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[lrdBishop]

I hope this makes sense.....
I've been searching through all the post for over an hour and Im still confused on this subject.
I have a modded XBOX ( 2 months ago) using the AVALAUNCH dash with EVOX BIOS.
Its an XBOX 1.6.
I have the HD connector from MS to connect my Xbox to my TV
Im trying to play games in 720p or 1080i but cant get it to happen and the results are not the same for each game so Ill take it one game at a time.
Game:  MX vs ATV Unleashed
Settings:  Widescreen, 420p, 720p, 1080i enabled in AVALAUNCH and MS Dash
REsults:  Avalaunch boots in 1080i.....(Success)
              Game loads in 480p - (Failure)

Game:  SOul Caliber II - does not load at all.  It loads when I disable 720p and 1080i
Game : Sims Busting Out - Loads at only 480p

I've tried everything!!!!  HELP!!!!  I know this is a general questions but hte help would be appreciated.
I have a Mitsubishi WS65 inch big screen

[lrdBishop]

I messed around a little longer and found that one person had success if he went into the MS dash and disabled all HD modes, then enabled it in AVALAUNCH.  No success on this end....tried every combo ( MS enable, avalaunch not.....etc etc )

[lrdBishop]

can anyone just tell me if this is a bug...Ive been looking for three days for the answer and Ive tried EVERYTHING...


THanks

[ChrisF]

First, I have a 55" Mits CRT based set.  I'm not super aware of their newest products but I haven't seen a  65" DLP based display from them and 65" CRT based RPTVs are common from them so I'm 99% confident this applies to you.  The Mits RPTVs don't accept 720p over the component inputs (yes the tuner can take 720p OTA HD and convert to native 1080i but there is no scaling over the component  inputs - Mits assumes that the input device will provide the HD scaling and aside from the XBox this is largely ubiquitous).  So turn off 720p in your dash.  If you ava ini file has any 720p reference disable that too.

Considering that most HD XBox games are 720p and NOT 1080i, this may alleviate all or most of your problem.  I believe MX Unleashed was 1080i but I'm not sure about the one you listed below.  

Anyway, the next generation consoles will solve this issue.  All games will be HD and the console will have the power to properly scale the output.

[lrdBishop]

THanks a million Chris.....I've been looking for some help for awhile but I do have one other question.  I understand what you are saying but I used to connect my VOOM receiver to the DTV Component inputs on my big screen and it would convert to 1080i no problem.  SO Im to assume that the VOOM receiver would UPSCALE to get the 1080i....correct?

If so, can you suggest some guidelines as to what type of HDTV I should get ( 55" or bigger ) to be able to play these games....


Thanks a million

[ChrisF]

Well first, set top boxes are not true scalers that can be used with any source.  They will only scale the television signal.  So forget about that.

As far as an external scaler.  They are around but when you talk about scaling a 720p signal to 1080i you need a scaler that allows HD input and then scaling.  This is expensive the last time I checked.

As far as a television.  Well, any 720p native display will accept and display a 720p signal - generally these will be DLP or LCD based sets.  In the CRT based RPTV world Hitachi and Toshiba will both upscale 720p to 1080i.  Mits and Pioneer (2 of the best) or notarious for not upscaling but someone did tell me that Pioneer in it's last model did provide for this.

In all honesty though - there are very few worthwhile XBox HD games and most of those that output at HD are graphically unimpressive (go rent the Matrix it does 1080i).  The exceptions to this are Amped 2 which looks pretty clean and smooth in 720p and Soul Calibur 2 but SC2 has the issue of being pillar boxes which means they put black bars on the sides of the 720p output to make it 4:3 because the Xbox couldn't render the game in 720p at acceptable framerates and they didn't just want to junk it and forget about it.  The 480p output is 16:9 on SC2 though.

Given the lack of any decent HD content for the Xbox (go rent the Matrix, I'm serious - the graphics are shit regardless of the resolution) you have to make a call on whether it's worth ponying up potentially large dollars to replace your set purely for this purpose.  Who knows maybe you want a new display anyway but Mits makes some fabulous CRT based sets and providing you don't have sun shinging on the screen or require an ultrawide viewing angle, you simply aren't going to get better picture quality without paying up big time - frankly I'm unimpressed with most LCD and DLP rear projection setups until you get into the upper range (i.e. well North of 6K like the 1080p Qualia Sony released).

Anyway, with all of that and the fact that true HD gaming is right around the corner with XBox2 which will support both 1080i and 720p - I'd be really critical of anyone purchasing a new large $ television specifically for the few random XBox 720p games out there.  I mean - there aren't even any marquee titles like Halo or any big release in HD.  It doesn't make much sense to me but you know your situation so good luck with it.

[lrdBishop]

THanks Chris,...I appreicate your time......
I got plenty of info now!

[lrdBishop]

Oh Chris...One more question.  I understand what you are saying with the 720p but Im confused about games in 1080i ( like MX vs ATV unleased ).  Are you saying these will not work as well?  It seems that you are saying these should work.  BUt in my case, 1080i still does not work.  In MX vs ATV, it reverts back to 480p no matter what settings I have ( 1080i enables, 720 disabled, 480p enabled )

ANy ideas

[ChrisF]

Are you absolutely sure that game supports 1080i?  I seem to remember MX Unleashed being 1080i but that doesn't mean MX vs. ATV is.  Anyway, I would just go rent Enter the Matrix which is a known 1080i working game, enable 480p/1080i, leave 720p disabled, and see what happens.  There could be some issue with MX vs. ATV.  BTW - is your avalaunch dash in 1080i?  Maybe troubleshoot that first.  The info button on your remote will display what type of signal.  I just want to make sure you are at least capable of using 1080i and that there aren't other snafus somewhere.

[DJQTIP]

IrdBiship im having the exact same problem. Ava will load in 1080i and everything is fine. But when games load it wont output anything other than 480i. Its like the xbox is not telling the game to play in hi def and i know the games are at least 480p and still doesnt load in hi def?? HELP

[petegas]

question - how do you know what mode avalaunch has loaded in, and how do you know games are only being launched in 480i?  

I just got my new TV (16:9 EDTV plasma, 480p) and I want to make sure I'm getting the most out of it.  Games that claim to support 480p and 16:9 still seem stretched to me, but I'm pretty sure I have everything set up correctly (XBMC loads in 16:9/480p and looks great, halo2 splits horizontally in coop, etc) - What are some good games to try out at 16:9?

One final question- are there 16:9 skins for avalaunch?  The regular ones I use seem out of place when running at 16:9, and searches of the regular skin places didn't seem to come up with anything.

thanks for any input

[DJQTIP]

Have you went to the ms dashboard and ticked the widescreen option under video, you also want to tick all your cabable resolutions under the video option as well. if you havent that should clear up everything. Your games and avalaunch will come in at the highest resolution its capable of. Also You should have a button on your plasma remote you press wich will display the resolution. My samsung plasma it is the info button.

This post has been edited by DJQTIP: May 20 2005, 04:32 AM

[petegas]

I think I was thrown off by a couple older games that aren't optimized for 16:9.  I fired up some newer ones and WOW!  Perfect.  Also, I checked 720p in MS dash which i didn't before which allows avalaunch  to be displayed in higher resolution (at 480p widescreen it looks the same as normal and appears a bit streched, at 720p it looks perfect on the display even though the display is downsampling to its native resolution).

I guess I thought avalaunch had a different native skin for 480p 16:9 widescreen like XBMC does, but the resolution remained at 640x480

Thanks for the tips!