How bad a no-no is it to run a lower resolution on a monitor these days?

[guptasa1]

Hey all,

Proud owner of a Dell U2713HM monitor, and overall I love it. Big improvement over my last TN monitor.

That said, it's native setting is 2560x1440, which I find too big without UI modifications. I've been running it like that for weeks and used Windows 7's built in compensation (150% larger fonts, larger icons, etc.) to compensate, but this somewhat annoys me as there are a handful of programs that don't look quite right (ie. cut off text in the windows), I always have to zoom web pages, etc.

I recently tried to run my old resolution 1920x1080 (so HD, essentially), and it looks quite beautiful to me and solves the need to use the Win7 workarounds.

I know it used to be a fact that running lower resolutions on an LCD was a no-no, and I remember seeing pretty apparent image issues trying this on older LCD's I've used, but I just don't see much of a difference in quality with this one.

So, how big a no-no is this nowadays (maybe they've made leaps with this), and is there anything particular I should look for to illustrate image loss?

Thanks in advance!

 

[_Rick_]

Well, ask Apple
All the high res laptops are running at non-native resolutions, and apparently that's working out for most people.

I would still try to use native resolution, and scale things up (or buy a screen that has the resolution I need), but short of some fuzziness and output lag, you should be fine.

I'm not sure if there's software scaling available via the video driver, that might give you slightly better performance if the screen has a second-rate scaler.

I'd recommend you to sell the Dell and get a used Eizo 27" 1920x1200 screen

 

[guptasa1]

Interesting point re Apple.

I dunno any other software scaling option unless I'm missing something.

Games I'm fine running at native, as my video card/processor can handle it usually, and it doesn't distort things. I'm mainly speaking of general Windows usage here, only because of the weirdness in certain programs when upping font sizes, etc.

Also, I love this monitor overall (one dead pixel, but other than that far superior to any I've used), so I don't want to get rid of it, and it's one of the few that actually comes with a stand with swivel stand still. This isn't the monitor's fault by any stretch.

Any further feedback of course welcome and appreciated!

 

[Ben90]

Honestly, if you are happy with it why worry about what other people think. Just test around as you might find something more crisp than 1920x1080, although most likely it will be moderately optimized for that non-native-resolution because of how popular it is.

My BenQ XL2420T handles 1366x768 decently for such a crappy PPI screen, while 1600x900 isn't as great. Your monitor might handle 1280x720 nearly perfectly since it is an easy 2:1 scaling. Also compare smooth fonts vs aliased, you might find you prefer one over the other.

 

[Throckmorton]

There might be a way to set your browser to permanently zoom

 

[guptasa1]

I'm honestly shocked I don't see more of a difference than I do, but it really seems great to me (and like I said I can still take advantage of the higher res in games). I just think the desktop in general is much more natural in an actual resolution than trying to force programs (some clearly not built for it) to use larger fonts/etc. And as much as I try I'm just not seeing a blurryness.

Re the browser (I use FireFox), and yes, 9/10 of sites remember their zoom setting the next time you visit; only a few (a couple with logins) don't seem to, so that's not a huge problem. It was mainly the program here or there that looked wrong (or looks even blurrier scaled up using Windows).

 

[Doom 4d]

If you run in a lower resolution, just make sure that you run in a lower resolution that is the same aspect ratio as your native, so that you don't have awkward image stretching.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Nothing inherently wrong with running non-native (lower) resolutions. As long as the image quality looks acceptable to you, then go for it.

 

[guptasa1]

Cool thanks all!

Aspect ratio's perfect at 1920x1080 (same as that of native's 1920x1440) and I really, truly can't notice any perceptible blurriness issues after using it this way for a few days (versus a few weeks using it at native), so I think I'll stick with this and game at native when I can. =)

All I can say is the scaler in this thing must be doing a great job. (And it looks significantly better this resolution than my old TN panel at this resolution native, by the way).