Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Umm.. Prof.S.. You just told me to buy all those games, am I right? I wish I could, but..it's impossible :)

I'm guessing MUA is a good choice, from your comments.

Although I have them on my list, I don't want another shooter. I just thought they might be good for multiplayer..

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

BUY MASS EFFECT.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Rock Band

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Umm..thanks for the recommendations people, but I'm looking for a multiplayer game.. I'm thinking about Halo 3 or Gears of War (and maybe still Marvel), because they both support offline multiplayer and online play with guests. Is it easy to play with guests, does my guest need Gold Live account, for example? Or is a Silver account enough? Or maybe they won't even need an account? I'm only buying 2 games, so I don't want to run into any problems..

Thanks for everything, btw..

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

The guest wont need any account at all. The game will give you the option of choosing a guest and they will have your account name with a (1), (2), (3) and so forth.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

I don't know if Marvel allows online play with guests to be honest.
That I will check in with for you.

Halo and Gears does, but Gears is such a pain in the ass to get guests to play with.

They don't need any accounts actually as you have to play under the one with the Gold.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Thanks a lot Fox 6 and BaB. I'm almost definitely going to be buying Halo then. I know it sounded like that when I wrote it, but I know that Marvel doesn't have guest support.

Thanks a lot, once again, for the big help..

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

This topic again :) But it's not about hardware failures or anything. It's about the XBox and my tv.

I have a 42'' plasma tv, and while it didn't say "HD Ready" anywhere on the sticker on the screen when I bought it, I plugged my 360 with an HDMI cable and got 720p and 1080i options, and I get the quality picture that I would expect from a HDTV.

This leads me to believe that I have an HDTV (not full HD though). Is this correct, is my tv an HDTV? I'm thinking about buying an HD satellite receiver if it is.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

"HD Ready" is just a sticker companies put on TV's.

If you have at least 720P, then yes, you're good to go for any HDTV inputs.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Nice! :)

I'm guessing the XBox wouldn't give me the option if it wasn't compatible. 1080p is grayed out, for example.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

1080i is the same exact picture as 1080p, only displayed as interlaced. You won't get a higher resolution on the consumer market.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Yeah, it looks different in motion.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

But when I run my games in 1080i, I get a duller picture than in 720p- yes, it's sharper, but the colors are duller. I've used my XBox on a 1080p tv before, and I can notice the difference.

And what did you mean by "not getting a higher resolution on the consumer market"?

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Higher resolution displays can be purchased, they are cost prohibitive and therefore not readily available to consumers. They're usually purchased by businesses who require larger than standard high def screens (movie production studios, etc).

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Resolution: The maximum number of pixels that can be displayed on the screen at any given time. 1920x1080 is the resolution of both 1080i and 1080p. Its the exact same picture. The difference is one only refreshes all odd lines, then all even, while the other refreshes all lines sequentially each time the screen is refreshed.

Is 1080p better? Sure, but marginally. It'll really only be noticed on very fast games. On movies, you would barely notice, and TV is 1080i... well, HD broadcasts are.

As for the colors, beats me. Your TV supports a set number of colors (I believe 24-bit), but the resolution isn't going to magically alter the amount of colors you can display.

I'd recommend you tune your TV. Your settings are very inaccurate by default, especially if you don't have a CRT. CRTs were the original standard, and to date they still are what everything is based off of. The colors used in movies and TV are still set to be the ideal way to view the movie when watched on a CRT monitor. LCDs and Plasmas require proper tuning to get to properly replicate CRT colors.

I'd recommend investing in the Digital Video Essentials disc, and dedicate a couple hours to tweaking the settings on your TV.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

I thought that depended on what the station broadcasts in...for instance, I thought FOX only broadcasts in 720p. When Im watching something in HD on FOX then I switch to NBC, the picture seems a little better on NBC.

I could be wrong on this though.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

All right then..

720p does look better right now, but I could -and probably should- try tweaking in 1080i. I don't think I'll be able to get that disc, but I'll mess around with the settings myself..

Thanks again for the help.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Yeah but you're not mentioning the fact that most 720p TVs will accept 1080i signals but do not have the resolution of a full 1080p TV. Examples of this abound, but here's one that's only 1366 x 768 resolution but accepts 1080i signals. Since I assume it has to do some bit-banging magic to convert a 1080i signal to a lower resolution (and de-interlace it), it is easily possible that 1080i sources don't look nearly as good as 720p sources on such a TV, which is likely what Bube has.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

I was in Target tonight and lo and behold at what lay before thy eyes:



Another satisfied customer? I'll let you be the judge.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Why people continue to think putting it in an enclosed space is ok is beyond me. You can't even do that with a dreamcast! The Xbox 360 heatsink wasn't made for anything but vertical position (apparently) + wide open, ventilated areas.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

I heard that horizontal was the best position because virtical cuts off the biggest vent on the console.

Thanks, MS. You've made handling my console the equivalent of an old wive's tale..

"Hey, I heard if you rub clove oil on the controller and soak it in celery compound it never overheats, by crickets!!"

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Remember, if you wrap it in towels, you can fix it!

Seriously though, I have a day-one console that's always been vertical. No problems whatsoever.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

I think the biggest problems come when people start stacking their devices in a small entertainment cabinet, and even moreso when they have glass doors and the like. All that heat combining with limited airflow lead to most of the issues, IMO. That and epic gaming sessions that last for hours on end. I'll admit to losing 6 hours in one sitting to Mass Effect, but I quickly came to my senses and shut her down to give her a break.

I'm just glad I got one after the made the changes to help with overheating.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

The towel trick actually does work, sadly, and is a common tactic to get your 360 working for long enough to trade it in to a local Game Stop.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

I actually had mine laying horizontally. My reasoning behind that was it seems to me discs that are spinning in vertical positioning are more prone to wobbles which in-turn lead to scratches. Just for the record, this was my own silly theory and I don't know if its true or not.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

It was actually a popular theory in the beginning of the 360's lifespan. However, they finally decided that moving it from vertical to horizontal or vice versa while a spinning disc was inside was what caused most of the scratches.

Re: About the 360 hardware failures..
 

Sadly I know that from first hand experience.

But even when my console is completely stationary I find that it scratches up my discs to no avail. I've tried both horizontally and vertically. I really don't know.
The only positive is the games still work.