Xbox 360 without HD.

trantramp

Well like every other soul i'm considering picking up a 360 following the price drop and to play GTA 4, naturally.

HOWEVER I do not have a HD monitor or tv or anything. Just a projector with a massive massive screen.

Will it look like shit?

Mr Peepers

Nope.

Some games may have hard to read text (Dead Rising), but it'll look fine, for the most part.

Better than last gen systems.

Go get it.

slash000

Don't worry about the lack of an HDTV.

It looks fantastic on an SDTV or SD projection.

It's just that it goes from fantastic to really fantastic when you get an HDTV.



Don't let the lack of an HD set cause hesitation.

Children

Yup, what they said.

Lunker

Why would it look like shit? Does a high-resolution image somehow look worse on a lower-resolution screen? I've never really understood this somewhat prevalent belief.

I rocked an SDTV with S-Video for the first six months of my 360 ownership and it looked just fine. I had problems with maybe two games in terms of text readability (PGR3 and Dead Rising spring to mind), but so long as you pitch the composite cables and go S-Video or preferably component you'll be fine, and it'll still be a big leap up from PS2- or Wii-level visuals.

slash000

Lunker wrote: »

Why would it look like shit? Does a high-resolution image somehow look worse on a lower-resolution screen? I've never really understood this somewhat prevalent belief.

He's worried that it will be jagged, or that since games are designed for high definition, at lower resolution, you won't be able to make out some of the graphical details.


However, the games still look amazing at SD resolutions, and I don't think the lack of greater definition, even with a projector, is going to seriously hurt the quality of the graphics/visuals.

rv

If you're picking it up to play GTA4, I can speak from experience when I say the text in-game is very hard to read.

Some of the emails are almost impossible to read, or were on my old TV.

However, it is still basically readable and the game is sweet so do it.

Darlan

I had the same deal going on for a while and I did notice that some elements of a game, like text and menus, can actually be a bit more blurry on an SD tv than a standard definition system, but everything was still perfectly playable and looked leagues better than Xbox1/PS2/Wii stuff.

Mr Peepers

To contrast that I didn't have too much trouble reading text on my SD set.

Took me until I got a HDTV to realize that those were little 'thumbs ups' when you did something good in a friendship. Thought it was a weird looking arrow.

FyreWulff

There's games that have shitty text because the developer cuts corners and only designs their UI for HD and just hope it scales well.

However, most games remember that the SDTV has a gigantic userbase and have perfectly readable text... GTA4's text is readable just fine for me, considering that GTA:SA was on SDTVs only and had unreadable text..

Santa Claustrophobia

I also recommend component cables for this. I tested a 360 on my old SDTV with component cables and found that, while a bit fuzzy, the text in Dead Rising was legible. Of course, it was a 36" TV so I'm sure that helped a bit. All games looked fine (if, perhaps, a bit blurry due to the lack of sharpness). I'd imagine that using a projector for a TV has already gotten one used to certain deficiencies in picture quality.

DisruptorX2

It varies from game to game. Oblivion is fugly without HDMI, but say, Bioshock looks great regardless.

Paradiso

I was perfectly happy with my 360 pre-HD. Of course, post-HD my happiness has transcended euphoria and landed squarely in constellation orgasmica.

In short, don't worry about it. You'll be fine.

mescalito

The only time where a game in SD looks better than HD is Forza 2

the jaggies, and pastel colors, my god.

RainbowDespair

XBox 360 doesn't look awful on a SDTV, but it looks so much better in HD. Seriously, when I hooked up my 360 to a monitor via the VGA cable, I felt like I had a brand new system, everything looked that much better.

reddog

The only problem I ever had on SD was reading the damn text on Dead Rising. Other than that, it still looked great...it's a next gen console...of course it'll look great. If you move up to HD though, it will look be greater than great...it will be SIIIIIIICK.

...yeah i need to leave work now...

Children

GTA 4 in particular is a game that does not need a HDTV.

EskimoDave

Mr Peepers wrote: »

Nope.

Some games may have hard to read text (Dead Rising), but it'll look fine, for the most part.

Better than last gen systems.

Go get it.

I tried to play Dead Rising, but I couldnt read what I was suppose to do and I'm not opening the fucking manual, so its just rotting under, like, other 360 16 games.

JerikTelorian

RainbowDespair wrote: »

XBox 360 doesn't look awful on a SDTV, but it looks so much better in HD. Seriously, when I hooked up my 360 to a monitor via the VGA cable, I felt like I had a brand new system, everything looked that much better.

Same for me. This doesn't mean, however, it didn't look pretty on SD-- I played a chunk of Oblivion through on SD and thought it was absolutely gorgeous.

Are you sure your projector doesn't have a VGA input, by the way?

Willeth

EskimoDave wrote: »

Mr Peepers wrote: »

Nope.

Some games may have hard to read text (Dead Rising), but it'll look fine, for the most part.

Better than last gen systems.

Go get it.

I tried to play Dead Rising, but I couldnt read what I was suppose to do and I'm not opening the fucking manual, so its just rotting under, like, other 360 16 games.

I have never understood this. Firstly, the manual tells you what to do. If you don't know what to do, why not read the thing?

Secondly, the text in DR is not illegible. I played it all the way through on a 17" SD CRT - it's hard to read, but it's still readable given context clues etc. It just takes a bit of work. Don't be lazy.

SageinaRage

I have my 360 hooked up to a 480p projector with component cables, and I've got no complaints with it - I can even read the text on Dead Rising. Progressive scan and component cables make a world of difference on their own.

Witchsight

I had a hell of a time reading text in Crackdown pre-HD. Not that it really mattered i guess. However i was pissed to find my PS2 games looked like a turd once i went HD.

Shoegaze99

I've got HD, a buddy doesn't. I think the 360 games still look nice as hell on his TV, despite the "downgrade." Like people said, the only reason issue is that in some games, small text can be hard to read.

Daedalus

Some games, not all games but some, only play in letterboxed widescreen even on a 4:3 screen (STDV, computer monitor, whatever).

GTAIV is not one of those games, thankfully.

Greg USN

It looks really great but try at least to run it in S-Video. It wont be as clean and crisp and in lower resolution but it still looks fantastic. Another option for you would be to buy the VGA cables. I ran on a computer moniter while on deployment for a year. HD Glory (just a little small).

Triple B

You'll be fine as long as your happiness isn't teetering On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. If you plan on playing that game on an SDTV, don't look forward to understanding the dialogue or the UI at all. Other than that, yeah you're fine. I was rocking an SDTV for the first 2+ years of my 360 ownership, and I got along just fine. I only just bought an HDTV in early June.