Connecting an Xbox 360 to a 1920x1200 Monitor

[rjkucia]

I'm looking for a new monitor and would really like one with 1920x1200 resolution for my PC gaming. My concern is that if I hook up my Xbox to it, the image will either be stretched (because it outputs 16:9) or unscaled (for 720p). What I would like is for my 1080p and 720p games to be scaled to the full size of the screen (with black bars on top and bottom, of course). Does anyone out there connect an Xbox 360 to a 1920x1200 resolution monitor, and if so, does it work well?

 

[Yargnit]

It depends on the settings in the screen/monitor itself. I've over time had my X360 hooked up to two different 16x10 screens, one stretched to fill, the other had black bars at the top/bottom.

FYI stretching 16x9 to fill 16x10 is WAY less noticeable than when 4x3 TV is stretched to 16x9. And actually that slight vertical stretch can even make games look better at times because characters don't appear so "fat."

The biggest issue connecting a X360 to a PC monitor I've found is that you usually have to turn the game brightness way up (which washes out the colors a bit) because the PC monitor seems to render way darker than a TV. (Same on both screens I used) And TV's have far better viewing angles as well.

Have you considered getting a smaller 1080p TV and using it as a PC monitor as well instead? They actually make 1080p TV's as small as 23" now, and even if your video card doesn't have HDMI out, DVI>HDMI is just a passive conversion. (You can actually get cables with DVI on one end and HDMI on the other even)

I now use a 32" 1080p TV as my primary monitor/TV, and my old 16x10 24" monitor as a secondary PC monitor, and it works very well.

 

[rjkucia]

Actually, right now I use a 22" 1680x1050 monitor with my Xbox, which works fine because the Xbox can output that resolution if you look in the settings. Because of this, it puts in its own black bars, which is fine. It does not, however, have 1920x1200. I've noticed no problems with picture quality. Could you tell me what brand monitors produced which result for you?

 

[Yargnit]

I'm curious where you think you've seen 1680x1050 output on your X360? As far as I've seen, all it has is 720p, 1080i, and 1080p as options. (+ non-HD's obviously)

They were both Gateways (Samsung made) The one that stretched it to fit the 16x10 was actually a 21" 1680x1050 monitor, the one that added the black bars top and bottom was a 24" 1920x1200.

 

[rjkucia]

I currently use a VGA output, and if you go into the display settings you can change the resolution to pretty much any computer monitor output up to 1080p. Sounds like a bit of a crapshoot 😛

 

[Yargnit]

Oh, it must be something unique to the VGA adapter. I know that's not normally an option you'll see outputting over Component or (ideally) HDMI. Those will both just give you 720p/1080i/1080p for choices.

But yeah, it's a crap-shoot based on the monitor you get, but like I said, it really doesn't look bad stretched to 16x10 (this is coming from someone who hates 4x3 stretched to 16x9) The color adjustments you have to make to use a PC monitor are much more negatively impactful in my experience than the slight vertical stretch,

 

[rjkucia]

Color adjustments don't really matter to me - If I want my games to look good, I'll game on my PC 😀 But I guess I'll just go for the 1920x1200 monitor and hope for the best. Thanks for your help!

 

[rjkucia]

Best answer selected by rjkucia.