XBox 360 Wal-Mart Kiosks Incorrectly Setup

[bapenguin]

So I stopped at my local Walmart (Phillipsburg, NJ) on the way home from work today to check out the 360 Display they had set up. I brought along the memory card I got from the recent NYC show I attended to see if there was any downloadable content as well. The first thing I noticed when I got there was the output on the XBox was setup wrong. It was outputting a 480i 4:30 image on the screen! The picture quality was horrible! While the colors were still vibrant, the jaggies on the screen were atrocious. This was NOT the quality of the picture I saw in NYC. To make matters worse, there was no way to fix this in the Dashboard, as the version of the dashboard on the system is a very limited dashboard with information prompts instead of actual functionality.

I plugged the memory card in to the system to see what I could download. At the current time the only downloads are 4 dashboard themes.

I really hope Microsoft straightens their reps out and gets these displays hooked up correctly. I've heard of other instances of the displays being set up incorrectly as well. Has anyone seen a display that's displaying a TRUE HD picture?

[TheKeck]

I read something from a guy who played at his Wal-Mart and he was quite un-impressed with the graphics. Could be the same problem.

[Mason]

Hang on, even if the games are running at low resolutions, why don't they have antialiasing? Are next gen titles really going to have jaggies on conventional televisions?

I thought we'd buried that corpse.

[rein]

I remember seeing some jaggies on the sytems I played in vegas last month. I stopped by my walmart today and they had their kiosk/controller sticking out of the display case set-up. It has a jaggie problem too. That being said, it is no where near the jaggies you see on the PS2. Aside from that CoD 2 looks excellent, it may be my first 360 title.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

The 360 Wal-Mart kiosks are supposed to use HD sets, some of which (hell, most of which) don't handle 480i all that well. I doubt it'd look that bad on an actual 480i television.

[iamkevin]

If you put a 480i image over an RCA cable on an LCD flat panel screen, it's gonna look pretty crappy. I don't know what kind of cable they're using, but if it's not outputting at the 720p native resolution that I believe those TVs have, it's gonna look pretty crappy.

[Demo_Boy]

umm FSAA is free on the system AFAIK.
the only reason youd see jaggies is if the software wasn't set up to use it.

[Borys]

No matter the resolution there should be some kind (4x) of AA always going on. Weird.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

the only reason youd see jaggies is if the software wasn't set up to use it.

Displaying a 480i image on a monitor not properly calibrated for that resolution will often result in deinterlacing artifacts that look pretty much the same as jaggies. If iamkevin is right and these displays have a native resolution of 720p, that would explain it -- they're trying to display an interlaced signal on a progressive-scan television, which is dumb.

[kid cabelgo]

gah, you guys might want to look into what AA actually does, and what "jaggies" actually are. At 480i, you're going to have "jaggies" no matter what level of AA you're running at. You're seeing them because the resolution is ridiculously low. Run a game at 640x480 on a nice lcd screen, and don't be suprised if it looks like crap.

there. red hot mama beat me to it.

[Busted_Astromech]

Yeah, I get a similar problem on my LCD screen, which is a gorgeous 1600x1200 while my graphics card is a Radeon 9600, so I can't get the optimum resolution by a long shot. If I go for 1024x768 or 1280x1024 it isn't a direct downgrading of the pixels for the screen, so the picture looks kind of fuzzy. I don't get this on 800x600 (1600/2=800, etc.), but then, it's 800x600...

Anyway, if these LCD monitors have a native resolution of 720p then it's not an even division and so in addition to the interlacing problem it's fudging the pixels.

[DoubleUranium]

Pretty stupid of MS to let these kiosks go out improperly configured. Whose job was that?

[bapenguin]

Pretty stupid of MS to let these kiosks go out improperly configured. Whose job was that?

The problem is...they technically weren't supposed to go out yet...but once ONE store let the cat out of the bag, the rest followed.

And I'll echo what other comments said, I don't think it's the system that's causing the jaggies, rather the stretched 4:3 image on the LCD that's causing jaggies.

[ezzkmo]

jaggies or not, high-def or not, i was not impressed with the display i saw at my walmart. some kids were playing call of duty on it. i stood back and just looked for a few minutes at what was going on...and someone coulda told me it was a regular xbox or PC game and i woulda said "oh..cool."

i was not blown away by the graphics at all. like i said, it coulda been any old fps running on a pc or something. many people don't have big high-def tvs to hook up their brand new 360's on, including me. so i'm just gonna see a regular picture anyways. and if you do have a badass tv to showoff these amazing graphics that the 360 is sposed to push out, hook up your regular xbox to that tv and i'm sure you'll see games like far cry and doom looking damn pretty as it is.

anyways, i really hope my snapshot impression is flawed. but it is the first time since i was little that i stepped up to a 'next-gen' system for the very first time with wide eyes and walked away very unimpressed. i guess i'll need to actually play it myself and try some other games before i pass judgement though.

[novicius]

This is news? This could have easily been a post in the other Xbox 360 thread... :p

[WangoTango]

Oh My God!!! Oh My Friggin' God!!!!!!

[bobbler]

No matter the resolution there should be some kind (4x) of AA always going on. Weird.

A lot of the launch games aren't using any AA, let alone 4x AA. I don't believe there is any launch period game that is using 4x AA -- only 2x AA or other effects (motion blur type effects or other things that help alleviate noticeable jaggies).

Apparently the cost of the AA isn't necessarily free in one sense, a game engine has to be set up to tile its scenes -- otherwise AA just doesn't work at all (it isn't a check box like on the PC). On a hardware level it is almost completely free, on the software side you have to set up your engine to do it Xenos' way or the highway. The cost of adding tiling can be upwards of 10% penalty, just to start tiling things, if the engine isn't built with it in mind (which seems to be the case for all launch games). Since Xenos didn't get to most devs until pretty recently they didn't really have any way of planning for the tiling (so it would seem), so it was either added after the fact (and not built from scratch this way) or not added at all, like PD0 (no AA, but motion blur was added instead, apparently). The entire 2x AA requirement by MS was not really true (more likely a misunderstanding) -- MS wants some form of aliasing hiding, be it AA (preferably, since Xenos was made for it), Motion blur or something else.

The main reason for the jaggies would be the resolution, although I don't believe LCDs can even output Interlaced, I'm pretty sure they'll convert to a progressive scan. 720p image will look a lot better, even without AA, though.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

I haven't heard good things about these displays either. Haven't ventured out myself to see them (Wal-Mart scares me), but I may have to do it soon.

Still, from what I've heard...this system isn't quite living up to the massive hype about the HDera and all that yadda yadda.

[King Drewsky]

I went to see one after work today. King Kong looked like crap but that's because it's a crappy game. Kameo's graphics were a tad better looking than current Xbox games but there was a lot more characters/action on the screen than current gen allows. CoD2 looks significantly better than current gen games. And I do have one of those new fangled HD TV's at home to tell the difference.

[KNOTE]

Setting up your Xenon to work with your HD LCD isn't as simple as it would seem. Especially for numbnuts who don't understand the basic terminology and technology. I can see how this would be a major problem for MS with their kiosks.

For instance, on the system>console settings>display menu you have the option of the following resolutions:

640x480
848x480
1024x768
1280x720
1280x768
1360x768

Then you also have an option for screen format with:
Widescreen
Normal

Now if you are joe-average retail employee what the hell are you supposed to set it to? This is an extremely un-user friendly system. Not to mention that anyone that walks up to it can change the settings. It is going to be a nightmare to keep these things set up correctly. It was a tremendous oversight by MS.

[Karmakaze]

Now if you are joe-average retail employee what the hell are you supposed to set it to? This is an extremely un-user friendly system. Not to mention that anyone that walks up to it can change the settings. It is going to be a nightmare to keep these things set up correctly. It was a tremendous oversight by MS.

Unfortunately there's not much they could do. There's no way to auto-detect the native resolution of the TV attached (_maybe_ over DVI, but definitely not over component.. anyone know what type of connection these things are using?)

Granted, they could have made it less technical (show video snippets in each res and ask the user which looks best), though it 's not that hard for you to do that yourself.

[KarmaGhost]

If I ever get a 360, I'll be playing it on my computer monitor so hopefully resolution and all that crap won't be an issue.

[bapenguin]

Setting up your Xenon to work with your HD LCD isn't as simple as it would seem. Especially for numbnuts who don't understand the basic terminology and technology. I can see how this would be a major problem for MS with their kiosks.

For instance, on the system>console settings>display menu you have the option of the following resolutions:

640x480
848x480
1024x768
1280x720
1280x768
1360x768

Then you also have an option for screen format with:
Widescreen
Normal

Now if you are joe-average retail employee what the hell are you supposed to set it to? This is an extremely un-user friendly system. Not to mention that anyone that walks up to it can change the settings. It is going to be a nightmare to keep these things set up correctly. It was a tremendous oversight by MS.

Could this be only with the VGA Adapter hooked up? Where did you see
that? That's pretty lame if they have that, it should have stuck with some standard resolutions.

[Pumped'Up]

who gives a shit if the kiosk is incorrectly setup. Microsoft deserves to loose sales if it looks terrible because their reps are a bunch of morons.

[mkelehan]

I played some Kameo and Hexic. Kameo was jaggerific, but Hexic wasn't. I don't know how one would explain THAT.

Kameo seems like it could be a great game, if it doesn't have the standard length of a launch game, i. e. really short. Since it's been in development forever, I'm willing to bet it's got some length. Hexic... I have some issues with on a gameplay level, but the game looked amazing, and makes me look forward to more Live Arcade games.

[Murmillo]

who gives a shit if the kiosk is incorrectly setup. Microsoft deserves to loose sales if it looks terrible because their reps are a bunch of morons.
WTF.. do you think MS shiped a rep with each kiosk?

[ezzkmo]

WTF.. do you think MS shiped a rep with each kiosk?

that would be awesome. each shipment comes with your very own microsoft branded midget.

[Talanvor]

The midget could live in the Walmart. Hell, you could pay to feed it. And it could tell spooky stories about Sony to the wee childrens so that if their parents even mention the PS3 they start crying.

[Wonka]

I played some Kameo and Hexic. Kameo was jaggerific, but Hexic wasn't. I don't know how one would explain THAT.

Kameo seems like it could be a great game, if it doesn't have the standard length of a launch game, i. e. really short. Since it's been in development forever, I'm willing to bet it's got some length. Hexic... I have some issues with on a gameplay level, but the game looked amazing, and makes me look forward to more Live Arcade games.

Is it possible that their kiosk TVs do no support 720p, but DO support 1080i? now THAT would be a horrific oversight.

[Adewade]

WTF.. do you think MS shiped a rep with each kiosk?

To get the darn machine to the store, yeah, wouldn't surprise me. This is a marketing tool; getting it set up right is VERY important to sales, and certainly worth the 70$ it'd cost to get the nearest Microsoft guy to take care of it.

[mkelehan]

Is it possible that their kiosk TVs do no support 720p, but DO support 1080i? now THAT would be a horrific oversight.

I highly doubt it, since it was announced a while ago that the kiosks would be 720p. But, maybe the Wal-Mart staff set the system to 1080i yes/720p no, and the Kameo demo didn't support 1080i. Hopefully the final game will; my TV's 1080i but not 720p.

[Tyo]

Bap you went to the Burg that could be part of the problem. Have you taken a good look at the people that work at that Mart, take the trip down 78 to the Clinton store. But for the love of god stay out of the Easton store.

[Danin]

Here's a hint:

It might be that Walmart doesn't know or care how their kiosks work.

[Crenor]

... and you think someone from walmart would set it up correctly?
Be happy they figured out how to turn it on.

[Talanvor]

Hey now, a bunch of geeks work retail (I'm one), but it's just the vast majority of retail drones just don't give a shit. It's not like they get a cookie if they do something well.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

According to bapenguin:

To make matters worse, there was no way to fix this in the Dashboard, as the version of the dashboard on the system is a very limited dashboard with information prompts instead of actual functionality.

I don't see how it's Wal-Mart's fault if it's not even possible to change the resolution. In any event the setup was handled by MS reps, not store employees (do you really think they'd trust Wal-Mart employees with a 360 and an HD LCD monitor?), but I don't think the reps are to blame either -- my guess is that whoever configured these demo units in the first place (at the factory or at the evaluation center or whatever) crippled the Dashboard (thus making it impossible to switch between different display modes) without first changing the default resolution from 480i to 720p. They just didn't think this through very well.

[bapenguin]

Bap you went to the Burg that could be part of the problem. Have you taken a good look at the people that work at that Mart, take the trip down 78 to the Clinton store. But for the love of god stay out of the Easton store.

Heh. I had to go to p'burg...that was the only walmart around that had it.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure they are using the same Samsung 23" LCD tv's as the regular kiosks...so they most definitley support 720p.

[Cyrano]

I just got back from my local Wal*Mart, and the 360 looked like crap with all those jaggies. I don't think most people walking by realized it wasn't a regular Xbox or PS2. It looked like another one of Microsoft's attempts to lose to the PS3.

[ssendam]

TheKeck - I wonder if it was me you're referring to? I've been bitching about this quite a bit at the xbox365 forums.

bapenguin - THANK YOU for posting this. I went to two walmarts and I noticed the same thing. I thought it was crazy, and couldn't believe how horrible it looked. I thought that either those samsung dlp tv's sucked (not likely since they looked great at E3, granted of a larger size), or the walmart reps were just not setting it up right.

My current xbox in 480p looks better than what I saw at walmart. Really sad. Microsoft should get reps to hook these up first hand.

[ssendam]

"Hexic... I have some issues with on a gameplay level, but the game looked amazing, and makes me look forward to more Live Arcade games."

What game were you playing? I must have missed it because hexic to me looked like bejeweled v2.0

"Is it possible that their kiosk TVs do no support 720p, but DO support 1080i? now THAT would be a horrific oversight."

Shouldn't 1080i still look pretty damn nice? Better than 480p.

[pyrefyre]

i went to my local walmart today to play the 360 also. they had it hooked up to a crt tv and had it turned off. i overheard a kid ask a worker about it and he told the kid that it was already broken. at my local store they kept the same broken original xbox in the display for 3 years while replacing the ps2 every time it broke. i found that kind of odd.

i played the 360 at best buy yesterday and it looked amazing. i didnt notice any jaggies on kameo at all