So after playing GH2 for about three weeks (off & on), my buddy came over to play one evening. Now I was about 3 songs into 'hard' and had many 5* in medium. My buddy was in the 5th set of hard on his SDTV. When he tried playing on my TV (61" HD) he hads troubles hitting any notes. We went in to the video settings to adjust the HD lag which varied each time from 0ms to a whopping 46ms. 34ms seemed to be the best for accuracy. This actually kind of threw me at first as I was used to 'laggy' play, but once I got rolling I actually played better.

After we played, I started wondering about my Halo 2 bitching where I was getting the short end of the stick, repeatedly. I would lose almost every close melee/shotgun trade-off, and even though it seemed as I would start shooting first, I would lose gunfights. I maintain a level 21-25 on Halo 2, so I do OK, but am I getting lag on H2? I go through some really crappy spurts where it seems I can't buy a kill or win a gunfight...could this be due to lag?

Is there any way to adjust a lag on games other than GH:2? Is there a way to be connected that has less lag (I'm running component on a 360)?

Thanks,

~S2

I've never heard of an HDTV causing lag. So I cannot help.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....ight=upscaling

This page does a great job on detailing HDTV lag:
http://hdtvlag.googlepages.com/home

The lag is literally milliseconds, which is why most people will never notice. The problem really hits with games that require very precise timing. Again.. even then your average mainstream gamer will still probably never notice. But it's there, and I'm simply responding the original question presented.

The above page only shows results for LCDs though.

Here's another FAQ on it:
http://www.hdtvarcade.com/hdtvforum/...showtopic=4536

So just how bad is the lag?
Although there is no real way to measure, and the numbers vary based on the HDTV, the average HDTV seems to lag roughly 6 frames, or 1/10th of a second when processing 480i material. DLP HDTVs seem to be a bit worse, some people claiming lag up to 15 frames, or 1/4th of a second. If these numbers will not affect your gaming habit, don't worry about it too much. Casual gamers probably will not notice a lag this small; you can stop reading and get back to gaming if that's the case. The most affected gamers will be those who play ultra-time sensitive games such rhythm games, sports games with swinging/kicking meters, shooters, or fighting games. If you fall into one of these categories, please read on.

Great, I have a 61" Sammy DLP

Thanks for the interesting info. So, if I read correctly, if I connect my 360 via VGA, the lag should be minimized up to 30%?? Is there a way, other than the box listed in the article, to connect a 360 via VGA?

Maybe that explains why I've been stuck on the same level in Rainbow Six for hours and hours.

Yes, yes, I think this explains why I lose all the time at videogames too.

FWIW newwer tvs are supposed to be better at it.

you can buy a VGA cord for the 360 at best buy

I believe as long as you set your 360 to output at your display's native resolution, you shouldn't notice any lag. It becomes an issue when the TV has to scale the incoming signal.

true, if your tv plays it at 720, there is no benefit in sending a signal thats 1080

My TV has these options: 480p, 720p, and 1080i. When I set up my 360, I selected 720p, but there is definitely lag. I'm going to grab the VGA and see if there's any difference. Halo 2 has always pissed me off, but I wasn't sure if it was a lag issue, GH2 confirmed it for me. Alot of games doesn't really matter, but H2 & GH2 are noticable.

I don't 'lose' at video games, but try playing with a 15 frame lag and tell me you'd play as well as you do on an SDTV, especially on an online FPS.

You guys need to check out this thread on AVS Forum.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5&page=1&pp=30

There is a new Sharp Gaming HDTV that is optimized for Gaming by reducing the amount of time it takes to display the picture.

Can you set the Xbox 360 to 1080i? That's probably what your native resolution is if you are getting lag on 720p.

Yes, I can set it to 1080i, but on the back of the games it says 720p, so that's what I was going with. What 'native resolution' are we talking about, the TV or the 360? Either way, thanks, I'll give it a go.

The lag you are experiencing is from your TV scaling the image being received to its native resolution. By setting the Xbox to your TV's native resolution you should get NO lag, this was all outlined in the links I provided earlier.. the only ambiguity would've been what the native resolution of your TV is. The resolution listed on the game is probably what the game is programmed at and the Xbox scales it down or up to what you have configured.

I switched to 1080i and played some Halo 2. I seemed 'off' a bit, but that may be from 18 months of playing WITH lag, lol.

How do I know if my TV is 1080i native? It supports up to 720p.

HERE IS MY TV

Thanks,

~S2

This is mostly a problem with last gen games that only displayed up to 480p (Wii included as well) when played on an HDTV. If you have a 720p TV, set your 360 or PS3 to output at 720p and you won't have any lag (all games are at least 720p). The lag comes from your TV scaling the other resolution to its native resolution. CRT HDTV's don't have any lag as they can properly do low resolution as well as high def resolutions without scaling, as they don't have a native resolution per say.

and your TV is 720p. Set your 360/PS3 output resolution to 720p. You will have lag with all non-720p games (ps2, xbox1, cube, wii).

So basically I'm screwed on Halo2, or should I set my 360 to 480p when playing H2 (will it make a difference?)? Also, with what you said, I shouldn't have lag on GH:2 (720p set on 720p), but I do. Reading the article posted above says DLP's will have up to a 15 frame lag, and I guess I can't get around that until I buy a VGA adapter, but I still don't understand why there is lag on an even 720p-720p field.

I'm not trying to be difficult, and I do appreciate the replies, I'm just trying to understand this whole thing.

No, the 360 should scale Xbox 1 games to your selected resolution, you'd only be "screwed" if you were playing it on the Xbox 1. If you are getting lag at 720p it is very likely that the TV's native resolution is 1080i. Experiment with that for a while, especially on Guitar Hero. The VGA adapter is for converting 480i to 480p to lessen lag on older systems.. you should be good with what you've got.