Can I play US PC games on an Australian PC?

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kovster - 30 Aug 2006 02:01 GMT

I just discovered that one can download popular PC games from Windows
Marketplace/Direct 2 Drive.

However, aren't US PC games in NTSC format and Australian PC games in PAL
format?

If I buy a PC game from the US and try to install it on my PC in Australia,
will it work? Someone please help me out, I've wanted to know the answer to
this for years!

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Jerry - 30 Aug 2006 04:13 GMT

PAL and NTSC refer to the format for television broadcasts and video
cassettes or movies or tv shows on DVD; not the video you see on a computer
monitor, unless you are also watching tv with the compuetr using a tv card.

>I just discovered that one can download popular PC games from Windows
> Marketplace/Direct 2 Drive.
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> to
> this for years!

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RobertVA - 30 Aug 2006 04:17 GMT

> I just discovered that one can download popular PC games from Windows
> Marketplace/Direct 2 Drive.
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> will it work? Someone please help me out, I've wanted to know the answer to
> this for years!

NTSC and PAL are analog TV standards wouldn't be relevant to PCs unless
you are importing videos, burning disks for a DVD player or using a TV
for a display. In game graphics are generated real time by through a
standardized programming interface like DirectX. Cut scenes between
levels are often some sort of compressed digital format like MPEG video
or Quicktime. Unlike NTSC and PAL the computer and SVGA CRT can switch
between different screen resolutions and vertical scan rates. Most
computer displays (CRT and flat panel) can display significantly higher
picture resolutions than standard definition TVs.

Standard SVGA monitors aren't using an interlaced image format the way
NTSC video does anyway. Computer monitors normally use Progressive scan.

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