Anyone use an Xbox 360 VGA Cable?

[casualcoder]

After much fussing and back-and-forth I've found that my Samsung LN40A530 LCD tv produces a frame or two of lag that I just can't eliminate when playing my X360 shmups. I managed to get the lag down to this little by actually renaming my hdmi 2 connection as "PC" but now that I know I can get zero lag on my desktop LCD monitor (al1916w) via shmupmame, I just can't bring myself to wasting time on my main tv through hdmi (had I known 'marginal' lag prevented me from improving as a player I would have done something about this years ago... Better late than never).

Because of this I'm thinking of trying the Microsoft VGA cable found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-VGA-HD-A ... B000B6MLTG

Locally I can get it for $40 (typical MS ripoff), or cheap out and grab a 3rd party one for $10 but from what I hear there are a lot of problems with the 3rd party brands because of poor shielding. Anyone have any luck with these cables? I"ll probably also need to get a VGA switch for going between PC and X360 but first I'm wondering if this will work as good as I'm hoping it would (my desktops monitor has a default res of 1440x900 btw)

(mod edit - not directly shmup related, moved to hardware forum)

[Kiken]

After much fussing and back-and-forth I've found that my Samsung LN40A530 LCD tv produces a frame or two of lag that I just can't eliminate when playing my X360 shmups. I managed to get the lag down to this little by actually renaming my hdmi 2 connection as "PC" but now that I know I can get zero lag on my desktop LCD monitor (al1916w) via shmupmame, I just can't bring myself to wasting time on my main tv through hdmi (had I known 'marginal' lag prevented me from improving as a player I would have done something about this years ago... Better late than never).

Because of this I'm thinking of trying the Microsoft VGA cable found here:

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-VGA-HD-A ... B000B6MLTG

Locally I can get it for $40 (typical MS ripoff), or cheap out and grab a 3rd party one for $10 but from what I hear there are a lot of problems with the 3rd party brands because of poor shielding. Anyone have any luck with these cables? I"ll probably also need to get a VGA switch for going between PC and X360 but first I'm wondering if this will work as good as I'm hoping it would (my desktops monitor has a default res of 1440x900 btw)

Yes, I use the 360 VGA cable on my 26 inch Vizio as it seems to offer the least laggy connection (even playing over HDMI does not feel as smooth as through VGA), and for comparison, my set is 1366x768 (1360x768 is a supported resolution on the 360). I do suggest paying the extra cash for the official cable (I got mine from a local Toys R Us when they were blowing them out for $8 new) unless you don't mind image ringing too much (which is a pretty common issue with the 3rd party cables). The 360 does natively support 1440x900 through both VGA and HDMI (through VGA, it's an actual selection, through HDMI you will have to select Optimal Resolution which will switch the output to run in PC Mode).

[ikaruga007]

Definitely buy the official one.

[emphatic]

Definitely buy the official one.

+1. The 3rd party ones produce ghosting and weird ground jitters.

[Crafty+Mech]

Another recommendation here to buy the official cable.

I have the cheapie one, and the picture is noticeably soft, with the ghosting that has been mentioned.

[Endymion]

I have two of Microsoft's "official" cable, and two of Monoprice's. There is no difference in quality, no ghosting etc., the only thing separating the two of them is about $25.

[casualcoder]

Thank you all for your advice on this. Based on what i've read it looks like it's a worthwhile purchase. I am willing to bet the monoprice generic is about as good but I don't want to wait for shipping and it will be a bit expensive going to Canada. I'll post how it goes once I try it out.

One other thing. Do any of you think there would be any lag added by using a KVM-type switch for the VGA? I don't see how it would, because its sort of like railroad tracks from what I understand (routing the signal one way rather than another)???

And also I'll be looking to hookup my HRAP EX-SE to the switch (USB) so i can use it between my X360 and desktop computer. Supposing the KVM has USB ports for the K/M part, this should work (owing to the railroad analogy above), no?

[Fudoh]

Do any of you think there would be any lag added by using a KVM-type switch for the VGA?

no, delay is caused by buffering or processing, not by switching.

[Vexorg]

I've been using my Xbox 360 on a VGA cable practically from day 1. I can't be entirely sure what the display lag looks like with it on my TV (a Sony KDL40S5100) but it seems pretty reasonable. I seem to recall Rock Band putting display lag somewhere in the 15-19ms range, but it's been a while since I've looked.

[brownvim]

Defo get the original cable, the cheap ones on eBay have ghosting.

I went VGA a few months ago with my 360, I originally had it as hdmi on my Samsung TV and found it laggy.
I then found out about the PC mode which slightly helped, then VGA which helped it abit more but there is still lag compared to a monitor.

I don't think the VGA cable will eliminate lag from the TV, should reduce it though.

[matrigs]

i couldn't find an original one so i bought one like this:

http://www.bigben-interactive.co.uk/pro ... duit/id/56

no ghosting at all. on a cheap knock of cable, the text was pretty much unreadable.

[antron]

Do you have gamestop in Canada? They sell the official vga cable, used, for $10; in store.

[emphatic]

Do you have gamestop in Canada? They sell the official vga cable, used, for $10; in store.

Damn, that's cheap. Someone should stock up and offload on eBay.

[n0rtygames]

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-VGA-HD-A ... B000B6MLTG

I use one of these on my Dell CRT @ 640x480, edit: It's crisp at the higher resolutions too. Has worked on pretty much all my vga monitors that I've ever used with the xbox - whether LCD or CRT with the audio going to my mixer just below. Works pretty well! Can't say I've noticed any major issues with it. Though that said, I don't have as much of a well trained eye as some folk here

i couldn't find an original one so i bought one like this:

http://www.bigben-interactive.co.uk/pro ... duit/id/56

no ghosting at all. on a cheap knock of cable, the text was pretty much unreadable.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-Offic ... 2328808b1b

[casualcoder]

We have 2 gamestops within a kilometer of here but they tend to not have a lot of this kind of stuff in. I will check it out but I ended up ordering an official VGA off of eBay. Now I've got another issue to deal with. My lag free monitor (al1916w) just yesterday decided to give me problems. All of a sudden it stops outputting to 1440x900. It doesn't even show that as an option in the video card settings. After much fiddling I have only gotten something like 1440x1050 and some other oddball resolutions. Also the supported refresh 59hz is no longer available either so I think something got damaged with the monitor (tested it on another pc and monitor still had the issue). Going to open it up and check the capacitors and everything. Bah.

[casualcoder]

I got the official X360 VGA cable in the mail the other day and I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the results so far.

I have it hooked up to my 1440x900 VGA monitor and it looks noticeably more blurry than when my VGA monitor is hooked up to my computer. There doesn't appear to be any ghosting on the text or still images, but in gameplay, high speed motion does introduce a fair amount of motion blur.

It's not the monitor because this doesn't happen when hooked up to my desktop pc. And it's not the overall resolution I set it at (tried native, and 1280x768, not a whole lot of difference). Again, it's the motion that seems to be causing the blur more than anything else.

To my mind, I would EXPECT the VGA to have a similar performance to when I'm hooked up to it with my PC on mame, but it's definitely not. Unrealistic expection, or faulty cable?

I should say the cable was definitely used...

[Fudoh]

it looks noticeably more blurry than when my VGA monitor is hooked up to my computer.

games are internally rendered at a much lower resolution. Also until 1 or 2 years back the dashboard was rendered in native hi-res, but MS changed that with the Metro dash. Now the dashboard is also running at 720p max with additional upscaling through the graphics processor.

To my mind, I would EXPECT the VGA to have a similar performance to when I'm hooked up to it with my PC on mame, but it's definitely not. Unrealistic expection, or faulty cable?

Set both your PC and your XBox to - let's say - 720p and compare again.

[casualcoder]

Yeah I do get what you are saying. I expected a bit of fuzzyness due to the 720p limit on the Xbox but it's the motion blur which I still don't quite understand. It is different even on a low res on my pc. Its not so bad now though because Im setting my x360 to 720p and let my monitor do the scaling.