Quick 360 cable question

The Dude With Herpes

This should be an easy question:

I'm picking up a monitor with 2HDMI and 1VGA inputs. I'm going to use one HDMI input to use the monitor for my laptop with a DVI->HDMI cable. I currently have the VGA cable for the 360 for a different monitor.

My question is; will I see any marked visual quality improvement if I get the HDMI cable for the 360 (I have a newer pro with the port) over the VGA? Or will it be pretty much the same? The VGA cable can do 1080 so there's that.

If it matters it's a 28in monitor and I'll be on my desk right in front of me so I'll be pretty close.

urahonky

I don't think there's a big difference between VGA and HDMI visually, but it's less cables showing which is always a plus (for HDMI). HDMI can also do 1080p.

The Dude With Herpes

The xbox.com site says the VGA cable can do 1080p also. Do any games even support it, or does it just upscale?

urahonky

The Dude With Herpes wrote: »

The xbox.com site says the VGA cable can do 1080p also. Do any games even support it, or does it just upscale?

Upscales, there are one or two games that do 1080p... One was a tennis game, I remember. But that's about all that jumps out on me. Oh I know VGA supports it, I just thought you were saying that VGA was the only one to do 1080p in your OP.

The Dude With Herpes

Oh, yeah sorry. I wasn't sure if you were saying the VGA cables don't do progressive scan.

I just wonder if there's the same difference between using a VGA cable for a PC to a LCD screen and using a DVI cable, it's fairly noticeable. But I don't feel at all like the 360 VGA cable is as "muddy" as a PC VGA connection would be to an LCD.

Maybe I'll see if a neighbor has a HDMI cable I can borrow for a minute to see if there's any noticeable difference.

Starting to doubt it really though.

Transparent

It really depends on the screen. Comparing and making the call based on that is probably the best course. My friend has a dual monitor setup for his computer (both the exact same screen). One screen is hooked up DVI, one VGA. The difference in color between the two is striking, the digitally connected monitor is very noticeably more vibrant.

Deusfaux

1. go to best buy

2. buy an hdmi cable

3. try out the cable

4. (optional) return cable

BubbaT

Deusfaux wrote: »

1. go to best buy

2. buy an hdmi cable

3. try out the cable

4. (optional) return cable

4 is not optional at all.

5 is go buy an HDMI cable at Monoprice/Bluejeans.

El Guaco

If you can use HDMI, you should. The difference between the signal quality can be marginal to "holy awesome look at that" depending on the analog cable being compared to - digital is king for picture quality. Plus they're so cheap (monoprice) and so easy to hook up, there's no reason not to do it.

TM2 Rampage

Is your monitor 16:10? I have a 16:10 monitor right now (HP w2007) and I just hooked my 360 to it via VGA. Everything looks great, except the scaling is REALLY REALLY weird and WRONG. My monitor has a "Fill to aspect ratio" option but it's not putting black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, no matter what resolution I pick. Instead the picture is filling up my entire monitor (a 16:9 image stretched out a bit to 16:10). There's a little calibration test on my Ratatouille DVD, and in it there's this dinner plate that's supposed to be a perfect circle, but it's taller than it is wide.

Oddly, another person on this board has an HP w2407 and the aspect stuff works perfectly for his PS3 connected via HDMI to DVI. I'm not sure if this has something to do with my monitor or it's the 360 that doesn't scale right or if it's because he has it hooked up via HDMI/DVI and I'm using VGA.

The Dude With Herpes

Just as an update:

I got the monitor today and tested it with both HDMI and the VGA cable. While the VGA cable by no means looks bad, the HDMI is visibly better. With the VGA there's a noticeable "fuzziness" to everything and with the HDMI that's absent.

To answer your question TM2, it scales properly with the VGA cable. I understand what you're saying though, the previous monitor I had it hooked up to (a 19in widescreen LCD, by the same company oddly) didn't scale quite right, and I had to set it to an odd resolution to get it to display to 16:10, this new monitor is also 16:10; but it still stretches the screen properly, whereas the other monitor would "cut" part of the image off for the 16:9 resolutions in the 360 settings and everything would be off center.

Anyway, yeah, gonna pick up the 360 HDMI cable set for the audio adapter that comes with it so I can use the optical out; since this monitor doesn't have that output option.

TM2 Rampage

Hey, so how is it having a 28 inch monitor? How far away from it do you sit?

Also, do you play PC games on it at native res?

The Dude With Herpes

Freaking awesome. It's actually a little odd to get used to, going from gaming on my laptop on a 17in and my 360 on a 19in to having them both hooked up in huge-o-vision on this thing. I feel much more "immersed", for a lack of a better description.

I sit about 3-4ish feet I imagine, at my desk, depending on whether I'm sitting up or leaning back.

And yeah, the native res is 1920x1200 which was also the native res of my laptop monitor (gaming XPS laptop), so my PC games are at that res already.

Anyway good times.

Noray

Uh sorta thread hijack here, and also kind of in response to OP I guess: I just got a 37inch Samsung 1080p TV, and personally, I found the colors over VGA to be incredibly flat, and there was nothing I could do in settings (believe me, I tried) to make it much better. So now I'm using the component cables, which don't have quite the same sharpness, but the color is 10 times better. On the same TV I have a PS3 hooked up through HDMI, which has the best everything, sharpness and color. Is this just the PS3 or is it the HDMI? Because I seriously want a 360 with an HDMI port right now. I'm honestly considering trying to make my 360 overheat and red ring so I can send it back and pray I get a new one with HDMI port.

I guess it's not that much of a question. But are VGA colors 'flat' (not vibrant) to other 360 owners? What do you guys think of Component vs VGA vs HDMI? Am I crazy?

TM2 Rampage

Noray wrote: »

Uh sorta thread hijack here, and also kind of in response to OP I guess: I just got a 37inch Samsung 1080p TV, and personally, I found the colors over VGA to be incredibly flat, and there was nothing I could do in settings (believe me, I tried) to make it much better. So now I'm using the component cables, which don't have quite the same sharpness, but the color is 10 times better. On the same TV I have a PS3 hooked up through HDMI, which has the best everything, sharpness and color. Is this just the PS3 or is it the HDMI? Because I seriously want a 360 with an HDMI port right now. I'm honestly considering trying to make my 360 overheat and red ring so I can send it back and pray I get a new one with HDMI port.

I guess it's not that much of a question. But are VGA colors 'flat' (not vibrant) to other 360 owners? What do you guys think of Component vs VGA vs HDMI? Am I crazy?

Uh, did you set that "reference point" or whatever thing in the Xbox 360 dashboard to "expanded" or whatever?

The Dude With Herpes

It is a lot "flatter" to be honest, with VGA instead of HDMI.

Play with the settings TM2 mentioned, and it'll improve somewhat, but still, there is a deficiency with the VGA cables that you don't really notice unless it's on a huge-o-monitor, it seems.

It sounds worse than it is though. It doesn't bother me too much really, but I have already ordered the HDMI cables and am just waiting on them now.