Anyone else a low resolution gamer?

[Jacky60]

I'm writing this in an office on a 17 inch LCD and while it's fine for typing I really can't imagine gaming on this or even a 18.5 inch LCD vs my 27.5 inch LCD. It's just a pathetically small size and fills way too little of my field of view. Once you've experienced the immersion of a man sized monitor the idea of gaming on a micro monitor loses any appeal.

 

[CakeMonster]

The performance is a nice bonus. At 75Hz Vsync is a lot better with less mouse input lag and achieving a constant 75fps is not hard to achieve on this machine. The "next step up" is a 120Hz screen and they all come in Full HD. And to achieve constantly above 120Hz you need a massively overclocked CPU, extreme cooling and expensive SLI configuration.

Does it actually take 75hz? From what I remember you can always pick 75hz in windows and practically all LCDs will accept it, but that doesn't mean that its displayed.

 

[iMacmatician]

I have a 9400M in my MacBook Pro (1440x900). I prefer keeping the native resolution over stuff like AA if I have to make a choice, so for most of my games I turn down the video settings almost all the way. But for some games I end up lowering the resolution (1152x720 and 800x600) as well as the video settings so they play decently.

I half expect them to come out with a 16:5 aspect ratio or something like that so they can screw us even more in the total glass to diagonal measurement area.

A while ago I actually made a mockup of a somewhat small 21:9 laptop with an external trackpad.

 

[tential]

Back in the days of CRT monitors if my hardware couldn't run at an acceptable framerate resolution was the setting I always bumped down. I've never been to big of a fan of AA either and its traditionally seemed to have way to much performance cost. AF always made a noticeable difference to me and the performance cost was small in comparison to AA. I put higher resolution textures, shadows, grass, water effects, etc WAY above resolution and AA. I have no desire to see a high resolution view of pixelated muddy texture covered barren hills and forests with crap water effects and banal lighting.

Then LCDs became the thing and now running non native resolution is a thing you have to worry about. This and aspect ratio ass pains actually bothered me far more than the black levels everyone was always complaining about.

Anyway, the solution to the "I want a high resolution monitor for productivity but still want to play lower resolution games I decent frame rates with my cheap GPU" problem is to buy a high resolution monitor and run your games at dimension resolutions to get perfect scaling. So you get a 1440p monitor and run your games at 720p. No interpolation problems, 1 pixel fills 4 and a card that can run any game at 720p should be a bargain.

The only reason this is a pain in the ass is the rise of the craptop and HD TV resolutions means there aren't a lot of high affordable high resolution monitors. In a lot of ways we've been going backwards in LCDs the last few years IMO. There's only a handful of resolutions out there used in the affordable monitor space and the situation is even worse if you're looking for an affordable laptop. I half expect them to come out with a 16:5 aspect ratio or something like that so they can screw us even more in the total glass to diagonal measurement area.

Ya, some people's monitors here cost as much as my HDTV (The extremely high end people's monitors). I really don't want to purchase a monitor anymore as they are expensive for decent quality ones. Really can't wait until high resolution is standard and prices are more reasonable.

 

[Triglet]

I started out gaming at lower resolutions, but have been steadily creeping up over the years. I only used to buy "mid-range" vid cards as well which dictated what resolution I'd play at.

It's one of those things where once you move up I don't see how you can step back. I recently stepped up to 1440P that I run @ 96 Hz while gaming, and that requires quite a bit more power than I previously needed at 19x12. I'll be moving to SLI for the first time once I hear how much vram BF4 uses. I knew this going in though, and I could never go back as this monitor is simply beautiful -- I have a feeling if more people experienced gaming at 1440P and elevated refresh rates they'd find a way to make it happen.

 

[Broburger]

Yeah I have a 1360x768 led tv and it's not bad at all. I can max out all of my games with low-mid range cards and save on the electric bill lol.

 

[Rezist]

I have a cheapo 23" LG IPS panel, I wish I woulda have gotten a korean 1440p IPS but didn't really want to rick it on ebay.

 

[Bateluer]

Crikey no. Gaming at even 720p looks terrible, regardless of how much AA, AF, or other tweaks. Even a mid range card should be able to easily game at 1080p with only minor down grades for the latest titles. I would be entirely unable to game at all at 1024x768.

I game at 1440p now, and even 1080p looks bad in comparison.

 

[escrow4]

If I had to drop resolution that much and I couldn't afford upgrades I'd sell the box and buy a *vomits* console. I mean pushing up the res and quality is the whole point of PC gaming apart from mods. Lowering the settings is bad enough - you want the basics pushed to the limit at least - shadows/tectures/LOD etc, but cutting back on res? Just no.

 

[beginner99]

The whole thing stinks. OP claims to have too low FPS on a 1080p yet plays with vsync enabled which basically sucks in any FPS due to input lag. Disablement vsync almost doubled my KDR in some shooters and I got why I thought there were so many cheaters. well it was just vsync.

 

[Phil1977]

Does it actually take 75hz? From what I remember you can always pick 75hz in windows and practically all LCDs will accept it, but that doesn't mean that its displayed.

Yes it does. And no, you can't always pick 75 Hz.

I had to use a utility to set the 75Hz as standard so it would also be used in games and not just on the desktop.

Quick update.

Decided to bring out the 23.6" Full HD screen again and I think I do prefer Full HD now. The screen is a cheap AOC with lots of ghosting, light spots and poor colours so I have my eye on a relatively affordable Asus 24" with 1ms speed, the VX238H.

If I play at medium rather than ultra, I agree, the fps is just fine with the GTX660 and doesn't look that much different to be honest. Currently I only play Black Ops but looking forward to Ghost and BF4. I tried playing FPS games on the console, but growing up with Doom on the PC I simply can't get used to these painful little sticks on the controllers. Gameplay is sooooo slow and frustrating and although on the PC the pace is brutal I do prefer this.

So yea maybe a 1600 x 900 screen would be better, but they have basically disappeared and they are all slow 5ms and you can hardly find good reviews on them.

Thanks for the good discussion and pointers. It was very helpful.

 

[jacktesterson]

If I had to drop resolution that much and I couldn't afford upgrades I'd sell the box and buy a *vomits* console. I mean pushing up the res and quality is the whole point of PC gaming apart from mods. Lowering the settings is bad enough - you want the basics pushed to the limit at least - shadows/tectures/LOD etc, but cutting back on res? Just no.

Yawn.

 

[PokeyHokey]

I'm a high resolution gamer with low quality settings lol