Native vs non-native resolution quality?

Lets say we have two 17" notebooks, one with 1680x1050 and the other with 1920x1200 resolution.

If I run a game at 1680x1050 on both screens, what would the quality difference be between the two? I hear that games run in non-native resolution don't look that bad and I haven't noticed anything too bad playing in non-native res on my HDTV and brother's LCD monitor. Of course running at a different aspect ratio may look ugly.

If games don't look bad running at a lower non-native res, I'd want to get the higher resolution panel myself for its increased workspace and my eyes can handle the strain.

I've just seen some here wanting lower-resolution screens because of course games run better at a lower-res and why not run it at the panel's native res? But I want to know if them running the same res on a higher res screen isn't too detrimental.

 

I play at non-native for some games on my 1920x1200 screen... dont really notice anything bad... especially when your focus is in the gameplay.

Note: I still set the non-native resolution at near the same aspect ratio, so the image does not looks stretched.

Example:
1920x1200 = 16:10

I used the following resolutions with I want to scale down, and keep the aspect ratio
1680x1050
1440x900
1280x800

 

See second post. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=265918

 

Basically the lower the resolution you are running the blurrier the image gets. If you aren't running the resolution a whole lot lower then it isn't that bad at all. Some resolutions may scale worse than others, like 1280*1024 is really bad compared to 1024*768 on my 1680*1050 screen, so play around with the resolution until you find the "best" one.

-J.B.

 

That's because you're switching aspect ratios.

 

I've set my screen to not scale up when there's a smaller res. So i get an a bit smaller picture, but all perfectly sharp. Wrong aspect ratio can be set to get black borders instead of stretching, which is a godsent feature for older games

The settings for this are in the gpu drivers, and for desktops sometimes in the onscreensettings of your screen.

So you can have all the choise and try it out (I currently play crysis on max settings at 1280 on the 24" monitor, it's about 17" then, or so, and looks absolutely gorgeous and crisp).

 

Gaming at a less than native res doesn't look bad at all, mainly due to the very large textures. Anything else, such as word docs,etc don't look all that great. But even those are still readable.

 

Thanks. I didn't realize that there was a slight aspect ratio difference between 1024*768 and 1280*1024 as I am used to them both displaying correctly on my CRT monitors without adjustments.

-J.B.

 

There is a HUGE difference from using 'monitor scaling' and 'nvidia scaling' (Under nvidia control panel --> flat screen scaling). When I had it on monitor scaling I would play games at native all the time to avoid the blurriness. However, with nvidia scaling the difference is negligible (to me).

 

Same aspect ratio looks great - i.e. 1920x1200
16:10 = 1920x1200 / 1680x1050 / 1440x900 / 1280x800
4:3 = 1600x1200 / 1152x864 / 1024x768 / 800x600 / 640x480
5:4 = 1280x1024

If you interchange with ANY of these like run 1024x768 on a 1680x1050 screen use the 'maintain aspect ratio' option, so that it will maximize to your screen height or width but keep the proper aspect so there is NO "blurriness" so to speak.

 

Everything else being equal, the native screen will always look better. Though AA and AF can help.

 

OK guys how about this one. Three 15.4 inch laptop with 1680 x 1050, 1440 x 900 and 1280 x 800 screens.
All set to non-native 1024 x 640. Is the blurriness same for these screens?

 

i have a 1440x900 screen and if i set it down to 1280x800 in a game it looks terribly blurry, I can't understand how anyone can say there isn't a huge difference

 

Try using nvidia scaling in the control panel rather than monitor scaling. It made a HUGE difference. Before I refused to play at non-native resolutions, but now I can't even tell the difference.