360 on a VGA monitor questions

[LastLine]

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/PROD/3-/1094000/HannsG_HGHW191_19_Widescreen_TFT_Monitor/Product.html
(EDIT: I notice that this has no speakers - anyone got a suggestion for something similar with speakers that I could hook the xbox up to?)
First of all this is the monitor that's in question.

Now I used to run my 360 through a 17" 4:3 TFT monitor and it letterboxed 360 games so they maintained their widescreen ration kinda like this


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Now I assumed this was because of the aspect ratio of the monitor so my question is - has anyone had any experience of running an Xbox 360 using a VGA adapter cable on a widescreen monitor? I'm just curious does it play full screen or does it still muck with the aspect rations? I have a HDTV at home, but this 19" monitor looks a good buy for a second one for at uni as that way I could have a HD screen on a cheapy monitor I figure.

Thoughts? :)

[Super Macho Man]

I'm guessing that when you had your 360 hooked up to your 4:3 monitor and it was letterboxed like that, you actually had it hooked up through some sort of video capture device on your computer? Your computer scaled the image to preserve the aspect ratio?

Most computer monitors don't have aspect ratio controls themselves, and will fill the screen with whatever signal they get - in this case, whether it's the right aspect ratio for 1440x900 or not. If the 360 can output that rez - fantastic. If it is outputting 1280x720, there will be a slight vertical squishing effect. The monitor probably won't even accept a 1080i signal. I don't know if the 360 has any kind of ratio compensation built in, but I'd assume not?

These are all my assumptions, because this is how it works with my Dell 1704FPT. But I may be wrong - it may be different with other monitors.

[2nyRiggz]

I'm going to post this for you:

The Xbox 360 supports the following resolutions when using the VGA AV connector: 640×480, 848×480, 1024×768, 1280×720, 1280×768, 1280×1024, and 1360×768. In order to use your monitor you will most likely need to purchase the Xbox 360 VGA HD Cable.

I'm guessing anything else would be downscale.....and that monitor you showed is 1440 x 900 so do the math there....it looks like you might get some side bars.



Bless

[LastLine]

Cheers - 2nyRiggz - I looked for that but couldn't find it :)

Sidebars I could cope with so long as the thing as a whole runs and uses the widescreen of the monitor to at least some extent, but yes - I'd be using the HD VGA cable (as I hoped I mentioned originally I already used this for my old 17" monitor)


Guess the real thing I need is osmeone using a widescreen TFT to give me the thumbs up or down on whether this works or not - perhaps someone runs one through an ACD or Dell monitor?

Oh and I notice it has speakers - however crappy :) For a secondary monitor I'd cope with that :)

[risc]

I have my 360 running via 16:10 1440x 900 monitor and the picture isn't letter boxed it gets stetched. There is a weird resolution 1280×768 which is nearly 16:10 so I use this. It looks fine on the monitor, I don't actually understand this thread what do you actually want to know?

[LastLine]

I have my 360 running via 16:10 1440x 900 monitor and the picture isn't letter boxed it gets stetched. There is a weird resolution 1280×768 which is nearly 16:10 so I use this. It looks fine on the monitor, I don't actually understand this thread what do you actually want to know?
Actually pretty much what you just told me :) so running at 1280 x 768 or 1440x900 looks ok on a TFT screen?

[risc]

It looks roughly the same as playing it on my Sony LCD HDTV just a little stretched because the 360 doesn't handle the 16:10 ratio properly (hopefully Microsoft address this in an update since most wide screen monitors are 16:10 not 16:9). My monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 940mw HDTV/monitor and it upscales very well without pixelation so I really can't say anything bad about the picture quality at all.

[MacRumorUser]

Yep you can play at 1280x768 or 1360x768 and it will look fine on a widescreen monitor. I play at 1360x768 on my Dell2005FPW and it looks great - no problems what so ever.

[andrewfee]

You should run the Xbox 360 at 1280x720 wherever possible - that's the resolution all the games are running at internally. (well, 99% of them) Anything else, and the 360's scaler kicks in, which does a terrible job. (really blurs/softens the image) It also causes performance issues in several games, whether you're running higher or lower. (Oblivion slows down if you run higher for one, and the Dead Rising demo ran badly out of sync at 848x480, for example)

I believe 1280x768 is just stretched with most games. (or bordered top & bottom)

[greatdevourer]

Does the 360 think it's widescreen when in 1280x1024? Because that's the only reason I can think of as to why Halo 2 splitscreens left/right rather than up/down like usual

[MacRumorUser]

You should run the Xbox 360 at 1280x720 wherever possible - that's the resolution all the games are running at internally.

Not necesseraly. More games support 1080i nativly than those that just support 720p.

Why anyone would use an obscure resolution like 848x480 though is really ? That's not a native resolution on any device and it's no wonder there are issues scaling to that.

I have never experienced any problems at 1280x768 or 1360 x 768 in regards to game peformance on my 360.


Does the 360 think it's widescreen when in 1280x1024? Because that's the only reason I can think of as to why Halo 2 splitscreens left/right rather than up/down like usual

Halo2 and many other backwards compatable games have issues when used with the vga cable.

[andrewfee]

Why anyone would use an obscure resolution like 848x480 though is really ? That's not a native resolution on any device and it's no wonder there are issues scaling to that.
480p native plasma displays / projectors.

[MacRumorUser]

480p native plasma displays / projectors.

Really there are ones that do that res :eek: I suppose cheap models are they... My projector does 1920x1080p :p Even if the bulb life is only 1500-3000 hours :(

[Mr. Mister]

This has been covered a million times on the Internet, it'll work just fine at either 16:9 or 16:10, the Xbox 360 has a setting for this.