1920 x 1200 ! **** ! What are the next valid sizes?

So.. we all know 1920x1200 stresses almost any games.. so what are the next two sizes down that keep the games looking crisp and clear (non-stretching and/or whatever else you may want to include)

I.e. What resolution do you run your games on? I just tried playing CoD4 online with 30 people at 1920x1200 and it only had about 20fps the entire time.. -.-; So I lowered it to 14xx by xxxx and it ran at a steady 70.

 

Actually, I just put it on 1920x1200 and turned off AA.. and it ran at a steady 70fps and I couldn't hardly see any difference! Looked B-e-a-utiful.

EDIT: Should I do this on every game?

 

I run pretty much every game on 1920X1200 except Crysis of course haha...

But yeah if you want the same ratio but a lower res I would suggest either 1680X1050 or 1440X900. Or if you want even lower, 1024X720.

 

Oh, and as for the resolution, since your NATIVE resolution is 1920X1200 the games will look best at this resolution because there will be no distortion of the pixels to use layman's terms.

 

1280*1024 isn't bad.

1400*900 is always good.

1680*1080 is great.

 

well 1280X1024 is normal ratio so I don't know how well that would look but...

To each their own I guess...

 

You'd want to use 1280x800 (for something lower than 1440 but keeping the proper perspective).

 

Does this seem like the logical thing to do?

 

IMO, but especially at such a high res, higher res with no AA will ALWAYS look better than lower res with AA.

 

What exactly does AA do? If it puts a 40 FPS toll on a game.. but I can hardly tell any difference?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aliasing

 

Well, is having the AA completely off a smart choice, or should I set it to 2x? Just seeing the 30 frames per second difference with AA off is amazing.. The game runs so smooth and I can hardly tell that big of a difference. I'm not all that set on graphics being perfect.. I just want to be able to play the game with little to no-lag.

 

AA is more a personal preference thing . Some people cant handle the stair step effect or jagged look, but at 1920x1200 its much harder to see, especially on a 17inch screen .Same gos for Vsync, as some people can not handle screen tearing . So just do what makes you happy

 

honestly, i cant even tell the difference with AA on or off. at all...must be that i'm always concentrated on the game to stop and look at its beauty.

on another note, i finished crysis warhead last night. pretty darn good story. guess i gotta play crysis now to fully understand it. bleh.

 

higher res and less detail
or
lower res and more detail

biggest killer of FPS is shadows and AA(turn off AA at high res as you wont notice it)

 

You should not have to turn it down much with that laptop

 

I do if I'm playing competitively online and want a good fps.

 

It really comes down to personal preference... some people would rather turn the resolution down than lower any settings or AA.... others would rather turn down a setting or two than lower the resolution....

Just see what looks good to you. The laptop is great, but it's not going to be amazing (well, if you take the price away), and especially at 1920x1200, that is a high resolution, so something is going to have to give. If you're playing competitively, I would say turn off AA and whatever else you need to before turning down the res... high resolution = sharper picture = better picture = easier to see enemies

 

QFT, I'm running at max resolution with no AA.. I'm getting about 70fps, if it drops.. it doesn't get past 40.

 

Yeah, if you're able to run CoD4 at 1920x1200 with full settings and minimal AA... even no AA... it probably looks pretty incredible

 

To some of the posters here, please check your resolutions you post as it might confuse others.

800x600 (4:3)
1024x768 (4:3)
1280x1024 (4:3)
1280x720 (16:9) I believe
1280x800 (16:10)
1440x900 (16:10)
1600x1200 (4:3)
1680x1050 (16:10)
1920x1080 (16:9)
1920x1200 (16:10)

 

For the people in this section, with 17" laptops, if they have 1920x1200, they can go down to 1680x1050, 1440x900, 1280x800, all without stretching or black bars.

What I do is set my Nvidia control panel under flat panel scaling to scale with fixed aspect ratio. That way, if you open up an older game or something, with a low resolution of 800x600, it will still stretch to full-screen, but have black bars on the left and right side, and everything will still look correct, not stretched and ugly.

With that setting, then whatever resolution you set a game to, it will always scale correctly. It will still look blurry or stretched, but at least it'll scale correctly and not be stretched.

 

Perfect, that Fixed Aspect Ratio is great.. no more trying to see what isn't stretched. 16:9 and 16:10 looks so close but the blur is hard on the eyes.