In general, how bad do games look in a non-native resolution?

[Special K]

I was thinking about getting a 2405fpw but my vid card is only a GF 6800 GTO. From what I have read, I would have a difficult time running FPS games in the 2405fpw's native resolution, so I guess I would have to scale it down to make the game playable. In general, how much worse do games look in a widescreen monitor's non-native resolution? Is it even worth gaming on the monitor if you can't run it in its native resolution? Any 2405fpw owners want to share specific experiences?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Depends on the monitor and its native resolution.

I have a Dell 2001fp (1600x1200) and 1024x768 and 1280x960 both look great on it, even 640x480 works well playing an old Win95 game.

I've heard lower-resolution 1280x1024 displays do worse at scaling, but they aren't quite 4:3 to begin with.

A hires widescreen panel like a 2405 could in theory do just as good a job as my 2001fp, but I don't know whether the panel or video card drivers are smart enough to scale 4:3 resolutions without stretching them to ugliness.

 

[Markbnj]

I have the 2405 and the 6800 GT. I run the desktop at 1920 x 1200. Games that support widescreen resolutions I typically run at 1650 x 1080. I run games like BF2, that don't natively support widescreen, at 1600 x 1200. At that res, with all settings maxed, I usually get around 30 fps with variations depending on load. If I crank back shadows, dynamic lights, and draw distance a little bit I get 40 - 50 fps, with antialiasing and filtering maxed.

Those frame rates aren't awesome, but they are generally fast enough for fluid play. I have some games I run at 1280 x 1024, and while they look a little blocky close up it's not terrible.

YMMV. I have a dual core system with the latest nVidia drivers, so I am getting some boost from that, and also have a large amount of ram.

 

[Special K]

bump, anyone else?

 

[Remy XO]

technically, there is a big difference when im not playing games like BF2 on my native resolution of 1600x1200. When you look closely the details are mushy and blurry playing on lower resolutions. In the beginning it used to bug me but after awhile I stopped caring for it and it still looks good to me playin on say 1200x960 res

 

[sandeep108]

I have a 1905FP and running some games at 1024x768, instead of 1280x1024, is quite ok.

 

[Unkno]

Dell 2005FPW, can barely tell a difference if i scale down...

 

[imported_electron]

Acer AL1914B 19" 1280x1024 native, scaling down everything looks fine. However, on my old NEC 15" native 1024x768 any res other than native was terrible. Blurry as heck and pretty much useless.

 

[imported_goku]

Yea 1280X0124 monitors aren't 4:3 therefore wouldn't scale well with a 4:3 resolution that is smaller. One solution for no quality dedgedation is to have the monitor run in 1:1 mode where if you reduce resolution, it doesn't fill the whole screen and just the part where 1024X768 pixels would be in the middle of the screen, less desireable but retains full quality. Anyways with a 4:3 screen, all it will have to do is (if your lucky) just double the amount of pixels on the screen (Repeat) and won't look as bad... But that isn't always the case and usually has to copy only some pixels twice and not others, making it look off...

 

[imported_Phil]

And this is the main reason that I'm not buying an LCD yet. My 9600 Pro would cry at 1280x1024 or higher.

 

[rancherlee]

on Desktop I would never use scaling but in games I can't really tell its scaled unless I actually look for it (but I'm usually too busy fragging people to look for it)

 

[Special K]

Another piece of information I probably should've mentioned in my first post was that I currently own a 2005fpw, and will never go back to a standard shape screen again. Really the 2005fpw is a great screen, I am just craving more screen space.

In the case of the games, don't most new games support widescreen either through an ini edit or even standard? I haven't owned my current rig for very long so I haven't had a lot of time to mess around with games, but so far I got D3, HL2, and CS to run in widescreen mode without issues.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that won't the issue be scaling down to a lower widescreen resolution (lower from 1920x1200 for the 2405fpw, or 1680x1050 for the 2005fpw) as opposed to scaling down from a widescreen resolution to a non-widescreen resolution (i.e. going from 1920x1200 to say, 1600x1200 or something).