(Gaming) Lowering res. from 1440p to 720p...

[-Slacker-]

Are there any diminishing returns on performance increase in a video game from lowering in game resolution from a native 2560x1440 resolution to 1280x720 (exactly 4 pixels become 1), like there is for, say, 2560x1600 to 1920x1200?

In other words, is there a performance hit when gaming on a 1440p monitor at 720p, when compared to gaming on a native 720p monitor?

 

[jiffylube1024]

Nope, I don't think so.

 

[Anarchist420]

No (answer to the OP's question).

 

[wahdangun]

nope,it even will make your games run faster

 

[toyota]

nope,it even will make your games run faster

you must have mis read what he asked. gaming at 720 on a monitor with a higher native res should be exactly the same as gaming on a native 720 monitor.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

no, there should be a huge performance increase, although the difference in IQ will be obvious without changing the distance you sit from the monitor

 

[-Slacker-]

nope,it even will make your games run faster

no, there should be a huge performance increase, although the difference in IQ will be obvious without changing the distance you sit from the monitor

That's not what I asked...

Lowering the resolution on your monitor down from it's native resolution, while making a game run faster, usually does not speed the game as much as when you run it on that resolution on a different, lower resolution monitor, on it's native output. (As far as I know)

Ex: Gaming at 1680x1050 on a native 1920x1200 monitor is not as fast as gaming on a native 1680x1050 monitor.

I was instead asking if there is an exception for this rule when lowering the resolution times a factor of 4 to the n power (4, 16 etc), because, then, exactly 4 native pixels act as 1, or exactly 16 native pixels act as 1.

Nope, I don't think so.

No (answer to the OP's question).

Ah, that's good. Thanks

you must have mis read what he asked. gaming at 720 on a monitor with a higher native res should be exactly the same as gaming on a native 720 monitor.

So you're saying it's the same even if resolution isn't 4, 16 etc smaller than the native resolution?

 

[mhouck]

Your system shouldn't out put any faster depending on the monitor.

Are you asking about lag in displaying on one monitor running at its native resolution vs. a larger monitor running at the same resolution? If that's the question, I think it would just depend on the individual monitor specs.

 

[Ben90]

Lowering the resolution on your monitor down from it's native resolution, while making a game run faster, usually does not speed the game as much as when you run it on that resolution on a different, lower resolution monitor, on it's native output. (As far as I know)

Ex: Gaming at 1680x1050 on a native 1920x1200 monitor is not as fast as gaming on a native 1680x1050 monitor.

This is false in the way that you are asking, however there are a few things to mention:

First, from a framerate standpoint, the native resolution of your monitor does not matter. Something being rendered at 1920x1080 will render the same speed no matter if your monitor is 2560x, 1920x, 640x, or no monitor at all. The video card doesn't care. The actual protocol in which the framebuffer is transfered to the monitor is very similar to how it was twenty years ago. Line by line, down the screen.

From a monitor standpoint, it can matter a little bit more. When running a digital monitor at anything other than its non-native resolution(in fullscreen mode), it needs to do more processing to make the image fit. The time it takes your monitor to process streching, compressing, or "black-bar-ing" depends on your monitor. A couple monitors take basically no extra processing time for this operation, and some take 30ms to process.

 

[-Slacker-]

I see, so the shift from native res to lower res is not worked out by the gpu, but by the monitor itself

 

[Throckmorton]

Here's the problem... No monitor will just turn 1 pixel into 4. It will interpolate and give you a blurry mess. I realized this when I had a 2560x1600 30" monitor and tried to game at 1280x800.

A while back I found a post on the nVidia forum asking them to add this capability to their "scaling" options. nVidia flat out refused... even though it would be very easy to program.

 

[Throckmorton]

Here's the thread. nVidia basically says "not enough people would use this"
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=53262


Thank you for your comments. I will send this to our driver team however in most situations, the three scaling options we offer meet most customers needs. Most programs can run close to the native resolution of a monitor. The exceptions are DOS programs, etc.. The only area where I GPU scale lower resolution software to higher resolution are certain video formats. Given the small amount of usage this would serve relative to the large amount of engineering resources it would require to develep and test for every driver we create, it is very unlikely that this would be implemented by our engineering team. In addition, most new futures we are adding to our Forceware display drivers apply to Windows Vista only so it would not provide a solution for your system under Windows XP. We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause but do encourage you to continue submitting comments and suggestions to us as many of these comments help our driver team improve on our current implimentation of the display drivers.

Best Regards,
NVIDIA Customer Care