown out the projector noise.
• They're damn expensive. Projectors are not cheap technology. If you want any decent resolution, you're going to spend some big money; for example, a 1080p projector - a 1920x1800 resolution - will run you upwards of $1,200.

If you're going to game on a projector, you really only need to pay attention to two details:

• Input ports. Does the projector you're looking at include connections for VGA or DVI/DVI-D? What about other inputs you may use (HDMI, Component, Composite, S-Video, etc...)?
• Resolution. Like I said, you don't want to game on an 800x600 screen, so why would you game on an 800x600 projector? Just because you're going to be projecting the image onto a much larger surface doesn't mean you're increasing the pixel count - the game screen is still going to seem very cluttered, and the game screen is still going to seem very small in comparison. I really only recommend gaming on a WXGA (1280x800) or 1080p (1920x1800) projector, unless you're absolutely comfortable gaming at lower resolutions.

If you're looking for a recommendation, I'd tell you to look closely at the InFocus X10 DLP Home Theater Projector. I don't personally own this, but I did game on this twice at a conference in Seattle and it was f*kin amazing.

Do you have a question? E-mail me: lordkat@gmail.com

Be safe,
Jason