Visually, what's better

[tigersty1e]

Is it better to use your monitor's native resolution with lower detail/visual options or go with a lower resolution and higher detail/visual options?

 

[TanisHalfElven]

depends. what game are we talking. what resolutions

 

[tigersty1e]

Half-Life 2 and FEAR for now.

I have a BFG 6800 OC plain vanilla card.

I tweak both options enough to have similar frame rates, but I just want to maximize my eye candy.

 

[Blurry]

lower rez w/ high visual of course

 

[BassBomb]

what res is your monitor?

 

[tigersty1e]

Isn't higher res essentially like making it higher detail?

(except some games may artificially take out some detail on the lower settings)

 

[BassBomb]

If you are on LCD, run the monitor's resolution no matter what

I prefer to run a slightly lower res on CRT with higher settings.. just beacuse its easier on performance for osme games than a higher res with less settings

That being said, I would not take 4x AA at 1024x768 over 0x AA 1600x1200

 

[PingSpike]

I prefer to run with all the textures and lighting options on with a lower res. Unfortunately, non-native resolutions looks like ass on LCDs.

 

[tigersty1e]

The textures aren't all that important, but the lighting is the most important. Lighting makes the atmosphere.

My LCD is 1280x1024.

 

[yacoub]

The important thing is 1:1 pixel ratio. If you have an LCD with a native resolution of 1600x1200 and you want to play games in a lower resolution, say 1280x1024, don't stretch it to fill the screen, it will look crappy. Have it do 1:1 pixel ratio which places it at the center of the screen with black surrounding the 1280x1024 pixels in the center.

Native resolution or any other resolution at 1:1 pixel ratio will look equally good, however any other resolution will not be using all of your monitor's screen real estate so in a sense it's a bit of a waste. Ideally you want to build a system performance-wise that can play whatever game you're playing at the full native resolution of your monitor.

 

[gramboh]

Another option with scaling is that certain resolutions in the same aspect ratio will look better stretched than others. I just bought a Dell 2407WFP and was reading up on this. Apparently if you are going down from 1920x1200, it will look better at 1280x800 than at 1680x1050 because of the number of pixels that have to be extrapolated is less. I think this is why:

1920x1200 = 2,304,000 pixels
1680x1050 = 1,764,000 pixels
1280x800 = 1,024,000 pixels

Ratio of 1920 to 1680: 1.3061224:1
Ratio of 1920 to 800: 2.25:1

I think because the shrink from 1920 to 1280 is a 'rounder' number the visual quality loss is less. I'm going to experiment with this tonight, because playing at 1920 on my 6800GS is not fun.

 

[BassBomb]

Since your res is 1280x1024 run anything ONLY at that resolution...

CSS should be no problem on full settings a that resolution

 

[A554SS1N]

I have an LCD running most games at 1280x1024, but 1024x768 still looks sharp enough for me - can't tell the difference - it;s only going down to 800x600 or less it starts to go blurry.

 

[ScrewFace]

These are the reasons I still use my 21" ViewSonic P810 CRT. I can game at any resolution with no image quality problems and games today still only support CRT resolutions. Why would anyone want, say, a 21" widescreen LCD for gaming with half the screen are blacked out do to the LCD not supporting CRT resolutions. I'll never get a LCD!

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: gramboh
Another option with scaling is that certain resolutions in the same aspect ratio will look better stretched than others. I just bought a Dell 2407WFP and was reading up on this. Apparently if you are going down from 1920x1200, it will look better at 1280x800 than at 1680x1050 because of the number of pixels that have to be extrapolated is less. I think this is why:

1920x1200 = 2,304,000 pixels
1680x1050 = 1,764,000 pixels
1280x800 = 1,024,000 pixels

Ratio of 1920 to 1680: 1.3061224:1
Ratio of 1920 to 800: 2.25:1

I think because the shrink from 1920 to 1280 is a 'rounder' number the visual quality loss is less. I'm going to experiment with this tonight, because playing at 1920 on my 6800GS is not fun.

Related to that, running at a resolution with dimensions exactly %50 of native should produce a 'perfect' image as well. 1 pixel will become 4, there will be no guessing by the monitor.

 

[tuteja1986]

Native Res for LCD or Low res with CRT... But High res with low detail is always better in my book : )

 

[sindows]

Les res with higher detail even for LCDs, one res notch "lower" isn't going to hurt image badly.