Difference between game res and monitor res?

Yeah, so what' the difference between the resolution you set your monitor or laptop at(display settings in vista) and the resolution you put in-game(game video options)? I mean in terms of graphics and image quality?

What is the difference between :
Low resolution on monitor with max resolution in game?
Max resolution on monitor with low resolution in game?
Max resolution on monitor with max resolution in game?

 

Once you go to full screen game mode, the screen resolution will change to those that you have specified in the game settings. Having low res or high res on monitor makes no difference.

-If you have high res settings in a game, the picture will look better and beautiful, but at the same time kill your graphics card depending on your specs. Lower res ensures smoother game play with toned down graphics.

 

yeah. Setting the res in-game basically is setting the quality of the game. Doesn't really have anything to do with the screen resolution (unless you go windowed mode).

 

There is no difference at all, the resolution you have set in Vista has nothing to do with the resolution in your game if you are running in Full Screen, let me explain.

What you should be comparing is the resolution you are running in Vista/Games vs the maximum resolution of your monitor/LCD.

You want Vista to be set to your maximum resolution at all times.

You generally want your games to be set to your display's maximum possible resolution, that is unless your GPU is not capable of handling such a high resolution, in which case you may want to decrease your resolution in order to increase your frames per second.

Setting your games to run at the maximum resolution of your LCD will make them look the sharpest.

LCD monitors are not at all like older CRT monitors, they have a fixed number of pixels which determines your resolution. This is why lowering your resolution will make things like text look strange, because your computer has to stretch/blur the image to present X resolution on Y resolution LCD.

CRT screens were capable of 'drawing' any resolution up to their highest capable resolution without the blur.

 

So basically the only thing affecting the game is the resolution in the game settings?

I was wondering because today I changed my resolution on my monitor from 1024 x 768 to 1680 x 1050 and I noticed the writings (chat,names,etc) in Left for dead changed. Didn't really notice any change in the graphics tho.

 

Are you in window mode or full screen?

 

You've been running a 1680x1050 monitor at 1024x768??

 

The opposite of this. In-game resolution sets the screen resolution while you are in the game (fullscreen). Once you leave the game and go back to windows, whatever resolution you selected to use in windows will return.