The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Native resolution and gaming..

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by tersagun, Dec 7, 2007.

  1. tersagun

    tersagun Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    6
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Greetings,

    I'm planning of buying a gaming notebook but kinda confused with the display. Unlike my beloved CRTs, LCD's have something called native resolution which may somehow work negative with quality.

    What I want to ask is, while being better overall, is it really wise to get a 1920*1200 display instead of a 1440*900 for gaming purposes as it is obvious that no game would be runned on 1920*1200? Say, if the game will be played at 1440*900 resolution, is it better and cheaper to go for the 1440*900 display rather then an overkill 1920*1200?

    Thanks in advance!
     
  2. InlawBiker

    InlawBiker Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    18
    Messages:
    354
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I thought the same thing when I switched from my ancient by great Sony 21" CRT. My LCD is 1680x1050 and isn't particularly fancy, but games look perfect in non-native resolution. I've never heard a good explanation for why the desktop looks screwy in non-native res but games do not.
     
  3. deathstick

    deathstick Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    34
    Messages:
    395
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Yeah, you won't really have any problems running in non-native resolutions, as long as they have the same aspect ratio as your screen. BUT the bigger you have to scale to get fullscreen, the more jagged the picture looks w/o aa. Whatever resolution you plan to maximize to full screen, make sure it isn't too different from your native resolution.
     
  4. oresteez

    oresteez Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    5
    Messages:
    184
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    i've always run games at non-native res and never noticed a difference...i dont think this should be a major consideration when you are deciding what to buy..

    just remember, you cant scale UP !! :) lol
     
  5. fabarati

    fabarati Frorum Obfuscator

    Reputations:
    1,904
    Messages:
    3,374
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Depends on the game, the LCD and the person. I generally detest non-native gaming. I couldn't stand Oblivion @ 1280x800 on a 1440x900 screen. But the latest generation of games (Bioshock, UT3) scale much better in my eyes (couldn't tell the difference).
     
  6. bubba_000

    bubba_000 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    32
    Messages:
    319
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    If you're a gamer, unless you can afford a monster video card, you should get as low resolution as possible. In non-native res, the picture will tend to be a bit blurry. Native res would give you a much crisper image. In games it doesn't bother me much. my screen is 1280x800 and i play new games at 848x480 since my video card can't stand higher.