Running games at native resolution?

[Maximilian]

Why? Whats the benefit? Dosent having in game resolution options make this a waste of time?

Reason i ask is i bought a new lappy and i see people saying the one with the 1600x900 screen has better gaming longevity than the 1920x1080 (the one i ordered) and i just dont get it. Its 1920x1080 but so is my current laptop, i dont have to run games at that res though, usually i pick 1440x900 in the game. Whats the deal with the whole native res thing?

 

[minmaster]

because things look better at native resolution. the pixels are 1:1 so everything looks crisp and clean. if you are trying to display 1440x900 pixels on a LCD that has 1920x1080, it will have to interpolate pixels and things will get blurry, look blown up, and jagged. and if you don't keep resolution at the 16:9 aspect ratio of 1920x1080, things will look disproportionate. if you don't notice this much or your eyes are very forgiving of this, then fine but most people can tell right away when their display is outside of its native resolution. and it looks ugly. try it out on your desktop. tell me it doesn't look ugly.

another thing is unless your work on the computer demands it, having such a high resolution on a laptop screen isn't that great. its fine on a 24" monitor, but on a laptop screen, everything will look tiny. and you have excessive space that you hardly use.

 

[Maximilian]

because things look better at native resolution. the pixels are 1:1 so everything looks crisp and clean. if you are trying to display 1440x900 pixels on a LCD that has 1920x1080, it will have to interpolate pixels and things will get blurry, look blown up, and jagged. and if you don't keep resolution at the 16:9 aspect ratio of 1920x1080, things will look disproportionate. if you don't notice this much or your eyes are very forgiving of this, then fine but most people can tell right away when their display is outside of its native resolution. and it looks ugly. try it out on your desktop. tell me it doesn't look ugly.

another thing is unless your work on the computer demands it, having such a high resolution on a laptop screen isn't that great. its fine on a 24" monitor, but on a laptop screen, everything will look tiny. and you have excessive space that you hardly use.

Hmm i see, earlier on i tried running this current laptop (native 1920x1200) at 1600x900 to get an idea of what the smaller screen would look like at the desktop, everything was big and blurry and it looked like ass. I just chalked it up to me not being used to it but i guess it was this 1:1 pixel ratio.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Before I got the 4890, my previous video card couldn't handle the newest games at 1920x1080 (the native resolution). While I do agree that things look best at the native resolution, I was happy to run at lower resolutions as long as the aspect ratio was the same (such as 1280x720).

I enjoy the gameplay more than the absolute best graphics, but that's just me. As long as the game is playable and looks graphically pleasing (no stretching or massive distortion), then I'm good to go. Ultimately, I guess I prefer framerate over eye candy.

 

[minmaster]

yea, i've also had to turn down the resolution in some demanding games in the past. if i do so, i try to at least enable some AA to smooth out the jaggies.

 

[bloodugly]

because things look better at native resolution. the pixels are 1:1 so everything looks crisp and clean. if you are trying to display 1440x900 pixels on a LCD that has 1920x1080, it will have to interpolate pixels and things will get blurry, look blown up, and jagged. and if you don't keep resolution at the 16:9 aspect ratio of 1920x1080, things will look disproportionate. if you don't notice this much or your eyes are very forgiving of this, then fine but most people can tell right away when their display is outside of its native resolution. and it looks ugly. try it out on your desktop. tell me it doesn't look ugly.

another thing is unless your work on the computer demands it, having such a high resolution on a laptop screen isn't that great. its fine on a 24" monitor, but on a laptop screen, everything will look tiny. and you have excessive space that you hardly use.

Can't you just change the DPI settings to combat this a bit?

 

[Modelworks]

Can't you just change the DPI settings to combat this a bit?

nope.
A lcd monitor has x pixels across and y pixels down. So if it is 1680x1050 and you want to display 1440 x 900 then the only thing the monitor can do is resample the image so that two pixels now share what one pixel would have been in a native size. Causing a blurred effect. Some people actually use that to an advantage by using it in place of AA to smooth out jagged lines. Just depends on how good your monitor is at scaling.

 

[AstroManLuca]

The only way to run a game at a lower resolution on an LCD without interpolating pixels is to set your graphics settings to use "centered timings" or something like that. Sometimes, if you install graphics drivers rather than just using the default drivers, you can change those settings. But it'll cause the whole thing to appear smaller in the center of your screen, with black bars on all four sides.

Running lower than native resolution with interpolation does decrease the quality a bit, but it's much worse when you're using it for general computer tasks. In a game (or for that matter, any full motion video), it's not nearly as bad.

 

[minmaster]

yea, you can do the centered timings thing or use windowed mode if the game allows it to force 1:1 pixel ratio but things will look very tiny.

 

[zerocool84]

Why would you guys run at a lower rez and not just turn down the graphics settings in the game? I can't stand having my lcd at a non-native rez. Everything is just too damn blurry.

 

[cronos]

I usually have my games running at a resolution different than the screen's native resolution. However, I still have the pixels at 1:1 so everything is as crisp as possible.

Yes, they are running in a window.

 

[Maximilian]

I assume the 1:1 thing is why windows 7 highlights some resolutions and not others when you go to change the desktop resolution.

Think ill stick with the large screen i ordered and just use a lower res for gaming thats 1:1, the current games i play might run at 1920x1080 anyways theyre not very demanding, 4650 should be able to handle it.

 

[cronos]

I assume the 1:1 thing is why windows 7 highlights some resolutions and not others when you go to change the desktop resolution.

Think ill stick with the large screen i ordered and just use a lower res for gaming thats 1:1, the current games i play might run at 1920x1080 anyways theyre not very demanding, 4650 should be able to handle it.

There is only one native resolution of the screen. This is the one that is shown as 'recommended' by Windows 7.

The ones that are highlighted have the same aspect ratio as the native resolution, but they are not 'native'.

 

[Maximilian]

There is only one native resolution of the screen. This is the one that is shown as 'recommended' by Windows 7.

The ones that are highlighted have the same aspect ratio as the native resolution, but they are not 'native'.

Yeah i know, thats what i mean, windows 7 highlights the 1:1 resolutions, the ones that are multiples of the native resolution, the rest are greyed out because they will look worse but still available.