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Xbox360 Forums => Xbox360 Hardware Forums => Xbox360 Audio/Video Technical => Topic started by: saunders73 on December 26, 2007, 11:49:00 AM

Title: Vga Looks Like #^%@
Post by: saunders73 on December 26, 2007, 11:49:00 AM
i just got a new Samsung SyncMaster 216BW 22 inch monitor today ($229  biggrin.gif ) and when i hook up my xbox 360 to it via vga, it looks like plain ass. like a stretched 640x480. no matter what resolution i set the xbox to. the monitor is native 1650x1000, which is not in the list of output for the xbox, but the monitor can scale. it is not a problem with the monitor, it looks great on my pc right now. i believe the culprit is the cable. i have a 3rd party "I-Con VGA Cable", it looked pretty good quality, gold plated and such but... any ideas? thanks
Title: Vga Looks Like #^%@
Post by: shmigadiga on December 26, 2007, 02:51:00 PM
just because it is gold plated on the outside does not change the crap inner cable that is wrapped in rubber.  i personally ebay'ed a monster gamelink vga cable and i use it on my 19 inch monitor.  just in case i get anything bigger, i know that the cable can keep up and still provide kick ass quality.
Title: Vga Looks Like #^%@
Post by: ntloser on December 26, 2007, 04:06:00 PM
QUOTE(saunders73 @ Dec 26 2007, 03:25 PM) View Post

i just got a new Samsung SyncMaster 216BW 22 inch monitor today ($229  biggrin.gif ) and when i hook up my xbox 360 to it via vga, it looks like plain ass. like a stretched 640x480. no matter what resolution i set the xbox to. the monitor is native 1650x1000, which is not in the list of output for the xbox, but the monitor can scale. it is not a problem with the monitor, it looks great on my pc right now. i believe the culprit is the cable. i have a 3rd party "I-Con VGA Cable", it looked pretty good quality, gold plated and such but... any ideas? thanks



Part of the problem is your monitor is "scaling" because the 360 doesn't support the native res. If you can find a monitor capable of 1920x1080 native to even 1280x1024, and set your 360 accordingly, it will look pimp!
Title: Vga Looks Like #^%@
Post by: oobymach on December 26, 2007, 07:11:00 PM
Microsoft vga will help alot, it's shielded and third party ones aren't. Also samsung monitors have some stupid features like "RTA" I think it is, turn that off because it makes anything moving especially games look like crap. Also set the res to 1360x768.
Title: Vga Looks Like #^%@
Post by: saunders73 on December 27, 2007, 03:59:00 PM
thanks for the replies, i set it to 1360x768, no difference. i do not see a setting for RTA, and a good search prooved useless. the picture still looks very washed out, and not as sharp as it should be. and the text has a big of ghosting, but thats not a big deal
Title: Vga Looks Like #^%@
Post by: oobymach on December 29, 2007, 02:20:00 PM
One other thing is to check reference levels on the xbox. Where you set resolution, set reference to maximum or whatever and it'll make colors look crisper and brighter.
Title: Vga Looks Like #^%@
Post by: alsybub on December 29, 2007, 02:58:00 PM
Another thing is that a lot of screens that are not predominantly a pc monitor tend to present VGA badly.
Title: Vga Looks Like #^%@
Post by: SphtKr76 on December 29, 2007, 07:16:00 PM
If you are getting ghosting in the text, thats a good sign of a crap cable. Try a different brand, you can't go wrong with the official MS version.
Title: Vga Looks Like #^%@
Post by: Bandit5317 on January 02, 2008, 02:16:00 AM
QUOTE(SphtKr76 @ Dec 29 2007, 09:52 PM) View Post

If you are getting ghosting in the text, thats a good sign of a crap cable. Try a different brand, you can't go wrong with the official MS version.


Yup, a crappy vga cable will definetely cause ghosting. The MS one is good, aswell as monster, and psyclone is probably another good one. I don't own a psyclone vga cable, but I own one of their component cables for the original xbox and it works fantastically. I know the vga cable can be had at target for about $18 and it looks good with gold plating and it's thick. It's also a lot cheaper than the ms cable. I also want to thank you for making my day with the name of the topic laugh.gif . It's kinda like when Bungie says "the build is broken."