2006-01-08 01:15:30 DOA4 is NICE in 1280x1024 :D

YEAH! at first i was a bit upset that it showed up in full screen instead of letterboxed, but the image is so nice in this mode that it has to be coming out at real 1280x1024 instead of lower resolution(1024x768?) scaled up like in the case with pgr3 or quake 4, where you can see decrease in image quality using 1280x1024 mode. DOA4 looks very sharp in this mode without much noticeable aliasing, no worse than 720p mode. good news for lcd monitor users!

anyway, this game is pretty fun and i'm really enjoying even though i'm not much of a DOA fan. going to try online battling next.

2006-01-08 02:40:38

Also don't forget 1280x1024 is most likely the native resolution of your LCD monitor, so it would automaticly look the best at that resolution.. Any lower resolution will look blurred because of the interpolation your monitor is doing then..

If you don't know what LCD interpolation is, you can google it.. ;)

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2006-01-08 03:50:02

nah, i mean it's really good and doesn't look like the others that go full in this mode. it looks like video is really output at 1280x1024 instead of being upscaled.

2006-01-08 03:52:26

*Critx, don't dirty up this thread*

Carry on, this seems like good DOA4 news.

2006-01-08 04:57:18 In reply to PlumbDrumb (2006-01-08 03:52:26)

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What the deuce?!

2006-01-08 05:40:04

its not that high, just cool that its not stretched or anything. wish i had a VIVO card for shot taking. you can with VIVO cards, right?

2006-01-09 02:36:53

God bless that VGA cable then. Makes you wonder why Xbox never got one…

2006-01-09 02:43:34 In reply to Terra (2006-01-09 02:36:53)

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music

2006-01-09 02:50:29 In reply to PlumbDrumb (2006-01-09 02:43:34)

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What the deuce?!

2006-01-11 06:43:26 In reply to Terra (2006-01-09 02:36:53)

they did, 3rd party though, they were AWESOME. you can get them on ebay for cheap nowadays.

2006-01-12 14:55:42

hmmm is it even possible that all resolutions are native rendered and not scaled? I'm running it on VGA 1360x768 and I had a very close look yesterday... I could not see any scaling artifacts at all... it looks like pixel mapped for me!

2006-01-12 18:23:04

MS has not released enough information on this.

Here is the deal: The 360 has a hardware scaling unit which takes the source material and then scales for output.

Source =>
Scalar =>
Output =>
Display

This being the case you would not expect much artifacting. e.g. With my computer GPU I can have a game rendered at 800x600 if I wish and then have the GPU output it at 1280x1024--this then avoids all of the LCD artifacting. The image is a lower resolution, but it looks the same as just switching resolutions on a CRT. So even though the 1280x1024 output has pixels ~1.5 larger than the 800x600 image it really is not an issue.

Put another way: When resizing a picture in Fireworks, PhotoShop, PaintShop Pro, etc... you do NOT need to keep an even number of pixels (e.g. 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, etc) when resizing. A picture resized from 640x480 looks as good at 353x264 (55%) as it does at 320x240 (50%).

The problem occurs when you scale the output image because you already have an image prepared for a specific pixel output and then are re-scaling it yet again (usually not on hardware designed to do it as well as the 360) and so forth. The less times you mess with the image and the fewer times it gets converted, passed through analog cables (which are already lossy to begin with) the better.

While upscaling can show artifacting, small upscaling done right is very hard to spot. PGR2 shows that a 1024x600 image looks very good at 720p. The only way to see the artifacting would be to zoom way in and look at aliased areas. As long as the image is not scaled too much it can be hard to spot. Games on a 17" and 48" set look basically the same, while in theory the 48" set increases realestate while maintaining pixel count which is the same in many ways as scaling. So scaling in of itself is not bad, at least not always.


It sounds like DoA4 may actually render at 1280x1024 and NOT scale--which is cool. Obviously most cutting edge games *will* scale because it is 30% more pixels than 1280x720.

Question: Will the 360 auto-letterbox and allow you to do 720p on your 1280x1024 LCD?

I don't have a 360 yet, and one of my criteria is that whatever I get be able to put a 720p image on my LCD. I don't have a TV and have no intention of buying an HDTV. But I do *not* want a console that scales a LOW RESOLUTION source up to my LCD. I want 720p letterboxed natively.

The funny thing is MS has not released much information about this stuff, especially specifics on the capabilities of the VGA adapter. They tell you what it supports as OUTPUTS, but they are not telling you what it is RENDERING. Who wants 1280x1024 if they are just upscaling a low quality 480p image?!

Maybe Denjinflash can answer that question, but so far so many people running in 1280x1024 in LCDs makes me think it wont do 720p on a 1280x1024 LCD which is too bad because they are perfect pixel-for-pixel if the image it letterboxed.

2006-01-12 21:26:41

good explanation man.
so yeah, letterboxed output depends on the game pretty much. at 1280x1024 setting the dash is always scaled up to full, but when playing trailers or certain games(xbla too) it will output 720p letterboxed. the games i've tried that do output 1280x720 letterboxed in this mode are pdzero, kameo, rr6, condemned(demo), fightnight(demo), and fifa, geometry wars and all live arcade games i think except joust and others in coinop(they look very sharp though). the ones i tried that stretch it to full from what looks like 1024x768 are pgr3, quake4(demo), amped3, nbalive(demo), and another one i forgot about. these are usually the games that don't play letterboxed on a standard tv, too. doa4 looks much better and sharper at fullscreen than these so i'm thinking it's not scaled.

anyway, i think you can avoid non letterboxed stuff if you just set the mode to 1280x720 and are able to adjust picture height\width for your monitor(if your monitor auto fills screen). that way you can just adjust the picture to where it should be if there were letterboxes. i can't adjust mine so i always run in 1280x1024 mode.

2006-01-13 23:50:06

Why the maximum resolutions are 1280x1024 and 1360x768?
Is this a limitation of Microsoft’s VGA cable or Xbox360 cannot output higher progressive-scan resolutions? (1680x1050 for example)

2006-01-14 00:09:21

Hey is that S-Video Monster Cable really worth it if you don't have an HDTV?

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2006-01-14 03:07:14

theres no reason the system cant output beyond 1280x1024 and 1360x768, but those are the resolutions for lcd monitors and 16:9 lcd tvs. maybe we'll see a 1920x1080 scaling option later on.
critx, if your tv has component connection you can use that too. text and stuff is sharper with s-vdieo or component.

2006-01-14 04:39:52

Monster Cable though?

They are always overpriced, yet always top quality.

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music

2006-01-14 05:11:01

Anyone know what res works best for HALO2 on a monitor? I have left my xbox in 1280x1024 since I got the cable, but HALO looks terrible in it.

2006-01-14 05:19:48 In reply to PlumbDrumb (2006-01-14 04:39:52)

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2006-01-14 12:05:00 In reply to Denjinflash (2006-01-12 21:26:41)

2006-01-15 21:08:20

yeah, i wish i had that pixel-to-pixel option, too. i have the option to change height\width(in vga), but for some reason i just can't touch height, but width. also you mean those VIVO cards, right? 6 months away?
r0ok, i guess the image just stretches, eh? same thing with crimson skies. looks ok, though.