Gaming on 1920 x 1200

I've read somewhere the gaming on 1920 x 1200 is putting your computer through hell. I'm almost positive my laptop's native resolution is 1920 x 1200, so is it a bad idea to play games (bioshock and wow, namely) at that resolution if my computer can handle it? What would I benefit (or lose) by playing at 1680 x 1050?

 

I don't see anything with running at that resolution if your computer can handle it. Now if you had to OC a lot to get there that might be a different story. Just make sure your temps are ok.

 

On a laptop unless its one of those very expensive sli rigs or 8800+ ones and an older game good luck. On a desktop with any high end card thats very doable. A single ATI 4850 eats up 1920x1080 on my rig with 60+fps maxed out in most games.

Since your playing on a very small screen tho its really a terrible idea in my opinion to worry about maxing out your res. Turn the res down and turn up the visual settings for a better play experience.

 

hes playin on a 17", which i am. I have that same resolution. But i never play on that resolution specifically. If you're asking if that is a good resolution to play games on in general, yea why not? but if you mean that you actually set the GAME's Resolution to that, then... that may be a lil bit of a problem for some games. with the 9800m gt you can probably even burn through cod4 and bioshock at that resolution, with maybe a FEW details turned down. Im a detail guy tho, so ill sacrfice and go down to 1680xWhatever it is lol... as far as my desktop tho. I love the 1920 size... any smaller would just seem, choppy to me, i dunno why...

 

I have a 8800GTS 640mb and I had no problems running Bioshock at 1920x1200 with everything up and having extremely fluid frame rate.
I am sure the 9800m GT can handle it easily too.

BUT, it's not a good idea to have a notebook at that resolution if you mainly get it for games. Games will be more demanding in the future but not much you can do to keep playing them at the monitor's native resolution. You will have to lower to something better, which completely ruins the whole point of getting such a high resolution monitor for a notebook.

 

in Bioshock maybe you will have to turn down a setting or something if you are a fan of the 60 FPS,but in COD4 Possibly no problem

 

So far i've been running Oblionv with Quarls TP3 and 4096 tiling mod, at ultra high and 1920x1200 and it's running well. I tried using HDR mode and it stuttered a little but not a lot, reduced it to bloom and it's fine now.

UT3 also plays at full res and i get an average of 63 FPS... not sure if that's a good score but, it's very fluid to play.

I agree that some games like Crysis, wouldn't be able to run smoothly at 1920x1200 but i'd try it lol

BTW i'm runnins 8800GTX Sli

OB

 

Bioshock and WoW should run fine with your PC. The best I can get Crysis to run at in 1920x1200 is medium.

 

What drivers are you using?

OB

 

I wonder if you aren't asking if it's bad for your computer to push it so hard.

It's not any worse than pushing it at any other resolution, the hardware is designed to hit its limits and it's not going to shorten the computer's useful life any. If your hardware can handle gaming at 1920x1200 - and it looks like it probably can - go for it. If the game runs too choppy/slow at that resolution, kick it back down to 1680x1050.

 

I'm using the latest 177.83 drivers with the PhysX support. Single configuration 8800M GTX though with 0xAA.

 

Yes and no. I dont think they meant your actually "killing" your hardware in the literal sense anyways just meant that it works the hardware much more.

But if you did want to be literal about it, I am quite sure that gaming 1920x1200 all maxed out pushing the card to its max will have it die faster than if it was humming along at 10% output with 1280x800 medium.

I tell you one thing you can do that will help a lot with high end systems like mine and thats vsync. Not only will it prevent tearing that is sometime common with high end setups but it saves your card so much work having it only do as much work as needed for 60fps.

I was playing F.E.A.R. on my dual 4850 desktop today and noticed that about one minute into the game my 4850 fans were reved up very high in the 70% or so range this only happens with Crysis since its so demanding. I was like WTH so went into my options and relized I turned off Vsync for benchmarking and never put it back on. Soon as I turned it back on fans were silent for the next 2 hours.

Thats because my rig runs FEAR at like 120+ frames per second and it works the cards to there full limit causing massive heat and use while with vsync on I get the exact same experience at 60fps and the cards dont even have to try. If I had left it turned off the game would have crashed at some point I am sure from the cards over heating my case has very little airflow unless I open up the front door and take off the dust filters.

So take that little tib bit of information with you, it will come in handy.

 

I tried playing Mass effect at that resolution on my GDDR2 8600m GT... It was interesting... I envy the guys with the 8800/9800 class GPUs...

 

1920x1200 is a lot of pixels to push. I even have to scale down the resolution a little bit, depending on the game, with my desktop overclocked eVGA 8800 GT.

For current games on a laptop 1680x1050 should be feasible with an upper end GPU. BUt personally I run at 1280x800 even though my screen has a native res of 1680x1050.

 

1920x1200 on a 17" is quite alot. A lower res will look just fine with better FPS.

 

I run all games @ 1920x1200, my native resolution.

btw vsync lowers fps. Granted if you're running over 60fps that isn't a problem. I never use it and I never get tearing.

shooting for 60 fps for everything is kinda overkill though. the human eye can't tell the difference between 30 fps and 60 fps very well. The only time you'll see a noticeable difference is with fps's or games where you're doing quick jerky turning motions. The lower fps will create more of a blurring effect.

One thing you should realize is that when you're not running native res on your lcd you will get a distorted effect displayed as its pixels need to "expand" themselves to reduce the displayed pixel count on the lcd.

Oh another thing, higher resolutions create more heat on your gpu(s).

 

Straight up 60 FPS only really matters in fighting games. Games like Guilty Gear have mechanics with 1 frame timings. If it's not a fighting game, running smooth should matter the most.

 

Vsync lowers FPS but it also lowers GPU temps since it more or less "waits" a frame or two before drawing the next scene if it can keep up with the pace. Problem is that with Vsync, it typically steps down a significant FPS if it can't keep pace. Like if it can't draw 60 fps, it will step down to 30 fps.

Distorted effects are minimal if you downscale. Sure for the desktop it may not look great, but for gaming, I have rarely EVER had an issue running at 1280x800 on my native 1680x1050 screen. And frequently the drop in resolution will allow for 2x or 4x AA with a much higher FPS than with no AA at the native resolution.

 

Let's not make this another v-sync thread... anyway, I game at 1920X1200 with v-sync on. I have a single 8800M GTX. I have no problems, though I don't play Crysis. The thing is, it's all personal preference. You have to decide what works for you personally.

 

Nothing ever looks quite as good in nonnative resolution, though, in my opinion. I still don't entirely understand the mechanics of playing in non-divisible factors of your resolution, even after having read the wiki on aliasing. I think I'll just stick to 1920x1200 for now.

 

Yeah, key is to maintain same aspect ratio

 

I game at 1920x1200 on my dell for every game that I play. Does that put more stress on hardware? most definitely. But its the native res and that + low settings look ALOT better then lowering the res and raising settings, as well as performance is better at native for me then other resolutions.

 

What games do you play?