Xbox 360 VGA performance

[Flompy]

Ok, I am not here to slag the VGA cable- I use it on my Samsung LE3241BD because the picture is much sharper then component and gets rid of any jaggles that component seems to show. HOWEVER there are one or two issues I have.

At 720p the cable is great, there are no performance issues at all and the games run as they should. However, if I bump up the VGA resolutions to match that of my TV (1360x768, which makes the image slightly shaper) I get framerate issues, for example Oblivion becomes very choppy and loses the smoothness that I get when set to 720p.

Could it be that as all games are made at 720p that anything higher then that means the 360 has extra work to do in upscaling, so therefore has a lower frame rate in some games as it is doing more things at the same time?

To anybody running at 1360x768, change it to 720p and you shall see the performance increase in Oblivion!

[Myth]

I'm not sure about your example but I've heard from various people that running Tomb Raider at 480p gives better performance to 720p.

[David GP]

Could it be that as all games are made at 720p that anything higher then that means the 360 has extra work to do in upscaling, so therefore has a lower frame rate in some games as it is doing more things at the same time?

Exactly. 720p is the resolution of choice as far as the 360 is concerned.

[bignige]

I have the same TV as Haribo. Running VGA with Burnout (whatever resolution) gives you a border around the whole picture. Doing the same with component gives you a full screen pic.

[EJG1980]

Perhaps MS should have just let any scaling be done by the internal scalers of the TV, that way there shouldn't be any problems with lower performance (although I don't know if the X360 scaler is of a higher quality than those in the average LCD TV).

I haven't really noticed any frame rate differences with most games, except for Full Auto, which was much slower and choppier using VGA instead of component. There was even a little sheet of paper that came with the game telling you to play at 720P if you wanted the best possible performance.

Having said that, Full Auto was a **** hole of a game anyway, and was a shocking performer no matter how it was displayed. It was just slightly more shocking using the VGA cable

I get the VGA Burnout borders on my JVC LCD TV as well. Something to do with underscan or overscan, which I don't really understand I think someone else explained it in a different thread.

[Flompy]

Why the hell are most HDTV's not actually natively 720p, as that is what the majority of HD content is. Why this 1366x768 bollocks?

[EvilBoris]

I'm guessing that it is the best number of pixels over 1280*720 to allow for the clearest picture when upscaling SD video.

That is total speculation

[EJG1980]

Why the hell are most HDTV's not actually natively 720p, as that is what the majority of HD content is. Why this 1366x768 bollocks?

I have no idea why, but I read somewhere that 1366*768 panels are cheaper to make than 1280*720 panels. Of course I could have been reading a load of bollocks But if that is true, it makes you wonder why they just didn't make the HDTV standard 768p!

I was originally going to get a Toshiba LCD, which had a native 1280*720 screen, but the bloody thing was out of stock, so I had to settle for the JVC.

[NekoFever]

It's more than likely a cost issue. 1024x768 is a standard PC resolution and 1366x768 is the 16:9 equivalent, so it's probably cheaper just to stick with the same vertical resolution when manufacturing panels rather than redo everything for the sake of 48 pixels.

I have no idea in truth, though. That could all be bull****.

[EJG1980]

Probably something along those lines. Maybe so they can churn as many different panels as possible from a single production line, or something. I don't think it makes too much difference though. Scaling from 1280*720 up to 1366*768 should hardly affect the image quality at all, it's near enough that it'd make very little discernable difference.

[EvilBoris]

The borders on Burnout can be mostly fixed by choosing auto adjust on the samsung PC menu

[EvilBoris]

Oooh I just tried putting The Tomb raider demo into 640*480, there is a DEFINATE improvement in the framerate. Run up the first ramp , jump across and stand in the little clearing next to the moveable rock. Rotate the camera 360 degrees.

At 1280*720 and higher there is a little bit of slowdown as some certain scenery comes onto the screen, at 640*480 there is none whatso ever.

*edit*

Just tried blazing Angels demo too,

its the same, jerky in high resolutions and not so bad at low.
Also the Logos at the start of the demo take up the entire screen in Low res and only a tiny bit in High res. Text is also alot larger in low res.

They must of started having different internal resolution outputs instead of having the 360 just downscale it. THis is especially noticeable in blazing angels as it looks like utter turd.

[El Leone]

I think the output depends on how to Developer developes for it, sometimes I hear of slow down (like above) and in some games everything seems fine.

Then again, I wonder what its like in the final versions of da games.

[bignige]

The borders on Burnout can be mostly fixed by choosing auto adjust on the samsung PC menu

Erm no they can't.

[EvilBoris]

They can, I just tried it, it eliminated the borders apart from the one at the bottom.