Is 1680x1050 too high for resolution?

Asus G1

The only thing that is making me not interested in this laptop is the very high native resolution. I only play games at that high of a resolution on my 7900GT SLI desktop rig I have on a 22" LCD widescreen display. I am wary that this resolution is too high for new games especially. This is a 1 video card solution and I am worried that if I play all games at 1680x1050 that I will have to turn down or off most eye candy in most games, especially new releases. Do the lower resolutions look good on this laptop or will I be having to sacrifice FSAA settings and such just to get a good Frame Rates.

Thanks for the input in advance.

 

I think you will have to lower the eyecandy.

 

THe resolution is a bit high, particularly for a Go 7700. But its totally possible to turn down the resolution in game, and practically all notebook LCD's will handle the scale fine. A resolution of 1440 x 900 should be fine for most games, at medium settings.

 

What about the lower resolution, is it as clear as the higher native resolution? I know that LCD's look blurry in resolutions that are not the native.

 

It's only blurry if you're too used to play at native resolution, so don't ever try to set resolution to 1650x1050, you'd like so much you never want to lower it

 

For gaming, the non-native resolution will not be an issue. I regularly run at 1280x800 on a WSXGA+ notebook for games and they are fine. Pretty soon, I'm probably going to have a 1920x1200 external monitor and I still expect to have no problem running games at 1280x800.

Games are the one thing that still look okay when running at non-native.

 

Well, what about with the G1s???

 

Well so far what I am reading is that the 1680x1050 is too high, this is dissapointing, I am still considering the G1 but this is a big strike against it.

 

usually a higher resolution is considered a plus lol

 

1280x800 maintains the same aspect ratio as 1680x1050 (16:10). That would be a good place to start.

Don't expect the most fantastic thing with laptop gaming. It works, but unless you get one of those Sager laptops with their even more crazy video cards which cost an insane amount of money, you should stick with a desktop if you're that picky about it. It's a technical feat already as it is to get it working properly at that level.

 

I have a HP Pavilion zd8000, it plays games well at the resolution of 1440x900, I do have to turn off eye candy, but I was hoping to be able to turn more eye candy on since the G1 is about 2x the laptop of the the zd8000, but if I have to turn everything down to the same lvl as an ATI x600 I may go with the Alienware m5550 because the resolution is lower then 1680x1050 and I can probably get better framerate with more eye candy at a 1200x800 res.

What do you think, any G1 owners play at lower res then the native or is the native 1680x1050 good for gaming.

BTW, I play WoW, CoH, Oblivion, Titan Quest, Company of Heroes and things like that, if these are playable at 1680x1050 at med to high settings I will be satisfied, but if I can get more eye candy on an Alienware m5550 at 1280x800 then that is what I will do, need advice, thanks.

 

You can easily turn down the resolution in the game (even if you have 1680x1050 you can run the game at a lower rez). People complain about the screen getting blurry when you do that, but in reality this is not the case. Really really old laptops used to be terrible at this, and people now think of that and continue to say that it will look bad, but they have not seen what a modern LCD looks like.

Higher resolution is better for everything else, so I say go for it.

 

Well my brother has a G1 and he usually play Company of Heroes at 1440x900 with some settings lowered without FSAA. It looks OK but when I tried playing it on 1280x800 with higher settings and it really gets blurry (you get see the edges on pretty much everything) unless you put FSAA on which then lower your fps. But the G1 is still a good 15.4 gaming laptop...

 

There will be *some* blur compared to the native resolution when scaling down. Some resolutions scale better than others, so you will have to decide what looks better to your eyes. However, the scaling doesn't unreasonably affect the image quality in gaming to my eyes. Actually, for me, the G1's high resolution was one of the criteria when I was deciding to get it. I absolutely love the increase in desktop space.

My suggestion is not to worry about the high resolution. Most likely you wont be playing at native resolution, but I have no regrets when playing at a somewhat scaled down resolution. The G1's screen is beautiful just about any way you look at it.

 

The G1 and G1S are supposed to be portable systems with a gaming habit. They are not high powered rigs that melt every graphical detail at 90 frames. They are more like the type of system that will run current games (especially the G1S) at native/high detail with FPS about 30-40. Some of the more intense games (Outdoors in Oblivion/Supreme Commander/etc.) will need to be toned down, but those games look great even on low settings. I have gamed on laptops for years (and desktops) and I can tell you that while native does look much cleaner, some games look better cranked with low res than they do with lower settings high res, so you can deal. The seller for the G1 is the price. The performance/dollar is unmatched. It is the most powerful non barebones 15.4" system available.

EDIT: For the games you mentioned:

WoW: Crank it, this system eats WoW's breakfast
CoH: Mid-High settings, lowered to 1440x900 looks good (the kid before got blur because he chose a bad res, 1440x900 is perfect)
Titan Quest: I can almost crank this on my old-school Mobility 9700 (though this card is a beast). The G1 should have no problem, even native res.
Extras:
BF2: Crank it you will get 25-30
FEAR: Cranked all the way is a little under 20, so mid-high lower res is about 30
Oblivion: I can rock oblivion with all mid settings at about 35 on my 9700. Like I said before, outside is only an issue, lower the draw distances and it will pick up substantially

Those are the real world scenarios based on proven benchmarks (i.e. actually playing the game with the computer) and my own experience.

 

1680 resolution was the biggest reason why I bought the G1. G1 sized laptops aren't really meant for heavy-duty gaming, that's where the desktop replacement monsters come in. WSXGA+ adds so much workspace that I can't even think of going back to lower resolution laptops.

 

Well it is official, I cancelled my Alienware m5550, they were back ordering parts and taking forever and ordered the Asus G1 from milestonepc.com. Thanks for the input and helping me make the decision to go with the Asus. I know that the G1S is right around the corner but I am sure you know how it is when you want something now, lol.

I will post again my experience with gaming soon. Again thanks for the responses, you were all very helpful.

 

What I noticed with my computer is that when playing non native I also get a performance hit if I have the graphics card adapting the image to the size of the screen. That is probably not that much of an issue nowadays, since my computer is an hp zd7000 with an ancient geforcefx go 5600!!! LOL
but for instance, Half life 2 plays better at native (1440*900) than adapted 1280*800. Sometimes I opted to use the lower resolution and sacrifice image size, instead of having the video card adapt it to fullscreen. You get the crispness and the speed, but with a smaller image.

 

WSXGA+ (1680x1050) is not high enough. I will only buy 15.4" laptops with WUXGA (1920x1200) resolution.

 

I have the same feelings, but I'm having a hard time finding a 17" laptop at WUXGA. I think Dell and Sony make some, but I really like the HPs. I'm hoping the new dv9500s will have a WUXGA option when they roll out the blu-ray players.

 

Well, just to give you a clue of what I'm getting with my G1 and Oblivion with the following settings (according to AnandTech's article) and the XTreme-G Mobileforce XP Video Drivers (version 9420)

Running at 1280x800 (widescreen) I get about 30 FPS

Texture Size Large
Tree Fade 100%
Actor Fade 100%
Item Fade 66%
Object Fade 90%
Grass Distance 50%
View Distance 100%
Distant Land On
Distant Buildings On
Distant Trees On
Interior Shadows 95%
Exterior Shadows 85%
Self Shadows On
Shadows on Grass On
Tree Canopy Shadows On
Shadow Filtering High
Specular Distance 100%
HDR Lighting On
Bloom Lighting Off
Water Detail High
Water Reflections On
Water Ripples On
Window Reflections On
Blood Decals High
Anti-aliasing Off

Cheers!
RayanMX

 

Think about all the things (like extra tool bars) you can fit on your screen in a professional work environment without sacrificing usable workspace.

I wish I had a bigger screen.