Screen Dependent Resolution Downscaling

Hey I was wondering whether or not individual screens can have an effect on the quality of downscaling the resolution. Because recently I bought a 22" screen (by envision) and started to notice that the letters and menus were noticeably distorted compared to the previous monitor I was using.

The previous monitor I used scaled 1600x900 down to 1280x720 while this new monitor scales 1680x1050 down to 1280x800 (med-level vid card means I can't handle 16xx gaming). Did I just fail to notice this earlier or is the individual monitor affect downscaling? Thanks!

Actual gameplay is still pretty smooth though.

 

Even before you wonder is it the screen consider that you are converting different resolutions and that most definitely can explain the display quality. The ratio of your two screens interpolation are different and while an integer ratio is always best (no interpolation) some ratios interpolate better than others.

So yes you could be be noticing a difference. Also what size was previous monitor? Larger monitor will show flaws more than smaller all else being equal.

 

Why not just set the resolution to native in windows and set it to 1280x800 in respective game settings? Best of both worlds.

If you are talking about issues with text in the actual game, I don't have any good ideas other than maybe AA.

 

My other monitor was actually bigger, it was a 26" Samsung HDTV (for some reason with DVI cables I was able to get a 1600x900 resolution out of it). And yes, its the menus/text in the game that are more distorted. The actual gameplay itself is fine. I'll upload two pics, one at 1680x1050 and the other at 1280x800.

Edit - Actually when I used print screen in 1280x800 and copied into paint it would scale back down to 1280x800 and look fine. So I used paint to blow it up to 1680x1050 and it looks about the same as it actually does in game.

Games such as TF2 that I can run at reasonable FPS at 1680x1050 look much better than before.

Double Edit - I was able to get 25-40 (ave around 35) FPS with Bioshock and smooth play with Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect (~25 FPS? FPS monitor doesn't work with AC) at 1680x1050 so I guess I can't complain. My problem was VSync locking the FPS at 15. But I would still like to know if certain monitors will downscale worse than others or is it definitely locked based upon native resolution and screen size? Thanks in advance!

 

It is locked and mathematical. But yes some might look a little better. The majority of the problem is fundamental and has to do with interpolation.

 

Fixed Pixel Displays have exactly that, a fixed number of pixels to work with. You will always get better results if you run everything at the native resolution.