How much does high resolution help you in FPS?

[NAC]

I haven't gamed much for a few years now. Picked up Modern Warfare and I'm hooked. I currently run it with a 8600GT card at resolution 800*600 with basically max settings. My question is: How much would running at a higher resolution help me to play the game better? Meaning if I get a new card which can handle the resolution and my CPU is not a bottleneck.

I suspect that in some cases it would help a bit. I sometimes watch the kill-cam, and someone kills me from long range without a scope, and on my monitor I can barely if at all see my guy. Therefore the other player might have been running at a high resolution and seen my guy more clearly. But in most cases, when running and gunning and playing a mid or close range or with a scope it wouldn't make a difference. And of course strategy is much much more important than resolution.

Thoughts?

 

[ussfletcher]

It would help you quite a bit, if your monitor supports it, you should probably run the game at 1024x768 or 1280x1024, you will be able to aim at enemies much, much easier. Your card can handle those resolutions at almost max settings.

 

[Arkaign]

It will help hugely for long-range fights. Ironically, I just had this same basic discussion regarding Battlefield 2 in another forum section.

 

[Barfo]

It will help hugely for long-range fights. Ironically, I just had this same basic discussion regarding Battlefield 2 in another forum section.

I was thinking the same thing

Take a look at this OP:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2041964

 

[PingSpike]

It probably depends on the game, but outside of being able to recognize tiny objects (aka, players) at long distances I don't think it really helps at all. And since you often have to give up framerate to gain a higher resolution it might not be a good tradeoff.

If the game is mostly outdoor areas, like the scope example, it might be worth it.

 

[zerocool84]

At higher rez, an enemy's head might be 3 or 4 pixels wide while a lower rez it might only be 1 pixel wide or might not be shown at all. You'll get more detail in a given area at a higher rez. Everything will be sharper and have more detail to it since there's more pixels to give things detail.

 

[Karsten]

Just play with your res. See what runs smooth. But I would prefer a higher res, before running things with AA or extra eyecandy.

 

[LumbergTech]

I like 12xx x 1024

anything higher and i have a hard time seeing stuff on the sides of the screen

 

[Sureshot324]

Set it for low detail and play at the native rez of your monitor. Higher rez helps for aiming at tiny targets in the distance and once you've played on the same maps hundreds of times you won't care about the graphics anyway.