Ricardo Torres Senior Associate Editor

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VG-Yay!

So once upon a time there was a console called the Dreamcast that had one of the coolest peripherals on a modern console. No, it wasn't the Samba de Amigo maracas (those were the coolest peripherals ever). I'm talking about the VGA box, a slick little peripheral that let you display DC games on a PC monitor with an incredibly clean resolution that put S-video to shame. Personally I was thrilled at the idea of such a thing, especially after seeing games like Soul Calibur and Ikaruga smoking along before my eyes. I was so convinced that this would be one of the next big features in consoles that I actually made sure the TV I bought had VGA inputs on it. OK, so it didn't quite take off like I'd hoped, but I still maintain that not only is VGA a great idea for games to support, but it's a nice alternative to the financial groin kick of buying an HDTV and the required accessories. It's actually pretty disappointing to see that none of the current batch of consoles feature any kind of first-party VGA peripheral, given their graphical horsepower. Some third parties have tried to offer alternatives with accessories that let you display games on monitors, but, for the most part, those are usually upscan boxes that cook the signal and fake VGA, while others have been a hassle to use. But just when I was about to lose hope and bitterly resign myself to making do with S-video and component images out of my consoles, I stumbled onto the X2VGA High Definition VGA Pack.

Meet one of the coolest peripherals you might not have known about.

Third-party accessory maker Neoya, based in China, has put together a tasty little unit that's basically a Swiss army knife. The unit lets you run Xbox games in 480p, 720p, and 1080i on a computer monitor (provided your monitor supports the resolutions). In addition, the slick box features digital audio output to make sure the crisp visuals are complemented by kick-ass sound. The box also features standard RCA outputs that you can use when you encounter the few games that the unit can't display on a monitor (there's a handful of them). One of the key features of the unit that makes it especially handy is the 480i "Easy View" feature, which basically lets you adjust settings on your Xbox dashboard while displaying on a monitor, which spares you the hassle of unplugging from the monitor and hooking up to a TV just to see the dashboard options.

You thought this thing was pretty before--try it on VGA.

As far as the display quality goes, this baby pumps out incredibly crisp visuals that are the next best thing to an HDTV. Colors and detail are very vivid and do a great job of showing off the graphics in games that don't offer high-end HD support, like Panzer Dragoon Orta. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic definitely pops out at you in VGA. Now while HDTV devotees may thumb their noses at using a VGA monitor, the fact of the matter is that a nice high-end HDTV is going to cost you a pretty penny, especially if you get a big one like we all know we need. A VGA box is much more affordable, since, if you're reading this, you clearly have access to a VGA monitor. The only real hitch to the box is that it won't display DVD movies on a monitor--blame the Xbox hardware, not the X2VGA--and that, at present, it's only available online at www.x2vga.com. Still, if you're longing for some eye-popping visuals from your Xbox and are stuck using a standard TV, you should check out the X2VGA. It's one cool little box.