Effect of a reduced resolution

lifeblood

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
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So I'm looking to upgrade my PC and was curious about in which order I should upgrade. I do incremental upgrades rather than just buying a whole new system. I tried asking this question in General Hardware and they all got wrapped around the power supply I have. So, Here is the question again but in a different way.

If I replaced my 19" LCD with a 22" - 24" LCD, how good will it look running a non-native resolution of 1440 x 900?

The reason I ask is, I want to upgrade my LCD, CPU, and Vid card, but I can't get all 3 at once (my wife might notice and then I'm in the doghouse). So I will upgrade one at a time. My current vid card (4830) plays everything great at high settings at 1440 x 900. I'm betting it will not be able to do nearly as well at higher resolutions. So, If I get a larger screen now I will need to "cripple it" temporarily until I get the newer video card and CPU to remove the bottleneck I'm assuming they will create.

So, any opinions on temporarily running a larger monitor at lower than native resolution?
 
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Borealis7

Platinum Member
Oct 19, 2006
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1440x900 is LOW on 22" more so on 24". it will look big, blurry due to downscaling and full of jaggies (Aliasing).
i have a 20" 1600x1200 which i think is the sweetspot for gaming (i dont like widescreens)
but general consensus is 1920x1200 (or full HD 1080p) for gaming on 22"/24" as a minimum recommendation for it to look good, more is (almost) always better.

one more thing, low resolution is more CPU dependent. keeping this resolution, you could get a big boost with a new CPU.

when you do get a new monitor, you would be able to at play higher resolutions with the 4830 but oftentimes you wont be able to use AA (which, if you think about it is pretty much like increasing the resolution :) ) it also depends on the game, and amount of detail.

The reason I ask is, I want to upgrade my LCD, CPU, and Vid card, but I can't get all 3 at once (my wife might notice and then I'm in the doghouse)

i'd also add a set of balls to that shopping list ;)

j/k
 

garritynet

Senior member
Oct 3, 2008
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Why not just upgrade the card first?

LCD screens really need to be run at their native res. If you have a LCD now, just lower the res on it and see how that looks for a little while. Its gonna look like that.

You can just buy the monitor and not use it, or hook up both but only game on the 19" until you get your card and CPU squared away.
 

EnzoLT

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2005
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hey op, i have a hd4830 right now on a 1080p monitor. ive been playing game on mostly high settings and 4xAA no problems. dragon age, tf2, borderlands, mw2, hl2 cinematic mod 10. i experience no slow downs thus i didnt upgrade my video card. depending on the games you play, you should be fine with that card.

ps: i also run overclocked, right now its at 630/930. not much of an overclock but im waiting for my accelero to arrive before i oc even further.
 

lifeblood

Senior member
Oct 17, 2001
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depending on the games you play, you should be fine with that card.
Thats one reason why I kinda wanted the new LCD first. I doubted it but it was possible my current card could handle the increased resolution as is or with a little overclocking. I wasn't really excited about running at a reduced resolution. So I guess the best answer is to get the new LCD and see how it works on the current video card. If it doesn't work I can game on the 19" until I upgrade the video card.

i'd also add a set of balls to that shopping list
LOL. I loved this response.
 

EnzoLT

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2005
1,843
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yeah, i came from a 19" 1280x1024 and after buying this new 23" WS, i never looked back. im pretty sure buying a new LCD is the way to go before buying a new gpu.
 

AzN

Banned
Nov 26, 2001
4,112
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22" is mostly 1680x1050 which your card can handle. Don't know about 1920x1200 or 1080P with that 4830. It might handle it but not with AA considering the card is 512vram.

I would go ahead get the monitor first then upgrade the card if you desire. At worst will run native without AA.