wxga vs wsxga+

Ok, I know the difference is the resolution, but seeing as I've never seen a wsxga+ resolution on screen, what kind of visible difference is it (is there a screenshot of the two to make a visual comparison), and what kind of difference would the two make with games like WoW, Oblivion.

 

For games, it is worst to have too much resolution, because likely you'll have to down sample it (so your video card can handle the game properly), and then the image will loose some quality.
But for work, the highest resolution is so advantageous, overall if you are often using two documents at the same time. A 15 or 17 inches screen is just sub utilized and it looks bulky with low resolution.

 

Resolution is alot of personal choice. If you go to a shop and see the two resolutions side by side, then you can make a much better comparison. If your a gamer, then you will want a resolution that matches the graphics cards strength. If you choose a weak graphics card, with a high resolution display, then game resolutions will need to be cut back, in order to allow for some gaming performance. However, most screens will usually scale file, and there shouldn't be a great deal of difference.

 

You can get an idea of how small things will be by comparing to screens you are using now. Check the DPI guide in my sig for info about it.

 

Higher resolution can mean harder to read text. Sure, a lot of text can be resized, but some can't.

I have a 17" laptop screen with 1680x1050. Some text is already hard enough to read. I wanted to get 1900x1200 but I think my eyes would be killing me had I one that way.

 

Ok I'm going to take a stab at it wish me luck. You can play your game at whatever resolution it performs best at. The problem is your laptop or any LCD screen has a native resolution (CRT'S don't) so when you change resolutions you force a square peg thru a round hole with full screen. But for example with UXGA 1600X1200 you won't have a problem playing at 800X600, your pixels will double up. If you force display to play a non native/even division as stated it has to find places to display the pixels where there are none or too many. Forces the display to Interlope and this can cause visual distortions or artifacts, stretching compressing. Will this be acceptable? Depends, Some hard core gamers would prefer to play on a CRT simply better display even if they are being phased out (marketing not engineering) So a lot has to do with you and even which game. I would dare say some people play different games at different resolutions. I had a SXGA+ and I liked it very much, very crisp in Windows type apps, I played games at different resolutions and did not sweat it. What is your screen size because as you increase things get smaller and if you are not blind yet you may get there faster. SXGA+ is kind of an odd size If you go XGA 1024X768 that is kinda the default for games, you increase effects and features to the max if it can handle it, and if it does then you'll still get better frame rates than at higher resolution. With UXGA you can play at 800X600 with no bad effects if your card cant handle 1600X1200 also the interloping may not be so bad at 1024X768 because it is lower resolution. Never play a game above your native resolution. Also if you don't need full screen your video card can display partial screen especially if you get the higher resolution system and the card can't game that high.

 

I'm looking at buying a 17" screen unit, and it offers 1440x900 or 1680x1050. I'm leaning toward the first, as I player old games in low resolution and don't look at spreadsheets. I think the higher resolution would be a waste for my use (especially if it's harder to read).

 

R4000, I have a 17" LCD with a 1440x900 resolution, and I quite like it. I have seen some high resolution 17" displays, and I did like some, but this resolution seems fine for myself. Its abiut personal opinion, but having a really high resolution just makes things harder to read, and the price of a screen with such a resolution needs to be considered.

 

Thanks, Zero. I figured the lower res would also be less straining on a 8400M GS. It sounds like 1440x900 is ideal for me.

 

Wow, one thing: I don't think 8400 GS will play new games at 1440x900, so you'll have to down sample the screen anyway, with the consequences that baddogboxer was describing.

 

I really think the screen scaling distortion issue is overblown by a lot of people. I had one of the first notebooks that did this sort of scaling, and it was TERRIBLE. You could only scale to a multiple of the native size, and all the text (in DOS!) looked like it was in a fun house mirror. The newer laptops look beautiful compared to that

I'm a big proponent of high resolution. I wish the screens on laptops were much higher resolution than they are today. A typical laptop screen is about 100 DPI. Text on a printed page is 300 DPI. That's why you can make text on paper much smaller and it's still very readable. Text on a screen has to be bigger to make up for the poor resolution.

The only way to get that message across is to buy more high resolution screens! Then they will get the message and start making more of them, and they'll be cheaper.

 

orev,

You're right about high resolution screens AND there's an important point to super high resolution. If we get REALLY high resolution levels >300dpi or so, then we will/should have the ability to scale to just about any screen resolution without having any type of distortion (or at least that's my take on the technology). I realize that even with current screen resolutions the distortion is relatively muted, but it's still there (unfortunately).

 

True, but I think 1680x1050 would even be worse for that card. Anyway, most of my old games are at 800x600 and 1024x768.

My current laptop runs at 1280x800 on a 15.4" screen and I have no issues with it, so I'm guessing 1440x900 would look pretty similar to me on a 17" screen.

 

What I mean is that the downsampling will have the same effect, from 1440x900 or from 1680x1050 to 1280x800.

Anyway, as Orev, I like a lot high resolution screens, and I don't think downsampling is a terrible issue.