General Question - Resolution

[StevenNevets]

Most monitors I see out there reccomend you play on **** resolution

That's only because it's the max though?
They are not designed in a way that might actualy give the same performance on the higher reccomended resolution vs's a lower one?

I am asking because I am a gamer buying a 19" LCD for my new rig and I prefer lower resolutions (bigger pictures) and I'm hoping by going lower I'd also get a better performance

 

[xtknight]

The value of native/max resolution is always the same thing in LCD specifications (and usually recommended resolution is the native). Higher resolutions still demand a beefier video card with LCDs, regardless if it's the native or not. With lower resolutions you will get more FPS but the LCD will need to scale (by interpolation or black bars). The native resolution is the point where the LCD can display the whole picture without using any scaling (it's a physical count of the number of crystal cells (subpixels) divided by three (r/g/b color components)).

 

[SunSamurai]

Going lower will get you better preformance.

1. better preformance.
2. Less detail
3. Bigger images.
4. Worce image due to the LCD non nativeness of it.


LCD unlike CRTS have one tiny square for eacy and every pixel of their native and recommended resolution. If you try and go higher or lower, the screen/card needs to do fancy ****** to make one pixel = 1.2 or whatever instead.

 

[StevenNevets]

I see..

Does scaling takes a performance hit?

And if it does, even with the hit - going lower resolution is always better speed (FPS) than higher resolutions?

 

[xtknight]

The burden of scaling is on a separate chip on the graphics board or it is on the DSP in the monitor, so gaming performance won't suffer there, only image quality. Lower resolution is always faster.

Edit: separate chip on the GPU, separate chip on the graphics board...same difference

 

[SunSamurai]

No, it shouldent. the LCD scareling side should be done though the LCD hardware on the fly and at a much faster rate than the video cards downscaleing of the rendering.

Its always a higher FPS yes, at the same settings except resolution. Just rememberr, non native LCD relolution settings will look like trash if you try and have the monitor scale it to the whole screen (no black bars). If you want it to simple scale it down per-pixel, the actual image will srink, and the monitor will be a bit waisted as youll have black bars along 2-4 edges (but the image will look sharp)

 

[StevenNevets]

Alright thanks, deffintly going to play lower resolutions then.. guess it's good to like them

 

[iamaelephant]

LCDs intrinsically have a native resolution due to their design. Running anything lower than that res looks funny because it has to interpolate the position of pixels imperfectly. I'm sure someone here can give a more in depth explanation but I can't be arsed, TBH I recommend having a look at LCD displays on How Stuff Works to get a good idea of why this happens.

Edit - err, I thought my post would be first. I guess I let this page idle for too long