What's the Xbox 360 like on a CRT monitor

decimator · 25 Mar 2006 at 11:15

...Using the VGA adaptor obviously, what are your impressions? screenshots would be nice. I'm fairly interested in the 360, but I've no intention of buying an HDTV and I'm not convinced that my telly (21" Trinitron) will do it justice.

DaveyD · 25 Mar 2006 at 11:20

It should look perfectly fine, good as a normal HDTV, apart from you'll either be using 4:3 ratio, or you'll be having black borders on top and bottom of the screen. I'm not sure on what results people with CRT monitors have had, but the VGA will only output at 60hz I believe.

DanTheMan · 25 Mar 2006 at 11:20

Well I'm playing on a 14inch goodmans TV that I got in 1996 at the moment but I'm blown away by the picture quality. Running at 480p it still looks stunning, the only problem I've found is that writing can be quite hard to read.

If I were you I'd just plug it into the trinitron.

DaveyD · 25 Mar 2006 at 11:22

DanTheMan said:
Well I'm playing on a 14inch goodmans TV that I got in 1996 at the moment but I'm blown away by the picture quality. Running at 480p it still looks stunning, the only problem I've found is that writing can be quite hard to read.

If I were you I'd just plug it into the trinitron.

It's not going to be running 480p if it's a 10 year old TV, it'll be PAL, 480p is HD still... unless you worded it wrong and generally just talking about 480p

We've got a 360 plugged into my 24in Sony TV downstairs, and it looks stunning in normal definition anyway, but as DanTheMan said, it sometimes gives small fonts in standard definition, so can be harder to read.

decimator · 25 Mar 2006 at 11:24

Ta for the reply, so it'll look the same as PC games? are the contrast, gamma and brightness adjustable via the 360? and what refresh rate settings can you use?

DaveyD · 25 Mar 2006 at 11:28

decimator said:
Ta for the reply, so it'll look the same as PC games? are the contrast, gamma and brightness adjustable via the 360? and what refresh rate settings can you use?

60hz, that's it. From what I've heard some people say, it's not noticable once you're playing.

You can adjust gamma and all that I think off the top of my head, but your monitor should be able to do that anyway.

It'll look the same as Xbox 360 games will on a HDTV, so 1280x960 will be the likely resolution you'd be running in on your monitor, or 1280x720. The latter being the correct 1:1 size for the 360, as that's what it renderes everything at first.

decimator · 25 Mar 2006 at 11:31

Ah thanks, 1280 x 720 will be fine I think, though my monitor OSD only lets me adjust Contrast, Brightness and RGB, not gamma. I've seen the 360 running on those demo kiosks quite a bit, but I was a little bit underwhelmed by the LCD monitors they were using.

DanTheMan · 25 Mar 2006 at 11:32

DaveyD said:
It's not going to be running 480p if it's a 10 year old TV, it'll be PAL, 480p is HD still... unless you worded it wrong and generally just talking about 480p

We've got a 360 plugged into my 24in Sony TV downstairs, and it looks stunning in normal definition anyway, but as DanTheMan said, it sometimes gives small fonts in standard definition, so can be harder to read.

Hmm not sure now lol. I've set my 360 settings to run in 480p and 60hz in the menu and its now running on the tv. Either way it still looks stunning though

.

crunchman · 25 Mar 2006 at 12:05

DanTheMan said:
Hmm not sure now lol. I've set my 360 settings to run in 480p and 60hz in the menu and its now running on the tv. Either way it still looks stunning though .

It will be sending a progressive signal through the unconnected component cables and will be transmitting an interlaced signal through the composite lead.

I had those settings whilst I had the xbox connected to my 14" ooer and the projector.

It's not possible to get a progressive signal through scart and composite.