360: HD Visuals & Performance

I'm trying to figure out why the visuals with my 360 have a tendency to look excellent in some ways/places, and almost "smudged" in others, as well as why there is such horrible aliasing, shimmering, draw-distance issues and major pop-in. Also, some textures look terrible at times, such as on cars, people or buildings (looks "smudged"), while at other times, it looks extremely detailed.

HD switch is set on the 360 cable and I'm using HDMI out into a Samsung 34" which looks otherwise astounding.

In ways/places, it blows away the old 30" CRT my wife and I had until recently, being sharper and more detailed, but with the issues mentioned above, I'm not sure if it's just the game and/or the size of the picture and the 360 not rendering fast enough for a screen that size regarding the pop-in. If I'm driving fast enough, there will eventually be no cars in front of me at times, and/or sometimes the road texture completely disappears.

The other issues such as aliasing, shimmering etc. are pretty predominant in a lot of places, as well as some textures looking worse than on CRT, while in other places the game looks incredible and textures look better on this LCD TV.

Is it just the 360 on a screen that large, and/or the game?

With upcoming titles such as Red Faction: Guerrilla, would we see the same sort of lag and/or lack of detail, aliasing, shimmering etc. if the 360 cant "keep up"? Been looking forward to RF:G, but am concerned that, more than it does, things should be looking better all around, even if there were a little lag or pop-in.

Ideas/suggestions?

"horrible aliasing, shimmering, draw-distance issues and major pop-in"

These are related to the game. There's nothing wrong with your cable, TV, or 360 otherwise.

From your description I'm assuming you're playing Grand Theft Auto IV...in which case it's definitely the game. GTA has a history of roads and cars going missing if you're going too fast for the game to keep up. San Andreas suffered from it as well.

Games that use the Unreal 3 engine (like Gears of War) almost always have texture pop-in, which is to do with the engine and not your console or TV.

Sounds like your just not used to the world of "modern" HD console games. This isn't PC gaming where you can tweak/upgrade and modify to your hearts content to get things the way you want. In the console world, other then your TV, audio and cable connections and settings, it is what it is.

Oops, yes, I was referring to GTA IV... forgot to mention that, but you figured it out.

I'm definitely more than "familiar" with "modern" console gaming, and no, I don't expect to be able to tweak it out such as on my PC rigs. I'm making a comparison between seeing this (predominantly GTA IV right now) on our old CRT and the LCD in HD due to there being some strange differences.

I'm glad to hear these things are game-related and not hardware issues (either the box or the TV), but I find it odd that there are some things that look worse, at times, on the LCD in HD, yet there are things that also look astoundingly better. Doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason, it's just bizarre.

On a full 34" LCD widescreen there's more for the 360 to render, just as when you move to a bigger monitor, so I'm assuming that's adding to the pop-in.

As for any texture issues, CRT monitors were always superior in visuals and performance with PCs until recent times (but probably still considered king), including color reproduction and less aliasing, so perhaps it's akin to moving from a CRT to LCD on PC without having any options of AA, AF etc. now that I think about it.

Thanks for the feedback regarding the game/hardware issues.

install it to the hard drive it should help cure some of the issues. I know it really helped framrates and loading times a lot in fable 2

ChthonicDepths said:

On a full 34" LCD widescreen there's more for the 360 to render, just as when you move to a bigger monitor, so I'm assuming that's adding to the pop-in.

Click to expand...

The size of the monitor / tv isn't important, the resolution is.

Psychotext said:

The size of the monitor / tv isn't important, the resolution is.

Click to expand...

I was just about to say that lol. A PC/console doesn't care what the size of the monitor is, but it surely cares about what resolution it displays at. BUT, I'm guessing the OP's CRT was a non-HD set, meaning - yes, your new HD monitor is probably putting more strain on your console now, leading to the pop ups and other problems.

Screen size has nothing to do with it, my gf's is on a 71" and its fine. All the issues you complain about are game related. Are you playing GTAIV?