360 VGA or Component?

[J0e Musashi]

I've heard the VGA lead gives a better picture, but when at my friends house I couldn't really see much of a difference. Infact I think the component I use looks better as the colour was kinda washed out on via the VGA lead. There also seemed to be a small black border running around the entire screen. Am I missing something here? This was on an LCD TV with VGA in, not a monitor.

[tom-nook]

There's been quite a few posts about 360 component vs vga on lcd tv's - if you have a wee search you should be able to find them. Some people reckon vga is the 'dogs' whereas others swear by component.

In theory vga is the better connection but in reality it seems to come down to a combination of personal preference, the native resolution of the tv & the model you have.

On my Sammy I personally find that the component image is a bit blurry & the colour slightly oversaturated. However, with VGA the picture is pin sharp & the colour looks more natural.

[EJG1980]

I think it depends on the TV, as I think VGA looks better on my telly than component. There are less jaggies through VGA and everything seems a bit more crisp.

The colours are less vibrant through VGA, but on my telly you can adjust the colour temperature to "warm" and that makes them jump out of the screen a bit more.

Equally though, some people say their TVs don't do VGA very well at all, so like I said, I think it comes down to how well the specific TV does VGA.

Using VGA, all my games fill the screen properly except for Burnout Revenge, which has a small border in VGA. Something to do with underscanning or overscanning, but I don't really know to much about it

Edit: Tom-Nook got there first, I knew I type too slow

[J0e Musashi]

Seems like I shall have to try it on my own TV to find out for sure then. I have one of these myself http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProdu...+Projection+TV
Hopefully someone else with the same TV can guide me in the right direction.
The game I saw was NFS: MW, maybe all EA games suffer from the border thing?
I guess I can always get the lead from GAME and then back it if it's no good though. Thanx for the help everyone.

[EJG1980]

The game I saw was NFS: MW, maybe all EA games suffer from the border thing?

Seems likely as the only game I've heard people talk about VGA borders with is Burnout Revenge, which is another EA game. Plus I'm seriously jealous of your TV Makes my 26 inch JVC LCD seem less impressive

[Soi]

Get both, see what you like.

On my telly (Toshiba 37WLT58) the picture was marginally better with VGA, but the frame rate in some games (Condemned, RR6, King King) suffered quite a bit. People have noticed similar things on other tellies, but either not everyone notices the reduced frame rates or different tellies handle the VGA in different ways.

Anyway, having tried VGA for a month, I went back to component, which still gives a great picture. There are lots of threads on this topic though.

[J0e Musashi]

Sorry if I've made a thread, which has already been covered. I did do a search but didn't find anything.

[sputnick]

its all down to the set, for instance on the two flat panels i've seen running both component and vga, vga was better on the sony, while component looked better on the sammy!


try both is the only thing to do if you want the best.

one word of note regarding the supposed color wash out of vga................just turn down the brightness and whala!!!

[EvilBoris]

VGA IS the better quality signal, but the problems lie in individual TVs, in most TVs the VGA socket is there just because it can be and is more of an afterthought so a few people have had problems with it.

VGA does look "washed out" by comparison, but component is also slighty more saturated than it should be so the difference looks quite marked.
Although after a few hours you soon get used to either picture.

As Soi said , his TV seemed to drop frames when he used VGA. My Bosses Sony Bravia TV that he bought especially wouldn't accept any of the resolutions higher than 1024*768 which made the VGA lead even more useless.

I've got a samsung and the VGA lead works perfectly. Once you get over the initial change in colour saturation everything looks just peachy. I've played all my games in VGA now and none of them look washed out, most games actually look more natural in colour.

[J0e Musashi]

I'm guessing my Bravia will only accept a 1024*768 VGA signal too. Methinks I'll stick with component. 48 lines ain't gonna make much difference I guess.

[EJG1980]

My JVC only accepts analog VGA at 640 * 480 or 1024 * 768, and I'd still say that the VGA picture looks slightly better than component at 720P. Everything gets upscaled to the native resolution of the screen anyway.

Shame MS haven't made a proper digital DVI cable available though, as the DVI socket on my telly outputs proper 720P.

[J0e Musashi]

I don't really get that, but I thought that the idea was to not up or downscale? The 360's native res is 720, same as my TV. Isn't it better to have 720 instead of scaling to have 768?
Man, I liked it when RGB scart was the top connection to have much better.

[EJG1980]

I just meant that whatever resolution you select on the Xbox, it'll be scaled to fit the resolution of you screen.

720P is 1280*720 and most (cheaper) LCD screen are 1366*768. So the image is scaled very slightly from 1280*720 to 1366*768.

Obviously, if your screens natural resolution is 1280*720 then no scaling would be involved as it matches the output of the Xbox 360 exactly.

Unless I'm talking crap, in which case I'm sure someone will kindly point out the error of my ways

[J0e Musashi]

Lol, I'm even more confused now, all these damn numbers and ****.
Methinks I shall get me a VGA and just try it out to see if I like the display better.

[analog dog]

I got me a vga when I got my 360 and it looked really nice,but call of duty looked flat and grey.When I went and saw COD2 on the demo pods I thought "**** mine doesnt look anything like that.." so I would go away and fiddle with my screen(samsung le3251bdx).Other games looked great,ridge racer PDZ et al,but still in the back of my mind the words 'component' niggled.
So I got the component cable and I havent put the vga in since,the resolution isnt that important to me because the colours seem to lack depth in VGA mode,it seemed to flatten things a little,component gives me a little more percieved depth to the blacks and shadows.
My advice is to set-up your screen well but remember that this is a very subjective disscussion and the current batch of screens we all use are very different in specifications.
All that said I might dig out my VGA and try it again