How bad does a LCD look under its rec. Resolution?

[SoundTheSurrender]

I want to buy a LCD but I'm wondering what it will look like with crappier resolutions? I game old school a lot because in my opinion most games today do not latch onto me like the old ones. I'm talking about games that are in 640 x 480 to 800 x 600... and it would be a WS LCD with the 1680 x 1050 I believe it is?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Aside from looking bad, at those resolutions the picture would simply not fit on the screen. Much better to use an old crt for the games.

 

[dustmann]

I play a lot of 800x600 on my 20" ws apple display. And to tell you the truth, I don't notice that much of a difference. Well, from a crt to the new lcd, not from say 640x480 to 1680x1050 lol. The older games (I still like to play might and magic 7 & 8 ) that run in those resolutions aren't pretty, but in reality, they never were anyways! I notice a lot more jaggies and pixelation, probably from being stretched to fit on the WS monitor (but maybe I'm just spoiled by AA/AF) I play halo at 640x480 on an old fx5200, and it gives a lot of jaggies, and looks much better at higher resolutions. An old game may respond well to forced AA, (might and magic looks wayyy better) which you can enable via the advanced control panel settings. I love my WS lcd, would never go back to crt!

 

[beemercer]

I have a 20.1" WS LCD, and I recommend running games at the native 1680*1050, or 1280* 768, but they dont look god-awful at 4:3 resolutions. I've never really noticed too much distortion when I'm playing a game, but if you are looking at a fullscreen picture with no borders it may look a little akward.