Best VGA resolution for the 360? What's closest to 720p?

[Friction]

Hi all,

Just wondering something about running my Xbox 360 in VGA.

Today I am getting a new PC monitor (19' Widescreen) which does upto 1440 x 900.

Basically if I want to run my 360 on it with the VGA cable what would be the best resolution - namely which one is the closest to 720p I should choose?

Sorry I'm a bit vague, I don't have the monitor just yet, and I don't know much about this sort of thing!

[supersmithy]

Personally, I think running the 360 at whatever the native res of the monitor is would be best - since you'd have no pixel scaling or anything like that!

[tom-nook]

1280x720 (16:9 ratio) is the same as 720p I think. However, I think the monitor you mentioned is 16:10 ratio so you could also try 1260x768.

It's worth trying out a few different resolutions (perhaps also 1360x768 which is the highest res the 360 can do) and using whichever you think gives you the best results.

[Friction]

Ah right thanks for the info chaps. As I said I know very little about this kind of thing, and I guess until I have the monitor here in front of me it's still a bit vague!

I guess I need to play around with it once it arrives (come on City Link you slow useless idiots!) and report back then!

[andrewfee]

If your display can support it, run the 360 in 1280x720 (720p) wherever possible. Anything else uses the 360's terrible internal scaler, and the one in your display will be better. There are also performance issues in several games when running in anything else.

If it doesn't accept 1280x720, set it to whatever is closest to your display's native res.

[supersmithy]

City Link + monitors = fun. They once left my brand new spangly TFT monitor outside in the rain, and faked my signature.

ROCK ON!

[Friction]

Well thankfully it arrived safe and sound.

Nearly missed the delivery (happened to be in the garden) but luckily got back in time!)

I tried the monitor on some higher resolutions and got some tearing and that so knocked it down to 1280x720 as suggest and it seems pretty good actually!

To be fair I didn't get the monitor specifically for my 360, but for my PC mainly, just as it has both DVI and regular connections (and I use DVI for my PC) I have the option available to me.

Not sure if I need to play with the colours and settings mind - look a little washed out but till I try it on my PC I won't know if it's the monitor or the 360. I know these things don't usually have the best out of the box settings!

[Friction]

Finally got this screen all hooked up to my PC (And it looks lovely) and also had a good crack at Dead Rising in 1280x780 and that looks fantastic too. No tearing or anything bad to report which is awesome!

[lurch996]

1280x720 (16:9 ratio) is the same as 720p I think. However, I think the monitor you mentioned is 16:10 ratio so you could also try 1260x768.

It's worth trying out a few different resolutions (perhaps also 1360x768 which is the highest res the 360 can do) and using whichever you think gives you the best results.

I have a 16:10 monitor too but how do I use resolutions other than the 360's 720p and 1080i?

[sj33]

Other resolutions are only avaliable over the VGA cable.

It might be an idea to stick to 1280x720 anyway, as the 360's scaler is painfully bad, and it usually just stretches them slightly to 16:10 anyway... you might get better quality letting the screen do that.
Give it a try anyway mind.

I have my console set to 1280x720, dispite the fact my screen is 1360x768, for that reason.

[lurch996]

Thanks. So when using a VGA cable do more options appear in the 360 settings screen? I wanted to change the resolution to 16:10 so there is no streching involed and everything is the correct size.

Also is there a way to play games in 16:9 with borders or will the 360 always stretch the image?

[sj33]

I gather it's per-game, it depends how lazy the developer is... sometimes they'll do what they should do and keep it 16:9 with small boarders, but sometimes they let it slightly stretch to 16:10.
I think there's actually a bug in PGR3 where the ratio is severely messed unless you run it in 1024x768... if true, you'd think they'd fix this by now.

1280x768 is the only 16:10 resolution output by the 360, but as I say, since most (not all) games seem to just slightly stretch the game to 16:10 as opposed to making it 16:9 w/ boarders, you might be better off sticking to 1280x720 and avoiding the 360 rescaling.
Just have to give it a go mate.

Don't let the negitivity of the above put you off, seriously.

[lurch996]

O.k, thanks for the advice.

[Ouenben]

what's the best resolution for a DGM dell 17" moniter? (none widescreen)

I have the choices of:
1280 x 1024
1152 x 864
1024 x 768
800 x 600

thanks, Ben

[Sane]

what's the best resolution for a DGM dell 17" moniter? (none widescreen)

I have the choices of:
1280 x 1024
1152 x 864
1024 x 768
800 x 600

thanks, Ben

I used 1280x1024 for a while on my 4:3 monitor. It looked great but you will have problems with the aspect ratio with some games. Basically not all developers have properly implemented 4:3 ratios, so some games will stretch the image to fill the screen, for instance Oblivion. Changing the resolution will not help though (except with PGR3, 1024x768 will give you black bars instead of stretching), so just go for 1280x1024, that's closest to the 360's native res of 1280x720 and properly made games will display exactly that resolution and fill the rest of the screen with black bars.