Xbox 360 and Dell Monitor(s) Questions

stevez0r

stevez0r

CAGiversary!
Call me a noob or a fool, but how do you guys play 360 on Dell monitors? What Dell models let you play 360 on them? I always thought you needed a external sound system. Can you have mulitpe consoles on one monitor? Yeah I know i'm not up to par with this. Can anyone draw up a diagram of how you hook up the 360 to Del monitors and what extra parts are needed? Thanks in advance.
 
It's pretty basic for the most part (I have a Samsung, not a Dell but the steps are the same).

Buy a VGA cable, plug said cable into monitor, take the RCA cables (the red/white cables) and plug them into the monitor (if it has built-in speakers) or a set of speakers, use the included RCA to PC speaker adapter if necessary, go into the video setting of the 360 and chose the resolution that looks best, and then you're done...

The only real hang up you may encounter is if the monitor is DVI only and doesn't have a VGa input (usually pretty rare). Then you'll be doing the same thing essentially, but buying a third party converter and adding a step or two (and some cash).
 
How about if I have a PC hooked up to the same monitor? Will I have to switch between PC and 360 to get sound?
 
[quote name='stevez0r']Call me a noob or a fool, but how do you guys play 360 on Dell monitors? What Dell models let you play 360 on them? I always thought you needed a external sound system. Can you have mulitpe consoles on one monitor? Yeah I know i'm not up to par with this. Can anyone draw up a diagram of how you hook up the 360 to Del monitors and what extra parts are needed? Thanks in advance.[/QUOTE]

I got a VGA cable for the 360 and plugged it into my Dell 17" UltraSharp. I had to run the sound jacks into my amp (which ran into my speakers) and switch between the PC and 360 for sound. Got it all working in no time at all.
 
This is my favorite 360 feature probably.

Only catch is that if it's a 4:3 monitor, not all games support it correctly at HD resolutions. Some games display full screen HD, probably most letterbox it (fair enough), but a few distort the image, making you drop back to 640x480. Even still 480p on a monitor looks pretty good (it's not like on a bad SD TV).
 
I have the newer Dell 24" (2407WFP). I just hook in the VGA cable, and run an optical cable from the VGA cable out to my Logitech decoder. If you have to buy an optical cable - your only option for VGA - check monoprice.com (very inexpensive, the site most people use) or bluejeanscable.com ("Monster" quality at a fraction of the price, the fastest shipping I've experiened from an online retailer).

If you want to use component cables, that's fine too, and you won't need to buy seperate audio cables...unless you need an extension so they reach your sound system, which is actually quite likely unless your sound setup is within inches.

Only thing to keep in mind here is that you should try to get a monitor that matches one of the 360's native resolutions. MS has updated the 360 to support more resolutions in the past, and I hope they continue to do so because mine is not supported, and I'm not alone. SEVERAL of the native resolutions most common in widescreen monitors, including 1440x900, 1680x1050, and 1920x1200. It'll still look great (experiment with resolutions closest to your own if you don't have your native resolution supported), but it won't be "pixel perfect" and you will notice a very small amount of stretching/blurring if you're looking for it. Here are the supported native resolutions (widescreen and standard):

640×480
848×480
1024×768
1280×720
1280×768
1280×1024
1360×768
1920×1080

Don't let that deter you though, it's not that big a deal for most people and the majority of people won't notice it. I'm pretty picky about stuff like that and it doesn't even bother me unless I'm in a shitty mood.
 
I've got a 2405FPW and use component just fine. Optical out handles my audio needs.

My moms 2007FPW has component inputs but it's contrast looks worse than what I have, and Dead Rising is enough of a pain in the dark.
 
Sounds like I'm might go with my second choice a Samsung HD TV. To avoid getting a sound system. It will also support my need for PC gaming. Thanks for all the replies guys!
 
[quote name='stevez0r']Sounds like I'm might go with my second choice a Samsung HD TV. To avoid getting a sound system. It will also support my need for PC gaming. Thanks for all the replies guys![/QUOTE]

If you have any kind of PC speakers you can just use those with the 360. It sounded like a couple of people said you had to use optical out-that's not true at all. You CAN use optical out, just like with component cables, but you can also use the regular analog cables (again, just like with component).

A widescreen monitor will work just fine with the 360. The only "catch" with a monitor was the one I mentioned regarding a few games on non-widescreen monitors.

And again, you don't need a fancy audio system-any PC speakers will work.
 
[quote name='APE992']I've got a 2405FPW and use component just fine. Optical out handles my audio needs.

My moms 2007FPW has component inputs but it's contrast looks worse than what I have, and Dead Rising is enough of a pain in the dark.[/QUOTE]

That's because the 2007fpw doesn't have support for 720p. I used to own one (great pc monitor, btw), until I found out that the 2405fpw did 720p (plus external card readers, which I also needed). I upgraded and love the results.
 
[quote name='stevez0r']How about if I have a PC hooked up to the same monitor? Will I have to switch between PC and 360 to get sound?[/QUOTE]

What you want for that is a KVM switch. Preferably one designed for USB mouse and keyboard so those can be shared with the Xbox, too. IOGEAR and Belkin both have models for this sort of arrangement.
 
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