Played Xbox 360, not really impressed.

P

pistola

[H]ard|Gawd
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I was wandering Wal-Mart, of all stores, and I caught the Xbox 360 setup of the corner of my eye. So I walk into the electronics department to find no one at the station. So I set my stuff down and pick up the controller. I thought to myself "Thank you god for this Xbox 360" and I scroll though the menu looking for a playable demo. The frist one I came to was COD2, so I launch that. The game loads and my reaction was this. "What the fuck" what I saw was needless to say, not impressive. Virtually no AA, at all. Then, I see horrrrrridddde textures on the character models. Looks like a 256x256 map pixelated to no end. The lighting was half decent, but bump mapping was as bad as the base textures. I played for about 5 minutes before I said "this sucks" and walked away. Now I understand that it might COD that is crappy and not Xbox, but it does put the Xbox's visual quality in question. Hopefully this is just a crappy title and the other titles will really boast what Xbox 360 is able to do, however I can't help but feel a little discouraged.
 
Apparently MS has loaded some new demos with AA on some walmarts... but the texture quality didn't change. What I don't understand is why some people were expecting a quantum leap in visuals? Despite what MS and Sony may lead you to believe, the visuals on this generation aren't going to be the end all and be all of visuals. In fact, I think CoD 2 looks better on today's PCs. You shouldn't play these next gen systems with the expectation that the graphics are going to be insanely better than last gen. They're not. They may be twice as good, in terms of textures and polys, at BEST.
 
Keep in mind too that games will look better over time. The system has room to grow, but its unreasonable to expect the games made now for the 360 to be 10x better than the games made now for the Xbox or PC. I've also heard that many of the walmart Xboxs were setup poorly. I haven't tried any myself though.
 
BarneyGumble said:
So why would I buy one?
-my typical consumer question...
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Exactly. If they can't make games look better with that kind of hardware, then what was the point of it all? Surely they didn't make them play better. :p
 
They do and will look better than current gen consoles... just don't expect a huge increase. It's not going to happen. Don't listen to the Sony/MS hype.
 
steviep said:
Apparently MS has loaded some new demos with AA on some walmarts... but the texture quality didn't change. What I don't understand is why some people were expecting a quantum leap in visuals? Despite what MS and Sony may lead you to believe, the visuals on this generation aren't going to be the end all and be all of visuals. In fact, I think CoD 2 looks better on today's PCs. You shouldn't play these next gen systems with the expectation that the graphics are going to be insanely better than last gen. They're not. They may be twice as good, in terms of textures and polys, at BEST.
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But i saw a video of a dirtbike and a 4 wheeler plowing through the a muddy valley, cars blowing up in thousands of pieces and the Unreal engine :( Not to mention the uproar when the PS3's KillZone2 vid came out. Neither MS nor Sony seemed fazed by the others demos.

Let's wait for more games. I'd have thought they'd put in better tech demo's for their flagship videogames tho.

BTW, i'm not gonna buy a console so the outcome doesn't really matter but i am curious if the visuals will live up to the massive hype :)
 
Killzone was a pre-render anyway. The point I was trying to make was not to buy into the BS hype that they are trying to create about realism... Where in reality, the steps from this gen to next gen won't be a huge one. Especially when there are so many multiplatform or PC ports in the launch titles :)
 
I've seen some of the 360's at Wal Mart that were not setup properly. If you can get to the System blade (some you can, some you can't, leading me to suspect different revisions of the software) you can set the box for 720p. My local Wal Mart's box was set to 480i, and when I switched it to 720p, *poof* the picture turned sharp and gorgeous. Why they're defaulting to 480i, I have no idea.

Incidentally, it's certainly possible that some textures are 256x256. I'd be surprised, though, as for high detail areas 512x512 has been more common for quite awhile (except on PS2, with it's 128x128 bobs, LOL)

Jason
 
I bet the X360 was flexing all its graphical muscle on an old 13" TV that has been used for three years 24/7 running in 480i. :rolleyes:

A kiosk set-up generally looks like poop, isnt calibrated, and is running on garbage AV equipment. I played a PS2 demo disk on a kiosk at Gamestop the other day that used a cheap small LCD that had the color red turned up to the max and was ghosting to th bejesus. I still remember playing Xbox demos at Meijers before its launch on a cheap Sanyo non-flat tube color TV.

You can take any system and use crappy output devices and get crappy results. It does not mean the system itself sucks.
 
Also keep in mind these two facts:

Many 360 kiosks were not configured properly and are not runnning at 720p like they are supposed to be.

The kiosk monitors are LCD's that do not appear to have a native resolution of 1280x720 (720p), and as we all know LCD's that aren't being run at their native resolution just don't look as good as they should.
 
Developers rush to meet MS launch date and the shopping craze that the X360 will certainly generate. Launch games can look and play exceedingly amazing just like Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast...but thats the only title that comes to mind.

But check out how good God of War, Burnout Revenge, Fortza, Shadow of Collosus are ...those games are what, up to 5 years after launch of their respective consoles?

The PS3 and X360 will be have so many games that a good percentage of them will make me shit my GPU...(though with my GTX not for a long while) :D
 
Just to clear things up, all X360 kiosks have decent HD LCDs, not 13" TVs. Some are not setup for HD, though, due either to poor setup or the lack of the cables required, as MS is quite short on those.
 
i was at my local best buy. they have the 360 demo'ed on a 40in sharp widescreen lcd. now i have to say, cod2 honestly doesn't look that great. and the king kong game? the background looks like it could b generated on a ps2. the fur on kong himself looks pretty impressive, but its nothing i haven't seen before on the 9700pro tech demo. i'm not bashing on the system. however, if you want to sell your console, don't put crappy ass ugly games on it. hopefully the 360 CAN output graphics better than what i saw. if not, well that's pretty sad considering that the ati "next gen" graphics in the 360 is suppose to be even more powerful than the x1800xt.
 
This topic has been brought up already in numerous threads (about 360 and the AV setup being wrong). Steviep and I can vouch for that (isn't that right, steviep? we happen to see each other on every thread, pretty much, eh? :p heh heh, lol) It's a fact; Some games won't look good, some games will look amazing. I just watched the latest NBA 2k6 video release over at www.ign.com and it is looking absolutely jawdropping! And have you seen Gears of War!? :eek: I want the 360 NOW!
 
i think ms should worry about getting their "jaw dropping games" done first before even releasing their system. i mean if the only good launch game is gonna be Kameo, then its gonna be a pretty sad launch day for the 360
 
LiquidX said:
So basically if you dont have a HDTV your games will look like crap?
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That's what I want to know because I don't plan on getting an HDTV any time soon; I don't watch enough TV to justify it.
 
LiquidX said:
So basically if you dont have a HDTV your games will look like crap?
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...no. If you set-up the display properties incorrectly, your games will look like crap. Many retailers improperly set up the kiosk and the system is running 480i on a screen designed for 720p.

Basically, they're running normal resolutions on widescreen televisions and the televisions are distorting them so that they fit the whole screen. Widescreen televisions don't like the normal 4:3 ratio. They're designed for 16:9.
 
LiquidX said:
So basically if you dont have a HDTV your games will look like crap?
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No.

When you finally finish installing your Windows OS, and get the vga drivers installed, the settings in your display properties are probably set at 16 bit or less. Similar deal here.
 
720p tv's should be able to down scale to 420i/p automatically, mine does and its a pos Gateway 46" plasma.

Though I would connect my X360 to my future 2405 FPW.
 
Ok well here is my question; As a consumer that is being sold an Xbox 360 that is classed as a Next Generation system, should I expect anything less than a Next Generation game? How do we let them get away with such a mis-leading label? Thats crap. I'll give it a chance, lets see how Gears of War and Oblivion turn out before I cast my final judgement. But I am still very dissapointed.
 
[Fate]Doom said:
I bet the X360 was flexing all its graphical muscle on an old 13" TV that has been used for three years 24/7 running in 480i. :rolleyes:

A kiosk set-up generally looks like poop, isnt calibrated, and is running on garbage AV equipment. I played a PS2 demo disk on a kiosk at Gamestop the other day that used a cheap small LCD that had the color red turned up to the max and was ghosting to th bejesus. I still remember playing Xbox demos at Meijers before its launch on a cheap Sanyo non-flat tube color TV.

You can take any system and use crappy output devices and get crappy results. It does not mean the system itself sucks.
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/agree

I've read so many posts of the kiosks being grossly misconfigured that it's hard to base any opinion off of these demos.

Storm1000000
http://www.openxbox360.com
 
heatsinker said:
That's what I want to know because I don't plan on getting an HDTV any time soon; I don't watch enough TV to justify it.
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Think of it this way: how does your current gen system look on your standard TV? Well, think about how it looks, only many times better. HDTV just ups the resolution, which, in turn, is much more pleasing to the eye. 360 will still look much better than your current console, but HDTV makes it look even better than that.
 
Uh...

CoD2=PC port
King Kong=PC/PS2/XB port

I have NO idea why they're using these two games to show off the system...I honestly don't. Both of them don't have great visuals.

I would've put PGR3 or Perfect Dark Zero :) And if anyone has seen ingame vids, you know how fvckin' amazing those games look.
 
Circuitbreaker8 said:
I would've put PGR3 or Perfect Dark Zero :) And if anyone has seen ingame vids, you know how fvckin' amazing those games look.
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Possibly because they're not done yet, and I hope to God MS didn't force these games to market because they will be the 360's bread and butter at the beginning.
 
I don't know about PGR3, but I know that PD0, which was supposed to be on X1 from what I remember, hasn't exactly spent a lot of time in transition. The whole launch has been rushed, because they want a year on top of the other 2 systems, and they want it in time for the holiday season. How rushed it was, we won't know until we play the games.
 
Whata crock. I traveled to both my towns Wal-Marts and both 360 demos were either not working due to a bad Demo disk or some asshate ripped apart the console cause it was interfering with their Telzon inventory system.

Stupid dumbass Wal-mart employee's, so glad im not working there anymore. :rolleyes:
 
i have to agree about them not being setup correctly cause the one at my local best buy woulnt play at all . it seemed like someone forgot to put the demo disk into it when they set it up
 
i have to agree about them not being setup correctly cause the one at my local best buy woulnt play at all . it seemed like someone forgot to put the demo disk into it when they set it up
 
Circuitbreaker8 said:
Uh...

CoD2=PC port
King Kong=PC/PS2/XB port

I have NO idea why they're using these two games to show off the system...I honestly don't. Both of them don't have great visuals.

I would've put PGR3 or Perfect Dark Zero :) And if anyone has seen ingame vids, you know how fvckin' amazing those games look.
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That pretty much sums it up. What kind of marketing genius chose those games anyways?

:mad: and even if CoD2 is a port, why doesn't it look good as a PC playing it at 1280x720 using say a 6800 Ultra and an AMD 3500+?

The xbox specs are MUCH higher than that. Why did they dumb down the textures when im sure it could have handled it?!?!?!?!???!
 
You all with regular TV's will most likely not have any thing to worry about. I think most of the fears about the system looking bad on regular TV's will prove to be unfounded. But thats all speculation/opinion on my part.

The main issue at hand with the kiosks, as mentioned earlier, and in lots of other discusions, is that the system is being displayed using incorrect settings and in some cases older builds of demos.

LCD's exacerbate the matter because they upconvert to their native resolution, and they (compared to crt's/plasmas) have a higher dot pitch. If you take a 480i connection and run it on a regular TV, then you won't have any issues, just like playing games now that are designed for that display format.

Take that same 480i signal, and run it into a native 720p widescreen display, and you will get an awful picture. Basically smooshing a square analog signal horizontally onto a rectangular display, and then throwing in upconversion. That, my friends, looks like crap.

My primary gaming/PC display is a 720p native samsung HDTV, and my PS2 and xbox have games that I will not play on it, because they look so darn awful, even without stretching. Even 480p games (to a certain extent) look better on my 26" HDTV because it can do both 480p and 1080i, so my regular Xbox and PS2 480p games look much better on it. Halo 2 looks much better on the 26" crt, than it does on the LCD.

Basically it doesn't matter how good the display or the graphics on the system CAN be, if they aren't configured to work properly with each other.

The thing I'm curious about, and I haven't seen it discussed yet, is if games will have both 480i and 720p native display modes programmed in. Is a person with a regular TV going to have a letterboxed display on a regular TV? Sort of like the Resident Evil 4 title on the gamecube...anybody know?
 
I saw cod2 at e3 on the 360 and it looked amazing. this thread is stupid.

- the game is not complete -
 
qbert3 said:
I saw cod2 at e3 on the 360 and it looked amazing. this thread is stupid.

- the game is not complete -
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And so is your comment. The game has been released for PC and is weeks away from being released to the Xbox 360 how is that not done. I'm sure they've been done for a good while now, if anything they might be running though QA process and fixing bugs, but I doubt it cause im sure the game has already been released and the Discs have been manufactured.
 
So, I played the 360 last night at Wal-Mart for the first time. There were no jaggies, there was no lag, and the controller felt pretty comfortable. However, I think it was made for a smaller hand. Maybe I am just used to the controller S?

I played Kameo, and it looked pretty good, and was a lot of fun. A little harder to play than it looks though.

I compared the King Kong and Call of Duty 2 graphics to the graphics on the PC. The Demos were EXACTLY the same as the demos you can download for you PC I might add.

King King, compared to the PC running at 1280x1024 with all options maxed out, looked about the same. There seemed to be a little more shaders on things like the water, and when the T-rex and Kong got wet, their scales/hair looked like they got wet, but for the most part, it looked about the same.

CoD2 however, was a LOT better looking on the X360 than on the PC running at 1280*960 with all the details turned up. There were heat effects not present on the PC, their were a lot less jaggies, and it almost looks like they used higher resolution textures than on the PC.

The Samsung LCD Screen seemed to be pretty good for an LCD too. The brightness and Contrast seemed to be set just right as well, I am guessing the MS rep took care in setting it up.

I watched the videos of the other games, and it looks a lot better running on the demos on and HDTV than it does over the internet. PGR3 looks simply amazing as well.

Hope at least one person finds this helpful, or entertaining reading.

I forgot to add that the button in the middle, that pauses the game and brings up a "mini dashboard", is WAY too easy to push on accident. I can see myself being killed several times online because of this.

The Dashboard was easy to navigate though. There is like a 5 second learning curve to it, and when they said it was seemless when bringing up the mini-dashboard, there were not joking, it pops up INSTANTLY with no lag/wait time/or hesitation. Going back into the game, even in the middle of a gun fight in CoD2 was instant as well.
 
So basically if you dont have a HDTV your games will look like crap?
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Nope, just plug it into your computer monitor ( you obviously have one ) and you can still run in 720p mode. And maybe with updates later down the road, you could run it in different resolution modes as well.
 
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