Question about xbox 360 VGA cable

weringo · 1 Jan 2007 at 21:14

I was thinking about getting a VGA cable for my 360 so I can play in HD but my speakers (JBL Creature 2) dont have the correct input, it just has the standard input like the one in the back of a computer (the green one if you know what I mean).

I was wondering if the vga cable comes with a converter for these types of inputs. Also if I purchase a third party vga cable from an auction site, will there be a big dip in quality compared to the official cable?

Mud · 1 Jan 2007 at 21:15

The official VGA comes with a phono (RCA) to 3.5mm stereo jack adapter, so yes.

ultim · 1 Jan 2007 at 22:31

i have the same speakers, with the official vga cable kit i plugged the stereo jack adapter into the line-in port of my soundcard.
The sound comes through my computer. But it means the computer needs to be turned on for me to have any sounds while playing the 360. I have my computer on must have the time so its not a problem.

Memphis · 1 Jan 2007 at 23:07

Giving hints is as much against the rules.

DaveyD · 1 Jan 2007 at 23:10

Baine, you're still competitor hinting, which is still against the rules. They are a competitor in this part of the forum. You can't talk about them here as OcUK sells this stuff. If it were motors or GD, then you'd get away with talk about them, but not in gaming.

Edit: From a lot of people on here, the Official VGA cable is the best to go for, as others have been quite poor quality compared to it. You're also guaranteed the correct fittings for all bar connecting headphones/speakers directly to it, which is just a 3.5mm coupler, but sounds like you wont need one.

weringo · 2 Jan 2007 at 01:21

Well I bought a used one for £12 which Im not sure whether or not it was official because it was boxless but it had the audio adaptor I needed.

Another question I wanted to ask was as my monitor has a native resolution of 1440x900, when I run 1280x768 on the xbox will it look any good? Because when I change my desktop resolution to 1280x768 everything looks blurry and tbh the picture is much clearer on my trash CRT 21" tv.

kola · 2 Jan 2007 at 08:51

weringo said:
Another question I wanted to ask was as my monitor has a native resolution of 1440x900, when I run 1280x768 on the xbox will it look any good?

Yes it will look fine

SHEF · 2 Jan 2007 at 14:46

ultim said:
i have the same speakers, with the official vga cable kit i plugged the stereo jack adapter into the line-in port of my soundcard.
The sound comes through my computer. But it means the computer needs to be turned on for me to have any sounds while playing the 360. I have my computer on must have the time so its not a problem.

I've considered using the line in on my PC for my 360 because my TVs speakers are terrible and my PCs speakers are decent 5.1's but don't have digital in. If you use Line In on the PC do you get full 5.1 sound?

DaveyD · 2 Jan 2007 at 14:47

SHEF said:
I've considered using the line in on my PC for my 360 because my TVs speakers are terrible and my PCs speakers are decent 5.1's but don't have digital in. If you use Line In on the PC do you get full 5.1 sound?

No.

You only get 5.1 Dolby Digital sound via the optical connection on the cable.

weringo · 2 Jan 2007 at 18:05

kola said:
Yes it will look fine

Can you give me a quick explanation to why it will still look fine even though it looks carp when I change my desktop to anything below the native resolution please?

DaveyD · 2 Jan 2007 at 18:59

weringo said:
Can you give me a quick explanation to why it will still look fine even though it looks carp when I change my desktop to anything below the native resolution please?

Most people on here that have widescreen monitors have monitors that do not natively display the 360 VGA resolutions 1:1, however most aren't bothered by it. It'll be a case of try it and see, as even modern HDTVs don't use 1:1, most 720p TVs do 1360x768, so are stretching the image even there.

sunlitsix · 2 Jan 2007 at 19:04

some games arnt stretched though

for example fight night 3 on my monitor @ 1280x1024 is just shown in a letterbox view

DaveyD · 2 Jan 2007 at 19:08

sunlitsix said:
some games arnt stretched though

for example fight night 3 on my monitor @ 1280x1024 is just shown in a letterbox view

That's not what I mean. Ideally you want to play everything at the native resolution of the monitor to get the best picture. Run a game at 800x600 on a modern 1280x1024 native 19in monitor and compare that to running 800x600 on a CRT monitor and you'll notice how crappy the TFT looks, as without 1:1 pixels, you're going to get some pixels being displayed twice, some not, making some things like text loop rubbish.

But on closer resolutions like 1440x900, it's not as bad from what I have seen, as I've not seen that many complaints about 360 VGA on widescreen monitors.