360 on Standard Def

Z

zebbers

CAGiversary!
Is it me or is the 360 almost unplayable on standard def tvs. I bought dead rising which plays like crap in standard def. Graphics wise its okay but the text is unreadable.

Rainbow Six: Vegas, which has to be my favorite game, is totally unplayable on my 27" regular tv. I effectively can't see anything unless I'm zoomed in with a scope. Now, I dunno if it is just because I just got back from vaca at the rents where I was playing it on a 50+" hdtv, but I don't think so. But I don't think so, since I have only ever played Dead Rising in standard def.

I feel a little alienated...or rather, I feel like standard def wasn't even a consideration on the part of developers.....

I'm going to grab a set of the vga cables today and see how it looks on my 19" lcd. If it looks better + plays better, I'll grab a 22" lcd for the 360. I know it doesn't look as good as the hd components, but as long as it is playable I'm happy.
 
Gears of War played just fine on my 27 inch through RCA cables. So did Dead Rising (except for the text, but I could make it out). Sonic seems to play just fine on my sisters TV, and Oblivion looked fine on my friends 20" SDTV, so it should look fine on mine.


I'm sure it looks better on HDTV, but unplayable? Not in my opinion.
 
I have palyed my 360 on a 22 inch monitor in HD and 35 inch SDTV and the HDTV was much clearer, but the SDTV wasnt so bad...
 
It's not necessarily a Xbox 360 issue. Most games are easily playable in SD but there is the occasional game, where the developers obviously neglected the SD television crowd. It seems like a big mistake to me because I believe there is still a good portion, maybe even the majority of their intended audience that do not own an HDTV and alienating them could be costly.

But on the other hand, games look so much better in HD and if this is what pushes you to buy one, you probably won't regret it.
 
[quote name='zebbers']Is it me or is the 360 almost unplayable on standard def tvs. I bought dead rising which plays like crap in standard def. Graphics wise its okay but the text is unreadable.

Rainbow Six: Vegas, which has to be my favorite game, is totally unplayable on my 27" regular tv. I effectively can't see anything unless I'm zoomed in with a scope. Now, I dunno if it is just because I just got back from vaca at the rents where I was playing it on a 50+" hdtv, but I don't think so. But I don't think so, since I have only ever played Dead Rising in standard def.

I feel a little alienated...or rather, I feel like standard def wasn't even a consideration on the part of developers.....

I'm going to grab a set of the vga cables today and see how it looks on my 19" lcd. If it looks better + plays better, I'll grab a 22" lcd for the 360. I know it doesn't look as good as the hd components, but as long as it is playable I'm happy.[/quote]

i run my 360 on a 32" standard tv and it looks great. i run S-Video cable for my video feed though. this is the best possible picture for standard video. try it. i like it. when i watch HD game trailers, (i.e. mass effect) they look HD to me.
 
Viva Pinata on a Standard def TV SUCKS!!! the text is literally unreadable, it hurts your Eyes, the game is fun, but only on HD
 
Yes it looks better on an HDTV but it's not like it looks terrible on a SDTV. It'll still looks great on an SDTV, just not as sharp and vibrant as an HDTV.
 
[quote name='Vinny']Yes it looks better on an HDTV but it's not like it looks terrible on a SDTV. It'll still looks great on an SDTV, just not as sharp and vibrant as an HDTV.[/quote]

Yep, couldn't agree more, I've been playing on a Standard Def 21 inch for the last couple of weeks (due to being at my folks for the Holidays) and I was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting the worse as I have a 42 inch Hi-Def DLP at home but I've had no issues playing on a standard def TV.
 
I didn't get an HDTV until last month and I've had a 360 since release day. None of the games that I play were any problem on my POS 25" standard def TV. I've got:

Kameo
Oblivion
Lego Star Wars 2
Perfect Dark Zero
Tomb Raider

They look a lot better in HD, but definately not unplayable in standard def. I was connecting with a standard composite cable too.

TBW
 
I think it's more than playable on SDTV, granted however that to me there is a a night & day difference between SD and HD when playing though.
 
I've never played on an HDTV, so it doesn't bother me using a crappy old SDTV. All the 360 games I've played still look really awesome on it.

Dead Rising pissed me off at first with the microscopic text, but my eyes eventually adjusted to it somehow, so it's no big deal anymore. Most games are quite playable on an SDTV though.
 
[quote name='pop311']Viva Pinata on a Standard def TV SUCKS!!! the text is literally unreadable, it hurts your Eyes, the game is fun, but only on HD[/QUOTE]
I don't have that problem.

I've only had that problem with Dead Rising.

Obviously, it's the size of the television, too.
 
Viva's problem lies with whatever genius decided to make the fucking text bright orange.

Some people argue that textures cause them to not play as well in games like gears where headshots are "supposedly" harder to achieve on SD. Personally have only played in SD so can't argue whether or not this is valid, but I have shot locusts inbetween the eyes in multi with a sniper and had them not go down.
 
I play 360 on SD and I sit about 4 feet away and I cant read any text. Graphics are fine, text sucks.
 
[quote name='xdl']I play 360 on SD and I sit about 4 feet away and I cant read any text. Graphics are fine, text sucks.[/QUOTE]

playing Dead Rising I see.
 
I've been gaming for over 4 years in college on a 13" SDTV and never had a problem with it, but I definitely feel like I'm not getting the full impact when playing my 360. But when I went back to playing Zelda on my Wii it all looked fine. I think it has more to do with the style of the game and text size more than anything. Games like Rainbow Six are a bit harder to play (but still playable) on a small SDTV, but I never had a problem playing Fear (except for the text, of which there is little). I could understand a game having so much detail that it's a bit harder to make out the enemies, but this trend towards smaller text is pretty ridiculous and bumping getting a new TV near the top of my priority list.
 
[quote name='CitizenB']playing Dead Rising I see.[/quote]

Mostly PGR3. Not that I need to read text, but I can barely make out much of the small text even being 4 feet away.
 
I've also played Gears on a 27" SDtv with no problems or annoyances. I guess the overall polish of the game extended to SD testing, because the experience is almost equal to playing in HD as far as I can tell.

Another game I've played in SD was NBA 2k7. I can't say the same about this game; stats and substitution text are almost unreadable and the players seem slightly out of proportion.
 
I've also played Gears on a 27" SDtv with no problems or annoyances. I guess the overall polish of the game extended to SD testing, because the experience is almost equal to playing in HD as far as I can tell.

Another game I've played in SD was NBA 2k7. I can't say the same about this game; stats and substitution text are almost unreadable and the players seem slightly out of proportion.
 
[quote name='zebbers']
I'm going to grab a set of the vga cables today and see how it looks on my 19" lcd. If it looks better + plays better, I'll grab a 22" lcd for the 360. I know it doesn't look as good as the hd components, but as long as it is playable I'm happy.[/QUOTE]

VGA is better quality than HD component. Just make sure you choose a widescreen resolution (and letterbox it if your screen isn't widescreen). The 360 upscales 480p (all games native 4:3 resolution) to make 1024x768 and 1280x1024, so they look much worse than 1280x720 (720p).

[quote name='von551']i run my 360 on a 32" standard tv and it looks great. i run S-Video cable for my video feed though. this is the best possible picture for standard video. try it. i like it. when i watch HD game trailers, (i.e. mass effect) they look HD to me.[/QUOTE]

Component is the best quality standard definition cable, not S-Video. Component is capable of 480i (Standard), 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (most 1080p TVs don't support 1080p through component, but it can be done).

[quote name='Mr Durand Pierre']I've been gaming for over 4 years in college on a 13" SDTV and never had a problem with it, but I definitely feel like I'm not getting the full impact when playing my 360. But when I went back to playing Zelda on my Wii it all looked fine. I think it has more to do with the style of the game and text size more than anything. Games like Rainbow Six are a bit harder to play (but still playable) on a small SDTV, but I never had a problem playing Fear (except for the text, of which there is little). I could understand a game having so much detail that it's a bit harder to make out the enemies, but this trend towards smaller text is pretty ridiculous and bumping getting a new TV near the top of my priority list.[/QUOTE]

Now you are just being stupid. You really should just get a cheap computer monitor and a VGA cable, it would still be small, but it would be HD.
 
[quote name='PenguinMaster']
Now you are just being stupid. You really should just get a cheap computer monitor and a VGA cable, it would still be small, but it would be HD.[/QUOTE]

How would that work as far as the speakers are concerned? Do you need a monitor with speakers, or do the VGA cables have both video and audio cables and then you hook it up to an external set of speakers?
 
you dont need a monitor with speakers. They come with the red/white audio cables. You can also hook it up to computer speakers with an adapter. It comes with the official ones. If you get the 3rd party ones from play asia than you could just buy the adapter from radioshack. And you will also probably need a gender changer unless you get an lcd screen, which is also included in the official ones.

 
Yeah, if you have a PC monitor (which you probably do), at least use your 360 on that. One of the best features of the 360, so use it! :)
 
[quote name='lanleague']I'll never play the 360 on a SDTV with anything less than a S-Video Cable again.[/quote]right now im playing through rf via an rf modulator while at my parents for winter break. Not too bad, i mostly played coop gears of war. I got a nice 27 sdtv at my apartment with s video but I think I miss the surround sound most.
 
[quote name='DT778']right now im playing through rf via an rf modulator while at my parents for winter break. Not too bad, i mostly played coop gears of war. I got a nice 27 sdtv at my apartment with s video but I think I miss the surround sound most.[/quote]

That's the truth. My favorite part of my setup is the Dolby Digital 5.1 through my Logitech z-5500's
 
It's fine to me. I'm playing my 360 on a 26 inch SDTV through Component Cables, and the text in all of my games (Including Dead Rising) is readable.

And it still looks a hell of a lot better than my current gen console setup (A like 20 inch tv with all of this wood paneling, playing through composite cables plugged into a vcr, which is plugged in the tv though an RF jack.) Now that sucks in comparison to my 360 setup.
 
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