I am deciding on whether I will be getting a 360 or a PS3, but that isnt what I'm here for. I want to play these consoles on my current PC monitor. It's cheap, its 1440x900, which is good enough for me, and it works perfectly well. I don't know whether or not it has an HDMI or DVIport, but I know that at least the 360 can play HD resolutions using a VGA HD cable from Microsoft. This leads me to my 2 questions.

1. Can the PS3 use a VGA HD cable to play HD resolutions, or does it require HDMI/DVI?

2. If I hooked up a 360 or PS3 to my current monitor, assuming everything works fine in VGA, could the console play at 1440x900 in 1080p/i compatible games, or would it simply revert to 720p? Also, which console could do this, if not both? Oh and, if this would work in HDMI or DVI, but not VGA, please tell me.

Alright, I think I decided. I will get a 360, not a PS3, at least for the moment, and I decided to give both Halo and Gears another chance. I'll play the demos, see if I like it, if not.. oh well. Other games r out there on the Live service. I also think Vanquish looks cool, and third-person games r said to have better controls on the console versions due to the gamepads. (In a way this is BS cuz PCs can hook up gamepads, but it isnt worth the extra cash.) I also loooove the idea of not having DRM in the games. The console itself is the DRM, no need for annoying "constant internet connections" to play Ubisoft's games. I'm also sick of those bugs in CoD, and that stupid nonsense about how the PC is a "dead" platform.

If playing good games w/my friends means a 360 or a PS3, I'm more than willing to do that.

P.S - I still think I would play the Half-Life games, and the majority of my FPS's (if they r not buggy or heavily DRM-ed) on my PC.

All valid comments. Thanks, guys. I'm still not sure. I suppose the PS3 does have the Uncharted series, GoW, and KZ, but their multi-platform titles are sometimes inferior due to how hard the platform is to develop for. I would get a 360 if i got a console. I believe I may also give Halo another chance. I play it @ my friend's house, but now that I think about it, it seemed like a good game. I'm not a huge multiplayer guy, since I suck at multiplayer in any form whatsoever, but I like the option of playing w/ my pals, almost all of whom have 360's. I would probably just get the 250 gig Slim model that comes w/ Alan Wake & Forza. Alan Wake is supposed to be a lot of fun, despite bad voice acting. After I finish those games, I guess I'd prolly get one of the Halo games.. Most likely Reach or Halo 3... (I still dont rly know about Gears of War.. I'm not a sissy or anything, but when violence is pointless and dumb, it just bores me.)

Is it possible to jump in from Halo 3 or Halo Reach and understand the story, for the most part? Or would I need to start w/ Halo 1?

*Ahem* Alrght fellahs, get out your last chuckles now. Yes, I'm a PC guy on a 360 forum... Awkward.. Rather than waging war w/ ye console-ers, I am here on a mission to decide whether or not the Xbox is the console for me. 'course, I'm gonna suck balls with those controllers til I finally get used to joysticks, but content is the real deciding factor here.. That whole "The PC has better grafx" argument is getting old. Both look good, both play well, so who gives? I wanna know if all of Microsoft's marketing is worth it. I'm not a huge Halo fan, but I hear about all these exclusives and how the consoles have far less lag and bugs than the PC. I wouldnt get a PS3 cuz well.. The 360 is supposed to be much better.

I want to keep my PC, but also have a 360 w/ Live Gold. I know I would get games like Conviction & Assassins Creed series on the 360, but thats like four games... Not much, in other words. Since I'm no Halo nut or Gears of War fanboy, what features of the 360 would really entice me? I alrdy like the idea of playing splitscreen MP, having less bugs in my CoD, no pesky DRM to worry about, and more demos but rly... I feel like there should be something else, something to make me consider a $300 console + controllers + Live subscription etc.

P.S - I'm a shooter fan; I play mostly first-person shooters, but I enjoy third-person as well.. if thats any help...

Ur probably right. I may get a 4870, since prices have gone down and may even go down farther with ATi supposedly having a new series of cards in the works (rumor). Or perhaps even a better card, in that case, since good stuff would be cheap in the 5 series anyway.

So yeah. U guys r right, and I suppose I can get some smokin'pretty-boy graphics even w/ Crysis running w/ shadows on medium and postprocessing on medium. I play w/ all else maxed, because those r more important to me. I think shaders are more crucial than shadows anway, plus that's @ 1440x900, so 720p on my tv would b easy and even lead to an increase in fps. =) How perfect.

Thanks. My questions have been answered. =)

So, ionusx, plz forgive me, i aint much of a television hardware expert, which is why of course I made this thread. lol. U said tv's have "preset resolutions." Does that mean that I can play the game on my computer at 800x600, while seeing on the tv screen 720p or 1080i because the tv is set to that resolution? I know I sound kinda stuck on uprezzing, but if its possible, it sounds waaaay better than spending on new hardware to play in hd. To do that, I need both a new card and a newpower supply. I also don't know if my case could fit a biggercard thanwhat's currently in there. And yes, while a 4850 512mb may max Crysis, my desktop has only been with me a short while. (In October it will be a full year. ) I don't wanna upgrade yet, if possible, in other words.

If it helps, here's my specs: HP Pavilion Elite e9260f. Intel Core i5-750 @ 2.66 GHz, Geforce GT230 1.5gb ddr2 with "DVI and HDMI capabilities" & DX10, I updated to DX11, updated drivers (I dont remember the name), 8gigs ddr3 system memory, 1 terabyte hard drive, SuperMulti DVD burner w/ Lightscribe technology, Wireless LAN 802.11.a/b/g/n, Win7 Home Premium 64-bit. My monitor's an old Dell LCD w/ a short neck thats prolly around 17 inches.

Yea, I know my vid card isn't the best, but for *most* of my games (all but crysis) I can max out all my settings at 1440x900 w/out any note-worthy framerate issues.1440x900 is my monitor's native rez. I just wanna b able to do Crysis on the beautiful settings its meant to b played at, and a nice rez on a big tv. =)

Doesn't the Xbox 360 uprez its games? I heard it doesn't play in *real* HD, it just kinda "stretches" the resolution, a.k.a uprezzing, to make the picture look very similar to HD, while maintaining decent performance.

I want to hook up my PC to my 1080i/720p HDTV, but I also wanna upres Crysis. My system isn't the best, but it plays Crysis maxed out perfectly on 800x600, and while this is do-able, I prefer HD. Like, a lot. lol. Is it possible to "upres" the resolution to HD on my tv, kinda like the Xbox 360 does?

I really want to see what Crysis looks like in HD maxed out, w/out buying a $500 graphics card. Even if it doesnt look as good as real HD, I wanna know if I can upres my 800x600 to a 720p or even 1080i. Is there a tv setting or something? Or a (hopefully very cheap) object I should buy to do this? I wanna PLAY in the uprezzed resolution, obviously, not just record it or something.

Any advice is welcome. =)

I have Fallout 3 GOTY, purchased at a BestBuy store, I have the two physical disks, manual, and everything. The game worked perfectly until I got to Tranquility Lane in the game, which is in fact when I downloaded patches 1.5 and 1.6 (I haven't gotten 1.7 yet cuz internet does "HTTP 404: Page not found" crap when I attempt it. >.

I have a 2007 laptop by HP, the model's full name being HP Pavilion dv9500 and the overall experience in COD WAW & NWN2 being utterly miserable. I got a very good desktop last year, not high-end, but plays everything I throw at it (except Crysis and Darkest of Days).

I know that the HP Pavilion dv9000 is a piece of crap and a mistake of gaming-computer-nature, but is there any recent, next-gen game I can run on it? I know that I won't be able to max out ANY settings, but w/ everything on the bare minimum possible, would any game play at a steady 25-30 fps / higher?

I don't rly have any preferences genre-wise, but it has to be something that at least SOMEONE thinks is worth a buck or two.

I only use this comp 4 vacation, so one game is good enough.

The entire Jedi Knight series, KOTOR 1, (I haven't played the second),

Battlefront 1 and 2,

NWN1,

Baldur's Gate,

Diablo 1 and 2,

Half-Life 2( not the episodes, the first one),

Unreal (the original, not tournament),

UnrealTournament 2k4,

Guild Wars (The entire series, all campaigns),

Sid Meier'sCiv 4, Civ 4 Warlords, and Civ 4 Beyond The Sword,

MotoCross Racers (ya,ya, I know, its a kiddy game),

Virtua Fighter 1 and 2,

BeneathA SteelSky,

that 3d penguin racing game with Tux on an older version of Linux I now don't own,

NWN1 Kingmaker,

NWN1 mods & downloadable content,

SpeedBusters,

Myst (the first one, which I never have completed),

Battleship,

Magic Carpet (that old DOS game where u fly around on a carpet with no idea of the objective),

and, of course, World of Warcraft, since I do consider that onea classic.