Difference between 1280x800 and 1440x900 (screenshots)?

What is the difference in appearance between a game running at 1280x800 and 1440x900? Is it noticeable? If someone is feeling bored, would they mind posting some screenshots of a game running, to compare the difference?

If I have a 1280x800 res screen, and I run a game on 1440 x 900, everything will still look distorted because the screen isn't running at its native res, right? or....?

thanks

 

Firstly, if you have a 1280x800 screen then you can't run 1440x900...

In any case, this is what 1280x800 looks like, stretched up to 1440x900:


...and this is a native 1440x900 image:


The difference? Not much. The native 1440x900 is a little sharper (particularly on the rocks and trees in the background), but it's not a night-and-day difference.

 

If your display's native resolution is 1440x900 and you decide to play at 1280x800, the image will be slightly blurred because of interpolation. It's nothing serious though and image still looks very clear. You can't see it by comparing screenhots because it happens on the screen, not in the image itself. In addition to blurring, jaggies may become more apparent on the edges of 3D objects at lower resolutions. They can also be seen in screenshots. They can be resolved by using Antialiasing (AA), with a cost of fps.
If your display's native resolution is 1280x800, it's the maximum resolution you are able use on that display, so you can't use 1440x900.

 

That's true, although I've found interpolation generally isn't too noticeable (although I have a native 1920x1200, which probably helps reduce scaling artifacts)

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but stretching the screenshot may propably soften some of the jaggies apparent in the actual 1280x800 shot, depending on what software and settings in it you used to do it.

Propably the best way to compare quality of different size screenshots is to use somekind of image editing program and use the zoom tool to make the original 1280x800 look the same size as 1440x900. Then compare them side by side. Again, correct me if I'm wrong..

 

The best way to compare, is to get a screen that goes to 1440x900, and set it to 1280x800. Otherwise I think you've had your explanation at least. I could do some screen shots, but on my 1680x1050 monitor I don't if that would actually cause issue.

 

So we're talking about a difference in quality, not quantity here?

What I mean by that is: you don't get a larger field of view with a 1440x900 than you do with a 1280x800 in the game itself? Like how when you see a desktop running 1280 vs a desktop running 1400, there is more 'real estate'... that's not the case with games?

Thanks for the help

 

nope....same view, they are both in the same aspect ratio. you only lose real estate if you play in a 4:3 aspect ratio (800x600, 1024x768, etc....)

 

In some games, the HUD/interface takes up more space at lower resolutions, but generally speaking, the FOV is always the same.

 

That's the case with games too... sortof..

If you have a higher resolution screen, you also have more precision, and can see things off in the distance much better.

There's also widescreen vs 4/3, on a widescreen resolution you can literally see things that someone on a 4/3 standard screen cant see. Playing in 3840x1080 is crazy, you have soo much more field of view that you can almost see behind yourself. (in CS:S) So, yes, you would have more precision when aiming, particularly better for FPS games, but both are still just 16/10 so they would the same in for FOV.

 

All right, sounds good. Thanks guys!