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Xbox 360 through VGA is Optical Purity

Sho Nuff

Banned
I was playing 360 last night on my old Panny 29-inch SDTV, and it looked pretty ok. But tonight I bought the VGA cable, and jacked it in to my 19-inch LCD monitor...

HOLY FLIPPIN CRAP!!!!!!!!!!

Every pixel is perfect, every color leaps off the screen and PUNCHES YOU REPEATEDLY IN THE STOMACH. Remember when you saw VGA running on the Dreamcast? Yeah, it's like that, but with EIGHT BILLION TIMES THE RESOLUTION AND SOY MILK-SMOOTH FSAA FOR YOUR BITCH ASS. God in heaven! Ridge Racer goes from looking like some Xbox 1 game to ultra next-generation hotness.

Has anyone attempted comboing the X360 with one of Dell's widescreen LCD displays?

Come hither and share with Sho Nuff your own VGA experience.
 

Zep

Banned
Same here, I was also on a SDTV and thought the games looked pretty good. I then dropped $29 on the VGA Cable and hooked it up to my 19" LCD computer monitor. Games looked* amazing.

*
my system had to be sent in the next day and is now lost b/c of UPS
 

Tiger

Banned
Yeah, my HDTV has a PC input and i've got my 360 hooked up that way.

Obviously my 360 games looked great in component 720p, but when I got the VGA cable it just has a more pure look to it. I think that VGA inputs generally do nothing to the signal and therefore you see the image exactly as it's supposed to be.


On most HDTV's for instance, the tv is processing the component images at all times and it enhances the picture in various ways. With the VGA the signal is left alone and it comes out as clean as it could possibly be.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Is it possible to get PC monitors that fit the aspect ratio perfectly? I know some monitors are "widescreen" but are they 16:9?
 

Tiger

Banned
stewy said:
I just got a 42" Sony LCD with a VGA input. Should I be using that rather than component?


You have this tv, right Stewy? If yes, than my reply above is your answer.

sny-kdfe42a10-front.jpg
 

Tiger

Banned
gofreak said:
Is it possible to get PC monitors that fit the aspect ratio perfectly? I know some monitors are "widescreen" but are they 16:9?


Yes, the aspect ratio should be exactly 16:9.
 

stewy

Member
Tigerriot said:
You have this tv, right Stewy? If yes, than my reply above is your answer.

sny-kdfe42a10-front.jpg

Yep, that's the one. Getting delivered today...

Hrm...maybe I should go out and get me a cable :)

It still have the optical out on the 360 end of the cable, too?
 
stewy,

I have that exact Sony TV and went out and bought the VGA adapter. I don't recommend it because the way the TV displays the image is that it displays it with about an inch vide vertical black bars on the left and right of the picture. Thus, it doesn't fill up the entire screen. FYI, this is the "TV's fault"

The one thing I did notice was that the picture looked a lot lighter (less dark) than a component input and a little better, but to me it wasn't worth the decrease in image size.
 

Tiger

Banned
stewy said:
Yep, that's the one. Getting delivered today...

Hrm...maybe I should go out and get me a cable :)

It still have the optical out on the 360 end of the cable, too?


Ooh, good question. I'm not using the optical out so I don't remember if it's there. I don't think it is actually. In fact, the more I think about it, i'm almost sure it's not on the VGA cable. However, you could just use the optical output from the tv as your optical sound for playing 360 games. It will work fine.
 

Tiger

Banned
njp142 said:
stewy,

I have that exact Sony TV and went out and bought the VGA adapter. I don't recommend it because the way the TV displays the image is that it displays it with about an inch vide vertical black bars on the left and right of the picture. Thus, it doesn't fill up the entire screen. FYI, this is the "TV's fault"

The one thing I did notice was that the picture looked a lot lighter (less dark) than a component input and a little better, but to me it wasn't worth the decrease in image size.


Go into the tv menus when you're on your VGA input screen. I don't remember what the setting is called but I believe you want the "zoom" setting. It perfectly aligns the screen to fit the VGA signal. Pefect. :D
 

stewy

Member
Well I'll have to go looking for this I guess. Unfortunately, the two Futureshops in the area don't carry the cable. I might have to order it if I can't find it at EB or something.
 
Sho Nuff said:
I was playing 360 last night on my old Panny 29-inch SDTV, and it looked pretty ok. But tonight I bought the VGA cable, and jacked it in to my 19-inch LCD monitor...

HOLY FLIPPIN CRAP!!!!!!!!!!

Every pixel is perfect, every color leaps off the screen and PUNCHES YOU REPEATEDLY IN THE STOMACH. Remember when you saw VGA running on the Dreamcast? Yeah, it's like that, but with EIGHT BILLION TIMES THE RESOLUTION AND SOY MILK-SMOOTH FSAA FOR YOUR BITCH ASS. God in heaven! Ridge Racer goes from looking like some Xbox 1 game to ultra next-generation hotness.

Has anyone attempted comboing the X360 with one of Dell's widescreen LCD displays?

Come hither and share with Sho Nuff your own VGA experience.


LMAO!! Great statement!

I feel bad, I've been so busy I haven't even opened my VGA cable packaging to check out my XBox360 on my 19 inch ViewSonic monitor. I also was planning on taking my XBox360 to a friends to check out game via his DLP projector. But I've been WAY too busy.

Also, I'm waiting for SOMEBODY to release and sell power supply units for the XBox360. I have mine setup up upstairs in my gaming loft and it's a pain to drag that "Ghostbuster" trap all over the house. with other consoles that PSU was internal and swapping cords around was no big deal. I would buy exrta power supplys to keep in various rooms of the house then moving the console around wouldn't be that big of a deal (yes I AM that lazy).

I've called 1-800-4MY-XBOX and they don't have extra power supplys for sale (which makes sense since they don't have enough consoles for sale). I was hoping that some 3rd part y would have been all over this by now.

Anyway, sorry for the slight derailment of the thread.......

I hear that the XBox360 via VGA is truly a beautiful sight to behold. I may just crawl my lazy ass under the coffe table and move the PSU to my computer room this evening and stop procrastinating. ;)
 

DaCocoBrova

Finally bought a new PSP, but then pushed the demon onto someone else. Jesus.
*regrets not getting $500 multimedia projector from Craig's list*
 

Shawn128

Member
I agree, the vga cable is a godsend...soem people complain that it gives a "washed out" image on my display (dell 2405fpw), but it just makes things more bright and vibrant to me :D

And yes, it does have optical out, otherwise I wouldn't be able to hook it up to my Z-5500s :D (CoD2, Kameo, and DVDs sound great with 5.1 surround btw)
 
Tigerriot said:
Ooh, good question. I'm not using the optical out so I don't remember if it's there. I don't think it is actually. In fact, the more I think about it, i'm almost sure it's not on the VGA cable. However, you could just use the optical output from the tv as your optical sound for playing 360 games. It will work fine.

Look at the base of the cable, where it plugs into the 360. There's a port there for your toslink cable.
 

bengraven

Member
Dammit!

I'm picking up this little 28" widescreen HDTV from a Karl's in a couple of weeks and it's seriously eating into my small tax refund as is. I completely forgot I'm going to have to shell out $40 for the VGA cable to get the crispest graphics :lol
 

Danj

Member
Tigerriot said:
Yes, the aspect ratio should be exactly 16:9.

Actually I think what he was asking was where to find monitors that are that aspect ratio. A lot of big LCD monitors seem to be 16:10 (1920x1200 for example) or other equally non-standard ratios.
 
I bought an XBox 360 Premium set over the weekend, skipped the component cable (it's still unopened) and bought the VGA cable along with DOA4...hooked it up to my Panny 42" RPLCD TV and it looks great =)
 

Sullichin

Member
Yeah, 360 looks gorgeous running on 1280x1024 on my 19'' LCD.

Does anyone have a good VGA switch to recommend? I have a cheap one, but i get crazy ghosting with it because it's not really made for bigger monitors.
 
silentjay420 said:
I've been running my 360 on component cables to this tv
http://www.hitachi.us/tv/browse/projection/16-9digital/65F710A.shtml
The picture looks fine to me, but would the VGA cable make much of a difference?

The color will look quite different. With component, you're only getting like 66% of the color resolution ("Excellent tip from Allan Joyner, Jr:

"You can vaguely think of Y,Pb,Pr as RWB (W for white) when comparing with RGB. In reality all three subsignals are different (contain different proportions of red, green, and blue; the R of RGB is 1.0R + 0.0G + 0.0B).

The "white" (Y, luminance) carries full horizontal resolution while the Pb and Pr carry half. Whereas for RGB all three lines must carry full resolution.").
 

DaCocoBrova

Finally bought a new PSP, but then pushed the demon onto someone else. Jesus.
Fuck you M$ for not giving us any digital video output options! *I say this weekly*

It's silly to hook up an LCD via db15. LCDs need DVI-D to look their best.
 

dorio

Banned
Sho Nuff said:
I was playing 360 last night on my old Panny 29-inch SDTV, and it looked pretty ok. But tonight I bought the VGA cable, and jacked it in to my 19-inch LCD monitor...

HOLY FLIPPIN CRAP!!!!!!!!!!

Every pixel is perfect, every color leaps off the screen and PUNCHES YOU REPEATEDLY IN THE STOMACH. Remember when you saw VGA running on the Dreamcast? Yeah, it's like that, but with EIGHT BILLION TIMES THE RESOLUTION AND SOY MILK-SMOOTH FSAA FOR YOUR BITCH ASS. God in heaven! Ridge Racer goes from looking like some Xbox 1 game to ultra next-generation hotness.

Has anyone attempted comboing the X360 with one of Dell's widescreen LCD displays?

Come hither and share with Sho Nuff your own VGA experience.
I have the same setup sans the vga cable. Guess I'll have to make the investment. Thanks.
 
tried component vs. vga-cable on two lcd-hdtv´s and one plasma with my 360, and got the impression that contrast and colordepth were slightly better with yuv with the lcds, however the plasma (pana 42PV500E) had a better result via vga. but thats mainly because this set features some very odd colourproblems while connected over yuv o_O
 

bumpkin

Member
stewy said:
Yep, that's the one. Getting delivered today...

Hrm...maybe I should go out and get me a cable :)

It still have the optical out on the 360 end of the cable, too?
Do rear-projection LCD's still have the burn-in problems of regular old projection TV's?
 

SnakeXs

about the same metal capacity as a cucumber
bumpkin said:
Do rear-projection LCD's still have the burn-in problems of regular old projection TV's?

In short, no. Technically you could, but you'd have to go insanely extreme for even the smallest burn in change. We're talking like leaving a very contrasty image with your TV on torch mode for a week. So, yeah, it's fairly safe.

Now, comparing LCD to other RPs, I'll not comment on so as not to get into any derailing arguements.
 

stewy

Member
njp142 said:
stewy,

I have that exact Sony TV and went out and bought the VGA adapter. I don't recommend it because the way the TV displays the image is that it displays it with about an inch vide vertical black bars on the left and right of the picture. Thus, it doesn't fill up the entire screen. FYI, this is the "TV's fault"

The one thing I did notice was that the picture looked a lot lighter (less dark) than a component input and a little better, but to me it wasn't worth the decrease in image size.

Hey njp

to expand on the zoom feature someone else mentioned on this thread, make sure your 360's resolution is set as high as it can go (in the settings blade). Then set the zoom on your TV and you'll find that, yes, the image fits perfectly. No black bars or picture cut off.

And it looks fucking amazing. Thanks to everyone who recommended the VGA cord.
 
SnowWolf said:
Unfortunately, PGR3 looks like utter crap. I have no idea why this game looks so bad with VGA.

It's got a bug where their super-weird 1024x600 resolution doesn't get scaled properly to most of the VGA resolutions.

Every developer should have a VGA table where they can test this stuff out. I'm sure most of them have plenty of VGA monitors in various resolutions for testing. Heck, drop a couple hundred or so on an analog VGA monitor and you can test all of them (even the 16:9 modes by squeezing the raster).
 

Kon Tiki

Banned
element said:
I really need to try some games on my Dell 20" wide monitor.
I have the same monitor. The VGA cables are nice, but some games (cod2) are washed out. I wish more (all) developers included settings for plasma/lcd/SD in their games.
 
So, if you guys had to choose between playing on a 19inch viewsonic lcd with vga or a reg 25inch tv with the yellow av cord... Is the size reduction of the lcd worth the quality gain?
 

Kon Tiki

Banned
DarkAngelYuna said:
So, if you guys had to choose between playing on a 19inch viewsonic lcd with vga or a reg 25inch tv with the yellow av cord... Is the size reduction of the lcd worth the quality gain?
I am playing on a 20inch monitor as opposed to a 60inch SDTV, so ya it is worth it.
 

Sho Nuff

Banned
SnowWolf said:
I agree, the VGA solution is slick.

Unfortunately, PGR3 looks like utter crap. I have no idea why this game looks so bad with VGA.

Agreed, it kind of looks like buttholio.

Ridge and DoA4 however are :O
 
If I set a VGA monitor next to my TV and plug one 360 into both with their respective cables, will it run on both screens at once?
 

EekTheKat

Member
This is one time where I got burned pretty bad :lol

I picked up the HD VGA cables this morning and it turns out when paired with the Dell 2405 FPW there's a washed out color issue when playing the 360 through VGA inputs.

The image is a lot less jaggy though, so at this point I pretty much have to choose between good color depth via component, or less jaggies via VGA :lol
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
SnowWolf said:
I agree, the VGA solution is slick.

Unfortunately, PGR3 looks like utter crap. I have no idea why this game looks so bad with VGA.

This discovery was especially searing for me when I popped in PGR3 for the first time after playing about 10 rounds of DOA4. DOA4 on VGA is pure sex.
 
EekTheKat said:
This is one time where I got burned pretty bad :lol

I picked up the HD VGA cables this morning and it turns out when paired with the Dell 2405 FPW there's a washed out color issue when playing the 360 through VGA inputs.

The image is a lot less jaggy though, so at this point I pretty much have to choose between good color depth via component, or less jaggies via VGA :lol

That's odd. I've heard it looks amazing through the vga on that monitor. In fact I've had people specifically reccomend using that monitor because you can do 1080i resolutions with it due to the 1920 width.
 

EekTheKat

Member
Well for me the colors are noticably washed out more compared to component, the black levels are nowhere near the levels they should be too.

Playing around with the settings a bit made it a little more tolerable, but it's still noticably washed out compared to everything else on this monitor. Guess I'm a little more nitpicky about this stuff compared to others.

Interesting enough, the one game that did have a built in fix for my problem seems to be Perfect Dark Zero, the display profile thing that's built into the game (where you can select from pre-defined stuff like LCD-TV, Plasma TV, etc) gives me a lot more flexibility in trying to get rid of the washed out effect.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
I'm using a 20" Dell monitor with 2 inputs and a switch with VGA cables, and it's great. The biggest problem, though, is the ridiculously high gamma default. It took a hella long time to finally fix it on my PC desktop, but I still can't get it right on my 360 input.

No True Black FTL.
 

Akia

Member
If I use a 30in Apple Cinema Display would it work? Also if the picture just as good as it would look on any other 30inch hdtv?
 
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