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Tokubetsu · Nov 23, 2009

So I'm about ready to order one from monoprice but I'm scared about the ghosting issues. Just put in an order for this thanks to the other thread: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236052

I really dont want to spend 34.99 on the MS cables if the ones work at monoprice will work fine. It's only 6.45.

pr0cs · Nov 23, 2009

I have the exact same monitor, I have my 360 hooked up to it via HDMI, my digital speakers hooked up via the SPDIF connector on the monitor, my PC hooked up to the DVI connector and my laptop hooked up to the VGA connector.

Great monitor, my only complaint is that I wish it was a little smarter on switching inputs (ie: switch to an input only if it detects there is something there).

also:
I've bought shitty knock off VGA cables from china for $8 on ebay and retail microsoft cables (in the bargain bin) and never noticed a lick of difference between them. YMMV. I honestly wouldn't worry about it at all.

woodypop · Nov 23, 2009

Used official ones are only $10 if you've got a Gamestop nearby. That's what I did.

Like the hat? · Nov 23, 2009

Out of curiosity, my tv takes VGA, HDMI, and component. Which is the best when it comes to quality for a 360? Right now I'm using HDMI.

bran · Nov 23, 2009

LOL @ people still thinks they need to buy "premium cable", you make me crack.

Kandrick · Nov 23, 2009

pr0cs said:
I have the exact same monitor, I have my 360 hooked up to it via HDMI, my digital speakers hooked up via the SPDIF connector on the monitor, my PC hooked up to the DVI connector and my laptop hooked up to the VGA connector.

Great monitor, my only complaint is that I wish it was a little smarter on switching inputs (ie: switch to an input only if it detects there is something there).

also:
I've bought shitty knock off VGA cables from china for $8 on ebay and retail microsoft cables (in the bargain bin) and never noticed a lick of difference between them. YMMV. I honestly wouldn't worry about it at all.

Yet some people got problems with monoprice VGA cables like this guy here http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375694

If you want to be sure, get the official one, but a cheap one will do too (unless you get unlucky and get a shitty one)

Diablohead · Nov 23, 2009

bran said:
LOL @ people still thinks they need to buy "premium cable", you make me crack.

There was some cheap Blaze made VGA cable when the 360 launched with thin cheap wires, needless to say they were crap and did mess up the image as it's not like a HDMI cable. Not saying you need to pay for MONSTER cables, but the officials are well worth it for a sturdy wire and also includes a little vga female converter, sometimes you need it.

Neuromancer · Nov 23, 2009

I got the official one and it worked great. I was away from home for 6 weeks so I used it to hook up my 360 to a 17" widescreen LCD monitor. It looked really good.

bee · Nov 23, 2009

all the cheap ones aren't shielded so you can get interference with them if you have a lot of electrical stuff around

kamspy · Nov 23, 2009

monoprice VGA cable is my 360 interconnect of choice.

Especially if you have a 768p, 900p or 1050p monitor/tv. .

The HDMI in the 360 must have some sort of extra D/A step because it degrades the image quality on my displays. Especially aliasing. Maybe because the 360 was designed with analog outputs? I think I read somewhere (probably bs) that they really cheaped out on the HDMI thing and basically put an analog -> HDMI converter in instead of really integrating it(?).

sk3tch · Nov 23, 2009

bran said:
LOL @ people still thinks they need to buy "premium cable", you make me crack.

With analog cabling there can be a slight difference in quality. Obviously, with digital it does not matter.

itxaka · Nov 23, 2009

bran said:
LOL @ people still thinks they need to buy "premium cable", you make me crack.

Actually I have a cheap VGA cable for the 360 and it suffers for a "double image". It really gets annoying on really white menus and the dashboard.

pr0cs · Nov 23, 2009

JodyAnthony said:
Out of curiosity, my tv takes VGA, HDMI, and component. Which is the best when it comes to quality for a 360? Right now I'm using HDMI.

In theory HDMI should be best but it really comes down to your TV and how it handles all those connections.
I don't notice a lick of different on my monitor for vga vs HDMI, it just worked out best that I use HDMI for the 360 so I could plug everything else in as well.

Huevos de Oro · Nov 23, 2009

JodyAnthony said:
Out of curiosity, my tv takes VGA, HDMI, and component. Which is the best when it comes to quality for a 360? Right now I'm using HDMI.

I'd like to know the answer for this question as well. Is VGA better than component? I'm currently using the latter because my 360 has no HDMI out.

Tokubetsu · Nov 23, 2009

So it looks like I im just gonna go with the monoprice ones and hope to get lucky :lol

BlazeHedgehog · Nov 23, 2009

itxaka said:
Actually I have a cheap VGA cable for the 360 and it suffers for a "double image". It really gets annoying on really white menus and the dashboard.

Same here, more or less - if I crank the resolution up too high I get double images and my colors start washing out.

AmericanNinja · Nov 23, 2009

I got an official MS 360 VGA adapter that I no longer use.

lowrider007 · Nov 23, 2009

bran said:
LOL @ people still thinks they need to buy "premium cable", you make me crack.

Actually I'm my experience you do, I've tried a number of 'unofficial' vga cables over the years and non of them compare the MS's official cable.

Deleted member 22576 · Nov 23, 2009

I bought the VGA cable when I got my 360 because I didn't have an HDTV yet.
It's a shame the TV I eventually got a few months later doesn't have VGA input because I don't have an HDMI 360.

Sophia · Nov 23, 2009

JodyAnthony said:
Out of curiosity, my tv takes VGA, HDMI, and component. Which is the best when it comes to quality for a 360? Right now I'm using HDMI.

Depends on the resolution of your TV. Most TVs that are listed as 720p actually have an off resolution (such as 1366 x 768) , which means the VGA cable will look best, as it has more resolutions to pick from. If your TV is 1080p, HDMI is the best, so stick with what you've got. Component is usually inferior in both cases.

And if you DO go with VGA, I'd really recommend picking up the Microsoft VGA cables. Sure, you'll pay more, but at least you don't go with the gamble of getting a shoddy third party cable that works like crap. You also get a free Y Adapter, should you ever want to route it through a computer's line in port, or a computer monitor.

Diablohead · Nov 23, 2009

Sega1991 said:
Same here, more or less - if I crank the resolution up too high I get double images and my colors start washing out.

If I didn't use my VGA cable about 3 times a year, I would give you it. At high res games can look quite different and fresh, especially those with uber textures (or the high poly cars in forza 3's menu's, mmmmmmmmmmm)

peppermints · Nov 24, 2009

I've been using HDMI on my TV with my 360 for well over a year now. Recently I've been noticing that the screen flickers a lot, especially noticeable when just on black parts of the screen. However, this is something I don't notice on my Wii with component cables or just watching TV.

Would switching to VGA cables potentially alleviate this?

mug · Nov 24, 2009

peppermints said:
I've been using HDMI on my TV with my 360 for well over a year now. Recently I've been noticing that the screen flickers a lot, especially noticeable when just on black parts of the screen. However, this is something I don't notice on my Wii with component cables or just watching TV.

Would switching to VGA cables potentially alleviate this?

Perhaps, do you have another device to hook up through the TV's HDMI input? Assuming the 'watching TV' part you mean by antenna.

peppermints · Nov 24, 2009

mug said:
Perhaps, do you have another device to hook up through the TV's HDMI input? Assuming the 'watching TV' part you mean by antenna.

I have a DVI-HDMI adapter for my MacBook, but I have yet to notice anything while using it. I will fiddle around with that right now to see if I can duplicate that problem. And yeah, just regular old cable TV for me.

*edit*

I don't know why I didn't attempt this earlier. Whenever the 360 is on and and it's on a black screen (for example when it's moving from the dashboard to loading a game) it flickers to high heaven. However, on another black screen (for example, when switching between inputs) I don't notice any flickering at all. So the issue is either my HDMI cables or the HDMI ports on my TV.

Noogy · Nov 24, 2009

I purchased a third party 360 VGA cable and had SERIOUS ghosting issues. After a year I found a good price on a Microsoft branded cable, and it was night and day. As clear as HDMI.

I'm never going with a third party cable again.

Iceyburnz · Nov 24, 2009

AmericanNinja said:
I got an official MS 360 VGA adapter that I no longer use.

Is that an offer to pay it forward? If so, dibs!

Firestorm · Nov 24, 2009

bran said:
LOL @ people still thinks they need to buy "premium cable", you make me crack.

LOL @ people who think shitty analog cables are just as good as the official ones.

I'd stay away from Monoprice for the 360 VGA cables =/ A++ site for digital cables, but don't deal with the headache for their VGA. Why can't you use HDMI or DVI instead? Or is your 360 old like mine?

gregor7777 · Nov 24, 2009

bran said:
LOL @ people still thinks they need to buy "premium cable", you make me crack.

LOL @ people who think they know some shit but they don't lol

Tokubetsu · Nov 24, 2009

Firestorm said:
LOL @ people who think shitty analog cables are just as good as the official ones.

I'd stay away from Monoprice for the 360 VGA cables =/ A++ site for digital cables, but don't deal with the headache for their VGA. Why can't you use HDMI or DVI instead? Or is your 360 old like mine?

IT's an old 360 yeah. I would just go hdmi.

Neuromancer · Nov 24, 2009

There is anecdotal evidence that using the VGA cords make images washed out, compared to component. I thought it looked fine though.

gregor7777 · Nov 24, 2009

Neuromancer said:
There is anecdotal evidence that using the VGA cords make images washed out, compared to component. I thought it looked fine though.

On my PC monitor (22" LCD), the colors from the VGA cable looked great.

On my TV (37" LCD), the colors from VGA looked washed out compared to the components no matter how much I tweaked the settings.

brain_stew · Nov 24, 2009

Neuromancer said:
There is anecdotal evidence that using the VGA cords make images washed out, compared to component. I thought it looked fine though.

That's because people haven't set the correct colourspace settings. The 360 lets you choose your colourspace and if its setup correctly it should look damn good and very close in quality to HDMI. Fwiw, you could experience the exact same issues overHDMI/DVI.

Jonsend · Nov 24, 2009

VGA and component are both analogue so picture quality will depend on the quality (shielding, length, composition) of the cable.

HDMI is more robust (as a digital standard) as the receiver only need to be able to tell the difference between a high voltage and a low voltage at any time, so any noise would have to be very severe to not be able to discern these voltages.

brain_stew · Nov 24, 2009

Seda said:
I used to believe that you should just get the cheapest cables possible, specifically for HDMI, but I ended up getting a monster cable as a part of a gift (I think it was like 50$, so not one of the highest 100 dollar cables but w/e) and there was a significant difference in picture quality on my PS3. I think its because the cheap cable I was using could not utilize the 120hz of my TV, which the Monster cable could.

Oh dear.........

Metal Gear?! · Nov 24, 2009

$6.45 from Monoprice was all I ever needed to pay for a 360 VGA cable that works fine

Seda said:
I used to believe that you should just get the cheapest cables possible, specifically for HDMI, but I ended up getting a monster cable as a part of a gift (I think it was like 50$, so not one of the highest 100 dollar cables but w/e) and there was a significant difference in picture quality on my PS3. I think its because the cheap cable I was using could not utilize the 120hz of my TV, which the Monster cable could.

You're full of crap (HDMI doesn't transmit a 120fps signal) and either astroturf or an unwitting shill for Monster Cable

graywolf323 · Nov 24, 2009

http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=900640

just buy them used at GameStop if you can

only $10

wolfmat · Nov 24, 2009

I have slight ghosting with an MS cable. There's no way to ensure zero ghosting, you may or may not get it, whether you buy the officially endorsed cables or not.

Syneisha · Nov 24, 2009

I use a cheap 360 VGA connector and my only complaint is a slightly wierd contrast/brightness that requires me to fiddle with the settings for them on some games, but apart from that works fine. Little to no ghosting that I've noticed. Certainly looks superior to component, a touch more sharp and the colours are slightly more vivid.

blame space · Nov 24, 2009

I have a question about VGA on Xbox 360:

My monitor is 900p or whatever, and I currently have my 360 hooked up via component. It looks okay. If I were to get a VGA cable and set it to my monitor's native resolution, does that mean the games will actually run in that resolution? I ask because with all of the 600p-gate hullabulloo, that doesn't seem to make sense.

Sorry for the wording, I'm very tired and on my phone. Does my question make sense?

infinityBCRT · Nov 24, 2009

I've had a bad experience with a third party VGA cable... MS ones work perfectly though.

Diablohead · Nov 24, 2009

blame space said:
I have a question about VGA on Xbox 360:

My monitor is 900p or whatever, and I currently have my 360 hooked up via component. It looks okay. If I were to get a VGA cable and set it to my monitor's native resolution, does that mean the games will actually run in that resolution? I ask because with all of the 600p-gate hullabulloo, that doesn't seem to make sense.

Sorry for the wording, I'm very tired and on my phone. Does my question make sense?

Not sure exactly how it's handled but if I run a game over vga at my screens native res, the resolution is much better but I think if the game already runs at a lower res, it will just scale it to fit the new, so MW2 will still look a bit muddy etc. Someone here will know better as I don't use my cable often, only when not using my main monitor and I go take the 360 into the main room or something.

Older games might handle things differently too, I know with DoA4 the hud pixel size stays the same so it becomes slightly smaller along the top, leaving more space on the sides if you use a res higher then 720p. looks amazing too.

blame space · Nov 24, 2009

Diablohead said:
Not sure exactly how it's handled but if I run a game over vga at my screens native res, the resolution is much better but I think if the game already runs at a lower res, it will just scale it to fit the new, so MW2 will still look a bit muddy etc. Someone here will know better as I don't use my cable often, only when not using my main monitor and I go take the 360 into the main room or something.

Older games might handle things differently too, I know with DoA4 the hud pixel size stays the same so it becomes slightly smaller along the top, leaving more space on the sides if you use a res higher then 720p. looks amazing too.

Thanks for the info. I think I'm gonna pick one up.

Arpharmd B · Nov 24, 2009

kamspy said:
monoprice VGA cable is my 360 interconnect of choice.

Especially if you have a 768p, 900p or 1050p monitor/tv. .

The HDMI in the 360 must have some sort of extra D/A step because it degrades the image quality on my displays. Especially aliasing. Maybe because the 360 was designed with analog outputs? I think I read somewhere (probably bs) that they really cheaped out on the HDMI thing and basically put an analog -> HDMI converter in instead of really integrating it(?).

Exact same issue with HDMI. I don't think it's BS at. Something is going on for sure, and not enough people know about it. I'm not a tech guy, but I made a thread a while back regarding the image degradation issue with HDMI on my set, and I got a mix of answers.

Fact is. If your set is not 1080p then chances are, it's 768p or some other PC resolution. VGA is the only way to go, period, for some sets.

And hell it's not like my set is some off brand piece of garbage. It's a freakin Bravia. Low end model obviously (not 1080p, limited features), but still, you would think it'd been 720p native.

I seriously thought there was something wrong with my TV when I used HDMI. Component only allowed 720p or 1080i, and both were automatically overscanned with no way to turn the overscan off.

I bet you a lot of people are doing HDMI with their 360's, and getting a shoddy image but don't know any better. I would love the know the true reason for this. Where did you read about this?

blame space said:
I have a question about VGA on Xbox 360:

My monitor is 900p or whatever, and I currently have my 360 hooked up via component. It looks okay. If I were to get a VGA cable and set it to my monitor's native resolution, does that mean the games will actually run in that resolution? I ask because with all of the 600p-gate hullabulloo, that doesn't seem to make sense.

Sorry for the wording, I'm very tired and on my phone. Does my question make sense?

Yes. And you should.

The 360 will internally scale the games to the resolution of your monitor. You can't do any better than that.

HDMI would probably match the native resolution as well. But if the TV is native 900p, you could run into the same problem talked about above. I recommend VGA for you.

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