Something I'm not quite sure I get about LCDs and native resolution...

It seems the consensus is that LCDs only look good in their native resolution. For a while, this deterred me from buying a 1080p laptop, as I was concerned whatever GPU I had in their wouldn't be able to handle the burden of rendering at that resolution, and scaling down the resolution didn't seem like a viable option.

That got me wondering - why is this so frowned upon, when a large majority of the material people watch on their 1080p television sets is not actual 1080p material? By this logic, if I know I will be watching mostly 720p cable programming on my HDTV, should I opt for a 720p set as this will allow it to play at its native resolution, thus looking better than a 1080p playing from the same source?

...or is it just when the aspect ratio is not the same and LCD has to scale the image to fit properly that thinks get messy?

Sorry for the confusion. I've got an HP Envy 17 3D on the way, and I'm just wondering what to expect when I play games at 720p on the 1080p display.

 

LCDs for computers need to render small 1 pixel text, TVs and video games and movies don't use small 1 pixel text so they respond much better to not being displayed at their native resolution to the point where the difference is hard to notice. You should have no problem playing 720p games on 1080 display.

 

If you can't tell the difference between 1080p and 720p on a 1920x1080 resolution television, then you have some problems. But TV's often run a lot of "image enhancing" software so that it doesn't look too bad. Laptop screens don't do this. Most desktop monitors can, but it is recommended not to for gaming. All this image processing done in the monitor or TV increases the lag from when it receives a signal to when it displays the image. TV's and monitors that do this (most, if not all) will have a "game mode" that turns all these shenanigans off. Most people agree that using a non-native resolution looks extremely bothersome on the desktop, but many argue that it looks fine in games. These are mostly the same people who think that playing games with weak gpus, tiny screens, and low framerates is good. I think it looks like butt and I can't stand the increased blurriness and aliasing. Of course the smaller the screen, possibly the less noticeable it will be.

 

Its more the computer for the LCD that needs to display 1 pixel text.

Yea, 720 on 1080 with some games can even look better and give some mock antialiasing effect.

 

No, just no. How can it possibly look better? It is quite a stretch to spin the blurriness caused by reducing the rendered pixels by half into a "mock antialiasing effect." It is going to look worse, plain and simple. However, it isn't too bad and is just personal taste if you are willing to play non-native or not. Playing non-native is something you do if you have to.

 

i knew I would get a reply like that, lol.

its my opinion, the bluriness is what im talking about as a benefit here. Hey, real life can be pretty blurry sometimes. its not actually blurring across the scaled pixels.
Also I was just thinking that paired with the FPS gain, it will definitely look better if you are going from 10-15 fps.

 

Low resolution does not lead to bluriness... quite the opposite. It leads to hard edges and less curves.

 

I hadn't experienced too many problems gaming in non-native res on my laptop's screen.

The blurriness hardly bothered me because it was barely visible (and only on the text/icons).

 

With the native resolution, lines are crisp and sharp, like in real life. Playing on a lower than native resolution makes things look blurry exactly as if they were out of focus. AA reduces the effect of jagged edges and objects remain just as crisp and sharp in appearance as before. A lower resolution makes aliasing a bit worse, but less noticeable because it appears a bit out of focus. I was just playing at 1360x768 to test it out for a while and I found it pretty annoying. 720p doesn't feel like it has half the pixels of 1080p, but the difference is noticeable, but the worst part for me is the blurring. I even played at, uh, 360p, which was interesting. But I guess with a small screen the blurriness might not be as bad because it would have a much smaller dot pitch than a desktop monitor.

 

720p videos just get up/down scaled to the TV's native resolution and it looks just fine. I wouldnt bother purchasing a 720p TV though unless i was on a tight budget.

Most PS3 games are 720p native and they just get upscaled and smoothed.

but for PC gaming id definitely use higher than 720 res

 

If you play at 720p on a 1080p screen it looks worse than 720p on a regular 720p screen.

 

Yes without a doubt native resolution looks better. Upscaled 720p video with enhancements look just fine on a 1080p TV, the blur isnt that noticeable until you compare it side by side. The PS3 upscaling aint that bad even for 240p PS1 games.

Cant say the same for notebook panels though, native always looks best. Though some FPS games i do play in lower resolutions (like a notch or two down) for smoother fps and the quality is still acceptable.

 

Native does always look best. But I like playing L4D2 on my Envy at 1600x900 because it lets me enable AA. I get better performance and a pretty darn nice picture, even with the scaling. It really depends on how picky you are. Sometimes good enough is just that... good enough.

Especially when the alternative is doing all kinds of non-gaming stuff on the computer with only 768 vertical pixels. If you will do NOTHING but game on it, I'd get a 768 display. But if you use your computer for anything else, I find the lack of pixels much more objectionable than a little bit of pretty much unnoticeable blurriness in a few games that I take out of native resolution.

 

Yeah, i know all about the technicalities of it. Its hard to say one thing is better than another when its about personal preference.

Just to give you an idea of my personal preference, i believe that JPG compression is interesting, I think that it means something sort of cultural sometimes