Wakers Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 Hi Guys, I have my xbox 360 hooked via the HD VGA cable from microsoft to an Acer AL1916W. Now its my understand that this should be displaying HD gaming perfectly fine, however, its native resolution is 1440x900. I read yesterday that this supposedly isn't supported by the xbox 360 (which gets me confused because the list of resolutions goes way past it in the console settings screen). When running at 1440x900, everything is letterboxed, which is a little annoying, compared to when its run in 1280x1024, where it actually uses all of the monitor, and also, the image doesn't seem to be any worse than when running at its native resolution, which is also confusing me somewhat. A second question is, how do I decide which reference level to choose? I have it on expanded because I think it handles the contrast better, but I don't want to be losing out on image quality! Thanks for any help :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smashing Pumpkin Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 I can't tell you about the resolutions but the highest reference level, expanded or whatever it's called, is intended for VGA due to the fact it's analogue it gives a sort of washed out colour iirc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrunknMunky Veteran Posted June 6, 2009 Veteran Share Posted June 6, 2009 1440x900 is supported, make sure you select the Widescreen option. However, I think there is black bars at the top and bottom of the screen with that res. Reference levels will vary depending on your monitor, so just try each and see which looks best. Expanded will make you colours look brighter and more fuller, but it can sometimes crush the black levels. I have set to intermediate which looks best on most games on my tv, I like the brightness of expanded though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wakers Posted June 6, 2009 Author Share Posted June 6, 2009 I just flicked through the reference levels, and even intermediate looks washed out compared compared to expanded. I'm happy with my monitor, considering I got it for under ?150 about 3 years ago, its been a brilliant piece of kit. So there should be no real difference between 1280 and 1440? Because I might just leave it at 1280 to get the full screen used up. The resolution thing does confuse me though, because I use the monitor on the pc, and if i set it to anything other than 1440x900, it results in a very blurry and stretched picture being output (which is what I would expect), I have no idea why it works on the Xbox:pp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad. Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 I use 1440x900 on my 19" Samsung, it has little black bars top and bottom of the screen but the image is so crisp and clear! Perfect :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wakers Posted June 6, 2009 Author Share Posted June 6, 2009 Yea, it looks great on mine too, but I was worried because that's what the xbox was configured to from day 1, so it occurred to me I might not notice that i was missing out until I tried the other resolutions :p 1280 does use the fullscreen but I'm noticing it does get a bit blurry when the action speeds up, at least in Army of Two, which I didn't notice on 1440. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozgeek Posted June 6, 2009 Share Posted June 6, 2009 So how do you get sound to work? I have a Samsung 2233BW and xbox360 works great but where do I plug the sound cable part of the VGA cable into? I tried computer speakers...doesn't work....each of the sound jacks in back of computer....doesn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wakers Posted June 6, 2009 Author Share Posted June 6, 2009 I have a stereo next to the xbox that I can plug the sound into. You'll need an adapter to do it through your computer I would imagine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperKid Posted June 7, 2009 Share Posted June 7, 2009 I use 1680 x 1050 on my samsung sm226bw 22", but i do get black bars at top and bottom slightly, i think i need to change it around, what you guys recommend ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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