Ok well I was wondering how you could explain why consoles look so good on large SDTVs when compared to how it would look on a PC with a large monitor using 640X480.

I can't even tell all of my 360 games are really running at 640X480 they look so good but when I run something like half life 2 or guildwars on my pc with a small 17inch monitor it looks like s--- even with FSAA and all the details on high.

My question is how do consoles do it? The resolution is so low (unless you have an hdtv) but they still look so good.

The picture the TV produces is of such low quality it essentially gives you free anti-aliasing.

Exactly, a TV usually has around 500 lines of resolution (equal to about 512x384 on a PC). And the pixels, or chroma keys(is that spelled right?) tend to blend into one another and create a blurring effect sort of like AA blurs an edge of a line to the surrounding image to get rid of the jags.

Most TV's will display a 640x480 picture fairly well, larger TV's can usually handle 800x600( even though it's really around 500-600 lines) HL2 looks pretty damn awesome on 4xAA on a 27" TV, doesn't it?

HDTV is a different beast.

Core2 Duo 1.86
1GB DDR2 667
Nvidia 8500GT
Asus P5L-MX

Thanks for the useful replys, I think I'm a little mad at my 360 right now when the framerate dips playing gears of war, sure gears is a demanding game but at only 640X480 performance should be better!

It makes me wonder why the game plays about as smooth when running on an HDTV.