X-Box hardware question

[hido]

I am considering making the plunge into console-land. Is it possible to use the X-Box with my computer monitor? Are the VGA boxes any good? Are the boxes splitters that allow you to switch bak and forth?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I'm looking for one too, but from what I've determined, there are none that are officially licensed in the U.S. market, and the folks at EB told me they don't exist.

Only problem with that is that they do exist, but you usually have to order them from Hong Kong or Korea or some other wonderful Asian country that pretty much ignores things such as licensens and copyrights and build em anyway.

The VGA box costs around $50, and then you gotta pay for shipping from Asia. There are some reviews floating around the 'Net, just type in Xbox VGA and PC monitor or something like that in Google.

One thing I have heard is that even though you get a brighter and sharper picture, prepare to be disappointed. Xbox runs in 640x480, which can look like sheer crap after you've been conditioned to run at high res on your monitor (mine is 1600x1200). I've heard Halo has a ton of jags in it which you don't see on a TV because of the crappy and fuzzy image quality that most TV's have compared to a TV monitor.

[Anonymous]

Compared to a PC monitor, that is.

[Brad Grenz]

I'm pretty sure all the "Xbox VGA boxes" out there are line doublers just like the PS2 and Gamecube ones. Not true VGA adapters in the way the Dreamcast's is. On the Dreamcast with the VGA box plugged in a native VGA signal was generated by the console. With the PS2 and Xbox an interlaced NTSC signal is upconverted for output to a VGA display. I know people have been working on creating something that would take a progressive signal output using an Xbox component video cables and convert that to a VGA signal, but those were usually home brewed schemes that generally ended up costing more than $100 between the cables and converter.