Actually ReticentGale is correct. Perhaps you didn't read his post correctly. Also the 360 has a hardware scaler so it will upconvert the 1280X720 image to 1440X900. The 360 doesn't actually display anything in 16X10 though so you will only see an upconverted 16X9 (1440x810) image with black bars to maintain aspect ratio. As to the second part of your question. You have a display that is native 1440X900. Your best bet is to allow the 360 to convert the display to your native res. rather than letting your monitor's scaler do the work. There are 2 reasons why you want to do this. 1. The aspect ratio will be correctly displayed on you monitor 2. The 360 is the source. if you send an incorrectly formatted signal to your display it will not only have to convert the signal to its correct format (the native res.), it will also have to convert an analog VGA signal to a digital one before it upconverts the signal. That will introduce lag, and degrade image quality. Plus, the 360 probably has a better scaler than your display does. Just set the 360 to your monitor's native res and deal with the black bars.

cspiffo

Thank you very much for this detailed explanation. I will deal with the black bars (but probably just with shooters).

360/PS3 only render in 16:9 for HD.

It doesn't matter if your monitor is 16:10 and you select a 16:10 resolution, the console won't magically render games in 16:10, it only upscales the native 720p image to fit within your 16:10 monitor. And that means letterbox, aka black bars on top/bottom.

The whole point of the 360 adding 16:10 resolutions, was to force the letterbox correctly, because a lot of the cheaper monitors didn't support 1:1 pixel mapping, and wouldn't get black bars. Without the black bars, the 16:9 image was stretched out vertically across 16:10 monitors, and everything would be stretched. Now with the black bars, the aspect ratio is correct and the image isn't stretched.

aka_H3RO

Okay. So, you're saying I should use te 1440x900 resolution no matter what, since my HDTV's native resolution is 1440x900. Willthe response timebe slower than say, running it at 1280x720? I'm curious.

It's because you have a 16:10 screen, if you had a 16:9 screen you wouldn't get that, i currently also have a 16:10 screen and it does this, hence why i am getting a 16:9 one.ReticentGale

yeah this has to be wrong. 1440x900 is a 16:10 resolution. so, there shouldn't be black bars if my tv is 1440x900 and 16:10. and to the third guy, it has the black bars on the dashboard as well as in-game. also, no one addressed my second question. i'd greatly appreciate help, but only if you know what you're talking about. no googling answers please.

So, my HDTV (Philips 19PFL5422D) has a native resolution of 1440x900 and supports 720p. I am using the 360 VGA hookup. I set it at 1440x900 and there are black bars on the top and bottom. I do not understand why.

Also, if there is no way to fix this, which resolution would be the best? By best I mean best picture andleast lag (most important).1280x720, 1280x768, or 1360x768