New Samsung 23" LCD. Dumb question about scaling non-native resolutions.

[BlueWeasel]

Got a new Samsung 23" LCD (2333SW, 1920x1080) today as a cheap upgrade to an Acer 22" (1650x1080). 2D looks very good on the Samsung and is where I spent most of my time.

However, gaming in resolutions lower than the native looks bad. Now, I know any resolution other than the native is always going to look worse but that wasn't the case with the Acer 22" that it just replaced.

With new games, the Acer looked great at 1280x800 and even text was very clear. Now, with the Samsung, any resolution other than native results in very blurry looking text.

With the Acer, the lower resolutions were stretched to fill the screen and no GPU scaling in CCC was used. I've tried all different settings with the Samsung and in CCC with no luck.

Why did the Acer 22" look much at 1280x800 compared to the Samsung at any other resolution? Was the hardware scaling of the Acer much better? I'm still very impressed with the Samsung, considering gaming is secondary to 2D.

 

[fffblackmage]

my guess would be either different scaling hardware, or just the way 1280x800 just happened to stretch into those other resolutions

 

[ahenkel]

does it look better at 1280x720 seeing as how that's a 16:9 monitor. I set my asus 23.6 monitor to 1280x800 and its not as crisp as 1280x720. Granted is looks best @ native res

 

[wwswimming]

i've played around with non-native & only had good results at 1/2 native (e.g. 21" 1600x1200 @ 800x600).

it would be great to get drivers so you can run a 1080P monitor at 960x540, that would probably be very clear & there would be a lot of takers.

as for other resolutions, e.g. 1600x1200 @ 1024x768 (both 4:3 ratio), i find "it just depends" - you just have to try it & see how it looks, or find somebody with the equipment you are thinking about buying & ask them to try a particular resolution on their system.

occasionally, you get a "score". e.g., on the Mac, the ATI 2600 will do 960x600.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: ahenkel
does it look better at 1280x720 seeing as how that's a 16:9 monitor. I set my asus 23.6 monitor to 1280x800 and its not as crisp as 1280x720. Granted is looks best @ native res

That's the weird thing. I figured 1280x720 would look better as it matches the 16:9 AR. However, x720 looks much worse than 1280x800. In fact, any horizontal resolution less than 800 pixels looks the worst, with all the horizontal resolutions greater than 800 looks better.