How much fps gain with 1600x900 instead of 1920x1080?

I am customizing a gaming laptop but im still unsure if i should go with 1600x900 display or 1920x1080.
I keep hearing how great 1080 is but it isnt too far of from a 900 now is it and if i can get considerable amount of fps gain then its worth it to me.
The laptop does have a 8970m and the current games out now can play with at 1080 @high setting and around 35fps but that dont forbid well for future games at that high resolution, so i think a 1600x900 would lasts me longer at playable fps.
BTW Is there a big difference ingame quality difference between those resolutions?

 

You can always change the setting ingame..
I think you should get 1080p anyway and scale down later down the road

 

Get the 1080p screen, no question.

 

with a 1920 x 1080 screen, you can always choose to play at 1600 x 900 for more demanding games.

With a 1600 x 900 screen, you can NEVER play anything (games or videos) at 1920 x 1080.

 

Not to mention most 1080p panels are better in every way than the 900p panels. If the laptop is 17'' or 17.3'' anything less than 1080p should be considered unacceptable.

 

If you cannot get a GPU that can drive 1080p and your priority is gaming, the 1600x900 is ideal. This is because, getting a 1080p screen to output 900p will cause visual blurriness since its not the native resolution.

With modern mobile gpu shading power being mostly sufficient, you primary determinant of FPS at 1080p is ROP output. Because ROP are Memory bandwidth hogs, your Memory bandwidth plays a close secondary role. 1080p has 44% more pixels to render therefore you can expect at least a 30% improvement to performance (which is equivalent to upgrading the GPU to the top model) by reducing the resolution to 900p assuming your CPU is also not bottlenecking.

In terms of quality, it depends on what games you play, 1080p has a much sharper, crisper picture with less visible pixels but you'll be stuttering like anything during gaming (which is unacceptable for fast paced games like DOTA2).

 

It's all preference. Some users will only play at native resolution, although I have found that scaling really isn't that bad. With the 8970m it's a 256-bit GPU and won't be bandwidth limited at 1080p, and would be kind of a waste to not get 1080p honestly. In a couple years if it begins to struggle then just drop the resolution down to 1600x900 in game and/or drop detail levels. But at that point it will likely be detail levels that will be hurting the GPU more than anything because it won't be bandwidth starved.

You mention generically that games on the 8970m can play 1080p at high settings at 35FPS. What games, because any recent game can run anywhere from 30fps to 1000fps depending on the game. If you absolutely MUST run ultra settings well then you will never achieve that for any appreciable amount of time because performance levels of GPU's will increase signifiantly with each die shrink and architecture change, and the latest games will be designed to run at Ultra on those games. No amount of reducing resolution will help that. Just a faster GPU.

 

Many here tell me if i struggle with FPS then just scale down the resolution, but ive seen how horrible ugly that looks like so i need to play at native. Im still leaning towards 1600x but im afraid im missing on something big time with 1080. Currently im using this laptop for years that has 1400x900 so i think im used to it anyways.

 

Which model is the laptop in question and what is its screen size in inches?

 

Same question as octiceps: What is the screen size you are referring to?

Depending on the screen size, the visual experience from the higher pixel density will be different.
IMO, you can definitely tell the difference between 900 and 1080 on screen sizes 15.6 and up while it is harder to detect on anything less.

Since you seem to focus more on visual rather than playability (30 fps versus 60 fps), I would highly recommend the 1080. Your web browsing and image viewing experiences will feel like they've leveled up .

And as others have already said, to save your fps, you can always scale down.
You've also brought up the point: will it look uglier on a 1080 screen? In the heat of battle, probably not. But if you can tell that difference, I think you'll be able to enjoy the 1080 screen much better, and perhaps sacrifice 5-10 fps (wild guess).

 

If you have up to 16'' laptop - 1080p is the waste of money and battery performance time.

P.S. Concerning FPS - playing on 900p should have 1,4 times more FPS compared to 1080p gameplay.

 

Then ill choose performance with 1600x900 over visual since 40% FRS is alot and most games out now look awesome enough to me anyways.

 

1080p would be very good for not gaming task - playing videos, browsing, photo / video / audio editing.

 

you're confusing resolution with scaling. they're two different things.

 

Yes, as I said in another thread, native will always look better. So two monitors being driven at the same resolution, the native resolution one will look better than the one running in a lower resolution.

It might be best to find a local computer store and try some tests on various screens at various resolutions. Seems there is not right answer as it is personal.

 

flawed logic. one can't be "running in a lower resolution" if they're both "being driven at the same resolution." if they're both displaying the same resolution (without scaling and are the same size) they'll look--the same. my point was only that it seems like the OP is confusing resolution with scaling.

 

Performance aside, the image quality of 1920x1080 res at 1080 res native display > 1600x900 res at 1080 res native display. isn't it so simple ?

@OP
you'll get roughly 1.2-1.3x fps at the same setting in 1600x900 compared to 1920x1080. This is from my experience from previous gaming pc i once owned. Oh i miss it

 

i don't think such a thing is possible.

 

I meant if you have a native panel at 1920x1080 and it is running at 1600x900, it will look worse than a native 1600x900 panel running at 1600x900. Maybe I wasn't clear...

And 1920x1080 is pushing 44% more pixels than 1600x900.

So games will take a hit at the high resolution. Will the resolution be worth it? Depends on the screen size, how far back you are, how good your eyes are, and personality. Is HD TV a big deal to you, nice but not a big deal, or don't notice all the time. Of course HD tv is only as good as the source, but blu ray versus dvd is a good comparison.

 

or maybe you were just wrong. again, if they're the same size and neither is scaled, they'll look the same-- notwithstanding the fact that one's able to display FHD and the other isn't.

Sent from my PI39100 using Tapatalk

 

Get off your high horse. How in the world do they look the same if the native 1080p panel displays 900p unscaled with black bars around the edges while it takes up the whole screen on the native 900p panel?

 

even if there was letterboxing while displaying HD+ on a FHD display, which there isn't because they're both 16:9 aspect ratio, the displays look the same (without scaling and if they're the same size). i'm not sure i know how in the world to explain it any clearer if you can't conceptualize that, but you could try reducing your windows resolution to 1600x900 on what i assume is your y500's "native" 1920x1080 display to see what it looks like. and i'm very sorry that you're offended by the tone of my posts.

 

A 1920x1080 panel displaying 1600x900 has to use scaling, unless it isn't filling the entire display.

 

the panel just won't fire 320 horizontal pixels and 180 vertical pixels spaced out every six pixels. scaling has nothing to do with it unless you're talking about content. and pixel density has nothing to do with it unless you're talking about different sized panels.

 

What?!?

Either you're confused as sh*t or you know something the rest of us don't. Please show us an example of whatever the heck you're talking about.

 

really not interested in wasting anymore bandwith on this, nor am i going to sit there and draw ~2M dots just to prove that a FHD panel can display HD+ and look the same without scaling. it's like geometry or something. but i can assure you that i'm not easily confused.

 

Stop pretending stupid (if not worse). You speak like you have no idea what you are talking about and all your arguments were just created in your head right before typing... instead of a knowledge which people got when they saw the difference by their eyes far before.
Even OP knows that so you are just flooding this thread.

 

Well that settles it then.

/thread

 

yea, yea. even genius without a proper knowledge can be mislead [sic]. durp. i've been told today both that i'm on a high horse and that i speak like i have no idea what i'm talking about. so which is it? my posts speak for themselves and they'll be memorialized as such when this thread gets locked.

 

Maybe this example will help. Lets say I have two panels, one five pixels wide, and the other four pixels wide. Now the four pixel display is showing #.#. or on, off, on, off. Now the five pixel display is trying to emulate the four pixel resolution. But if it just shows four pixels, then the whole display won't be used, i.e. you will have a black border. So we need to stretch that display. But how do you stretch four to five? Well you can't double every pixel, as that is too many. So you have to either double just one in this case, or try to average two pixels. So we end up with ##.#. or #*.#. which in either case will not look as good as the orginal #.#.

I picked the five versus four because 1920 versus 1600 is close to a 20 vs 16, which becomes 5 vs 4.

 

Yeap. It is so frustrating and such a shame that you need to explain such a simple things using such a primitive way on hich tech forum like NBR... to very reputable member by the way. The only difference though is that GPU does not stretch only 2 pixels while leaving alone other. It would be even more horrible mess. It calculates 900p image and stretches it all to 1080p so ALL PIXELS are modified and do not have their natural color. This is why it is blurry. You may not notice this on straight lines or on textures on big area with about the same color. But you definitely will everywhere else when you look farer than 10-20 meters from main hero where all shown in smaller pixel detailed level.

Anyway, I have just played Crysis 2 on FullHD and 900p. Here is what I got:

1. 900p = 32-33 fps. 1080p = 22-23 fps.
2. I was feeling thick with lower resolution looking on small objects or big objects far from Alcatraz (main hero).
3. When I lowered shadowing from Extremal to Maximum (from 2-nd best to the 3-rd) I got 33 fps on 1080p.
LOL! I haven't noticed a difference lowering quality on 1 step of single string and brought back the performance difference between 900p and 1080p!

This tells me that I will NEVER go back to 900p for gaming performance.

 

But playing shooters at1600x900 is actually better i think as the objects are bigger so easier to aim but then you have less field of view as well.
But now im wondering what would look better, highest settings on 900p native, or 1080 low on a 1080p panel.

 

well that's a great explanation on scaling, ajnindlo. so let's use some numbers that actually make sense in this thread. since both HD+ and FHD have the same aspect ratio (i.e. 1,600 / 900 = 1,920 / 1,080 = 1.778, or expressed wholly as a ratio of 16:9), let's do this:

first we have HD+, or 1600x900, which we'll express simply as 16x9 or:

Spoiler

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

next we have FHD, or 1,920x1080, which we'll express simply as 48x27 or:

Spoiler

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O
O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

and the reason why i made it so clear in all my posts that the panels would have to be the same size is because then the FHD panel has a much higher PPI than the HD+ panel, meaning that all those blue "pixels" are fit into the same area as the red "pixels" or vice versa. so how can we take the 144 "pixels" from our HD+ resolution and distribute them most evenly amongst the 1,296 "pixels" from our FHD resolution? like this:

Spoiler

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

or like this:

Spoiler

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

or like this:

Spoiler

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

or like this:

Spoiler

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

or like this:

Spoiler

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

or like this:

Spoiler

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

so now, assuming both panels are the same size and without scaled content, you can see that a FHD panel displaying HD+ and a HD+ panel displaying HD+ will look the same. and if you're left wondering, 'but but mattcheau, what about all those open spaces? won't those leave black lines on the FHD panel while dislaying HD+?' then read this wikipedia article on PPI. but whatever you do, kids, don't be afraid of the math.

and last but not least, since this thread has now been so incredibly derailed, i'm sure we can all agree that gaming in HD+ will offer better performance than gaming in FHD. it's a silly question really, because of course the less taxing resolution will offer better performance--unless your hardware isn't completely taxed by either. how much better performance you can expect, however, is entirely dependent on your hardware.

 

Instead of weird diagrams, why don't you provide some real-life screenshots or photographs of whatever Voodoo magic you're talking about?

 

why don't you try really hard to understand? i have faith in you, octiceps, you fellow "very reputable member" you.

 

Things are bigger and lower FoV? Definitely not, they're just blurrier and more aliased. I fact, I find it harder to spot people in FPS games, especially at distance, when running a non-native resolution due to the large decrease in visual clarity. Only the menus, HUD, other UI elements are larger at the lower resolution if there is no scaling going on there.

 

Because nobody has any idea what you're talking about at this point, which is why I want real examples.

 

i gave you a "real example" yesterday. apparently that didn't help much either.

 

So without scaling, 1600x900 doesn't take up the whole screen and there are black bars of proportionate width on all four sides, not letterboxing. With scaling, it takes up the whole screen but the image is blurred and stretched. How does this prove whatever it is you're trying to prove?

 

He is just really that slow I guess. Guy came here, started to impugn all-known stuff using childish examples. I don't care how he will stretch 160/900 to 192/180 even though it would be funny to see how he tries when object of stretching is not more than 10 times smaller of the end result which he did before. It would be funny somewhere in another thread but not here.

For slow people. Try to zoom desktop to 150% and tell me that it looks the same as it would look native on smaller resolution display. And that is just 1.5 multiplier.

@Hawx79, If you were right then people who play 1366x768 would see nothing at all except main hero with his gun

 

without scaling, there are no "black bars of proportionate width" nor letterboxing because the two resolutions at issue are the same aspect ratio. HD+ will take up the whole screen on a FHD panel and look just the same as a HD+ panel of the same size displaying HD+. what are you not getting here?

at this point i'm really beginning to doubt both of your abilities to think and read critically. let's try this: explain to me how they make both HD+ and FHD panels that are the same panel size...

 

Uhhh maybe because they use different LCD panels with different pixel structures? Derp.

 

Scaling has no direct corilation to scaling. Back to my four pixel and five pixel example. Use the same example, but now in both x and y directions. So the the panel is four pixels by four pixels, and the other is five pixels by five pixels. They both have the same aspect ratio of 1. Now how can you do my on off on off #.#. and display it on a five by five panel? To keep it simple, we are just talking about the top row.


I looked at your example. I also got lost at how you display HD+ on a FHD, assuming they are the same size panels. You do know the pixels are bigger on the HD+ panel, right? so it is not OOOOO to OOOOO issue, instead it is OOOOO to ooooo. So with both panels the pixels are right next to each other, no gap (for this discussion).

Can you use my four by four pixel panel and the five by five panel to explain? If not, maybe explain why that example is not good.

 

Go native or go home.

Native will ALWAYS look better. Period.
And if you like your games at native res, you can keep playing at native res. Period.
And if you like your GPU because it can play at native resolution, you can keep it. Period.

Would I lie?



No, I wouldn't. But...

 

right. and how is the density of those "pixel structures" measured? PPI. so the FHD panel has many more pixels than the HD+ panel. therefore the FHD panel has enough pixels to evenly display a lesser resolution of the same aspect ratio in the same area--which will look the same as a HD+ panel of the same area.

your example is not good because we're talking about two resolutions covering the same area with an aspect ratio of 16:9. you yourself said that scaling has no direct correlation to scaling so using an example of resolutions with a 1:1 aspect ratio has no bearing on the two resolutions at issue. besides, i've been clear from the beginning that i'm not talking about scaling at all. i'm talking about the ability of a panel with a finer resolution to evenly display a lesser resolution of the same aspect ratio within the same area.

done with this. look--now we have all the mods' attention. this thread is so hot right now. :hi2:

 

So what if they're the same aspect ratio? An LCD panel has a physically defined number of pixels it can display and that is its native resolution. It can display one resolution and one resolution only without having to digitally rescale the image to fit into its fixed pixel structure.

Without scaling, running a resolution lower than the native one on an LCD will always result in black bars on all sides due to the difference in the number of pixels. With scaling, the monitor has to interpolate the data to make it all fit into its fixed pixel structure. This makes the image fill the entire screen but results in visual glitches and blurring.

What are you not getting here?

 

You are just hopelessly uninformed. Do you even know how LCD's work? If you want one last chance to salvage your reputation in this thread, I say for the last time to please provide PROOF of your impossible assertions.

 

Upscaling is the only possible way to display 900p on a 1080p screen within the same physical area (the entire screen) as if it were displaying its native resolution. How do these look the same?

http://wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/resolution-comparison-one.png

http://wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/resolution-comparison-two.png

 

This is 100% correct. I'm actually stymied that it's being argued against. Or perhaps it's not being argued against? Perhaps there's some other issue Mattcheau is addressing.

Nevertheless, the data is out there to corroborate this simple fact about LCD resolution and scaling. It's been out there for over a decade. I think Apple has done a disservice to the understanding of these principles by using such buzz words as "retina display" and trying to extol the virtues of DPI (which is only a function of # pixels per inch of viewable LCD screen) as if they were doing something new.

To sum up for the OP in case they are confused:

Given the same GPU, the LCD screen with the lower native resolution will result in higher frame rates than the one with the higher native resolution provided that the game settings for video are set to the LCD screen's native resolution. This is just a fact of the matter.

When it comes to video playback (non-game), the resolution of the video can be scaled on virtually any LCD resolution. Just as you can watch 1080i/p source on a 720P LCD TV, the same applies to the LCD on a notebook/Tablet. But of course it is being scaled down to fit within the confines of a 720P LCD. Just as a 720i/P source can be scaled up to 1080p LCD screen. Of course since it is being scaled up it doesn't look as good as a 1080P source at the same bitrate.

Games however do NOT follow this convention to the same degree as video because the GPU is often addressing pixels directly. This is why no matter what, playing a game at native resolution INVARIABLY results in a better quality image (all other things being equal). The trade off is always going to be FPS. It just depends on what you are willing to give up. A powerful GPU that gets excellent FPS at 1080p native will get even better FPS on a 720P or 900p native res LCD. The difference in performance doesn't always translate in a linear fashion because there are other things to consider. Even the refresh rate of the LCD can make a difference in image quality. But on the whole, choosing the best GPU you can afford and pairing it with the lowest native res LCD you can tolerate will result in higher frame rates than if you chose the higher native resolution LCD.

 

I'm pretty sure he lacks some basic understanding about the subject matter and it comes through in his posts. This one, for example:

I don't know what he's arguing about because he himself doesn't even know what he's arguing about.