Running games at native res, is it that important?

Ive been told that running my games at non native res makes them look awful, but honestly i havent noticed it at all. My current laptops native res is 1920x1200, i tried running the desktop at 1600x900 to see what it was like and it was big blurry and looked terrible, but whenever i run my games at 1440x900 i cant tell the difference, they look fine. Im only on an 8600m GT so i cant crank the res anyways.

Is it a big deal? Ive ordered a dell studio 17 with a 1920x1080 screen, but maybe i shouldve just gone with the 1600x900 screen instead? But i like messing around on the desktop too with this big 1920x1200 i currently have theres tons of space! im not a massive gamer but im a pretty big gamer and i havent noticed it up until someone told me... arg, the conflict lol.

Anyways my games include:

Company of heros
CSS
Left4dead1/2
Starcraft
In the future starcraft 2, maybe COD MW2

 

nah, as long as it doesn't bother you, then it's not a problem at all... it won't be quite a crystal clear, but by no means does it hurt anything... if you want the desktop space, then go for it... and like you said, if you never noticed, it doesn't really matter!

All it will do is scale the image to fit your resolution. Try and keep the same aspect ratio, and it will look better than just a random res.

 

Yeah i guess you're right if i never noticed it on my own then it shouldnt matter. Thanks.

 

Well, I notice it even with AA but if you stick to 16:10 ratio you will be fine for the most part.

 

Actually, 1920x1080 is 16:9, so he'd be better off with a 16:9 resolution; 16:10 will look stretched.

Some 16:9 resolutions are 1920x1080, 1600x900, 1366x768, and 1280x720.

16:10 resolutions include 1920x1200, 1680x1050, 1440x900, and 1280x800.

 

Actually in some cases this is true

My screen runs at 1280x800, and most resolutions below that are not widescreen, so the games look really bad and stretched

However, it doesn't make that much different is the aspect ratio is the same, or close 16:10/16:9 for example

 

Some people say they do not mind as long as the aspect ratio is the same. To me though playing at native res is the most important game setting there is. I will sacrifice as much eye candy as it takes namely dynamic shadows and lower AA to make sure the game runs at native res. Now from a 1920x1200 screen down to 1440x900 may not look that bad to some but when I was playing around with Crysis going from my 1440x900 screen to a resolution lower looked terrible. The HUD was noticeably fuzzy.

 

Anything not native just looks blurry to me . Id rather run at native res but with reduced settings . In some cases lower res+higher settings can look pretty good . But its a personal preference , no one is forcing anyone to run games at their native res . Just play with settings that best suit your taste .

 

Maintain same aspect ratio, as in 16:10 = 1280x800, 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1920x1200 or 16:9 = 1366x768, 1600x900, 1920x1080 and you'll be fine.

And then just use the maintain aspect feature in your video drivers if you can't run at your native resolution or same aspect. You'll have black bars on top and bottom or on the sides, but the image will look good.

Some people are real anal about it, but in reality, most people won't notice for gaming. I showed a friend running a game at 1280x800 and 1920x1200 (native res) and he really couldn't tell the difference.

 

It depends on the game. Higher resolution is supposed to yield a clearer image and in some cases, it does while in others it doesn't(at least not noticeably), but that also depends on well/bad the game itself scales.

As others have said though,a s long as you maintain the same aspect ratio, it should look fine. The clarity and "fuzziness" will depend on the game itself.

 

Another thing to note is that some resolutions will scale better than others.

1600x900 on a 1920x1080 will scale worse than 1280x720 on a 1980x1080. Not to say that 1280x720 will look better overall, but the scaling itself will be better. Another example: 960x540 scales perfectly into 1920x1080.

 

Well, from my experience, the 1280x800 (15.4 inch) screen on my old laptop was poor at scaling; playing at 1024x768 (not streched to widescreen) was blurry and the colours were bland - like it had vaseline smeared on it. My 1920x1080 (22 inch) desktop monitor scales images MUCH better - 1024x768 looks fine on this monitor eventhough it's a larger display (so would make the pixels larger). So it varies, but I think a higher resolution display scales images better as the pixels are smaller so can more accurately replicate lower resolutions.

 

the moment you change from a high res to a low res you may notice a big difference in sharpness and feel it was a bad move. However after about 5 minutes or so in game you will start to adjust to it and not notice it anymore.

I feel personally if I was stuck in a situation where a game could not be "maxed out" with a good frame rate and I had to reduce something that besides AA going first in most cases the resolution would be 2nd in line.

I would much rather play a game with a softer screen resolution than to be missing game effects.

Meaning I could easily adjust to a screen not looking so sharp, but if I was missing shadows, lighting, texture detail. Things like this are much harsher on the immersion and environment of the game to me and I would not be able to adjust to not having them as easy.

Also while the non native scaling issue is subjective to each and every one of us, even for the same person it can differ in significance between the game in question and the hardware used.

Always use GPU scaling if possible as hardware scaling by the monitor is usually not as good. Some people that say using a lower resolution maybe did not have it setup properly and were using some sort of hardware scaling or had a monitor with a big pixel dot distance.

 

^^^^ TRUTH ^^^^

Usually once you start gaming, the movement and action and other effects cancels out the softer lower res anyhow, and you quickly forget. Some games though, like Battlefield 2, IMHO needs a high res to play successfully because of such huge open environments, you need to see quite a ways away and need those extra pixels to identify things. But that's rare especially for most FPS or RTS games.

 

Well actually for me it´s important to run at native res. This is why I have only 1440x900 on my desktop computer to keep that native res for more years than I would be able to with a 1920x1200 screen. Now my XPS M1730 has native 1920x1200 and all games so far runs at native res.

For me personally native res is crystal clear which I love compared to running a lower res on that native WUXGA.

 

I prefer a high res for my desktop for desktop work. I don't like working in a cramped environment, so scaling is my only option in some cases. But I really don't find it bad at all.

 

When I'm on my desktop and working, I can't stand if it isn't on the native resolution, but in games, I don't mind, as long it isn't under 800 X 600 xD! In FPS i prefer the native resolution though, because then I can see the other players sharp on long distance, but it's not a must for me.

 

Yeah I only play games and have my desktop set to 5760x1200, I know I should upgrade to a higher resolution setup... but 30" monitors cost too much

 

Nice set up!!

Btw, you spelled "monitor" wrong in that excel file on your desktop.

 

Well when I play Crysis on my 1920 x 1200 native, I usually only play at 1280 x 800, and it is noticeably fuzzy. The difference between my laptop, which is native 1280 x 800, and my desktop, which is 1920 x 1200 native but I play at 1280 x 800, is huge. The desktop is noticeably fuzzier because it's not at native.

 

Think of it as free AA - the LCD's scaling will blur all the jaggies.

 

That's the way I look at it, but I have a feeling that I'm going to force myself to play in 1920x1200 when I finally build my new desktop.

1360x768 on a 1920x1080 native screen looks great...when you're sitting 12-15 feet away. I don't think things will look quite that smooth playing a lower resolution on 1920x1200 from three feet away.

 

Hi, I am planning to purchase a Clevo W860CU with 1600*900 screen. My question is, if I play demanding games like Crysis Warhead at 1366x768, will the graphics look the same as if I run the same game on another laptop with a same sized screen but a native resolution of 1366x768?

thank you.

 

The real Soviet in these dors would know the right answer...

Of course, I am talking about Soviet Sunrise.

 

Welcome to the NBR forums.

you an play games on non-native resolutions fine...

as long as the aspect ratio of the resolution matches the screens aspect ratio.

like 16:9 screen:
- you can set the game at 1600x900 on a 1920x1080 screen... and you should not even notice the difference.

I will merge this thread the same topic in another thread.

 

I've noticed that running games at native gives you a lot more clarity. I used to run games at 720p but high settings, however just switching it to 1920x1080 added a whole new level of clarity. I think it's a better idea to play games at native resolution but turn down the settings rather than turn down the resolution. Games I've tried this include:

- Halo
- Crysis + Crysis: Warhead
- CoD 4
- NFS: Undercover

 

I have to agree with that with some titles, Like ehm.. I liked Crysis on non-native, and COD4 looked better for me than native for some reason, BUT still as Fred said, there are some titles Just uhh you need to stick with the aspect ratio, and some few games will look absolutely crap on anything other than native, but those games are usually fail games, IE : The incredible Hulk, thats only my opinion though

 

Does Halo even support 1920 x 1080?

Personally, I think that Crysis and Warhead look really bad non native, they look gorgeous sharp at native though.

 

Native res always looks better. It's up to you whether high settings + lower res looks better than medium settings + higher res. I would most certainly prefer native res and 60 FPS before I touch anti-aliasing.

TV's naturally scale well considering how far you may be from the screen. At a good 8 feet distance, I could reason dropping the resolution to 720p or 900p if I'm not getting the desired frame rate. I almost always have all the in-game settings maxed, so sometimes 1080p is too much for the GPU.

Playing the Left for Dead 2 Demo at 1080p on my 32" LCD lately, and I couldn't live with any less. Life will be tough when I sell this monster

 

exact same way. I like how clear and crispy it looks at native resolution. With my current Dell and my previous MB when I gamed in boot camp @ 1280x800 I had to go native res. Things just look overall blurry, not crisp and sharp.. So if you're asking for an opinion, research your card and if gaming is a big deal to you, go with a resolution you feel you'd be happy with gaming with certain graphical features you'd like. But if gaming is secondary, then a high res for standard desktop work is the way to go. I love my 1080 screen.

 

On a couple games that come to mind: Dragon Age Origins and CoDMW2, 1600:900 is not an option available for me. So for DAO I run at native since it's SP so I don't mind FPS drops, but for MW2 in MP I will run at 1360x768 which is almost at 16:9 and that's the highest aspect ratio closest to 1920x1080 I can get. I would love to run at 1600:900 though but it's not possible. Not sure if it's the game or just my LCD doesn't do it. Nearly any other resolution is available though.

 

i just deal with the black bars. I have a 16.4 inch laptop screen so the actual video space isnt that small. I hate the look of lower resolutions stretched into widescreen. Keep the settings maxed and just shrink the window is the best of both worlds.

 

On the other hand AA has never been my favourite, I have always preferred higher framerate than smoothing out jaggies. Though since I play at 1920x1200 I never notice these jaggies anyway since I have full concentration on FPS gameplay.

 

I played Halo when I had my older laptop, and I used 1280x800. Halo supports up to 1920x1200.

 

Do you guys consider the game to be running at native resolution, if my screen happens to be 1440x900, but I run the game at 1280x800 in windowed mode?

 

Yes it would be native if you do not re-size the window and let it only fill a portion of your screen.