Which is more difficult to run a game in - 1280x1024 or 1440x900?

D

dbaldus

Gawd
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Jul 12, 2005
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Just got my Samsung 931BW 19 in Widescreen from Best Buy BF deal and am curious how my games are going to run once I get it all hooked up (stand was busted so I am waiting for BB to get more in stock to replace it).

With the rig in my sig, NEW games typically run awesome at 1024x768, very good and a LOT prettier at 1280x1024, and then somewhat choppy at 1600x1200. What I'm wondering is how the 1440x900 resolution is going to affect my gaming? I did the math, and it appears that both the resolutions will have about 1.3 million pixels at once (actually, 1440x900 was slightly less), so should I expect similar performance to 1280x1024 when I'm running in 1440x900, or is there more to it than just the amount of pixels?

Thanks in advance!
 
I'm running a fairly similar rig setup and when i switched to 1440x900 i didn't notice a difference in performance. I just noticed how nice DVI looked compared to VGA. :D
 
In so far as resolution makes a difference to speed, it is only the amount of pixels that matters. The specific shape isn't relevant ot the card, it does all of them equally well. The only problem you'll run in to is that 1440x900 isn't especially well supported by games, so many of them will lack it as an option.
 
Sycraft said:
In so far as resolution makes a difference to speed, it is only the amount of pixels that matters. The specific shape isn't relevant ot the card, it does all of them equally well. The only problem you'll run in to is that 1440x900 isn't especially well supported by games, so many of them will lack it as an option.
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I was actually surprised at how many games do support 16x10; there are tons.
 
Alot of games do support it, Even games that don't like BF2142 I'm running it non WS and it looks fine, can't notice a stretch at all. In my opinion WS is the only way to go, it fits your feild of vision alot better and looks more natural.
 
Both are about 1.3MP resolution. I doubt you'll see any real difference between the two.
 
threadjack

i'm like way new to lcds so this might seem like a dump question but if i get a monitor that is "native" 1680x1050 then can i turn it down to a lower resolution so my rig can run the games at decent fps?
 
malicious said:
threadjack

i'm like way new to lcds so this might seem like a dump question but if i get a monitor that is "native" 1680x1050 then can i turn it down to a lower resolution so my rig can run the games at decent fps?
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yes, but it won't look ideal.

back on topic,
there should be little difference between 1280x1024 and 1440x900, although the widescreen resolution will probably be a hair slower. there's more geometry information onscreen with a wider aspect, so the video card has to output more vertices. but it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

in most of my games it never made more than a couple FPS of difference.
 
malicious said:
threadjack

i'm like way new to lcds so this might seem like a dump question but if i get a monitor that is "native" 1680x1050 then can i turn it down to a lower resolution so my rig can run the games at decent fps?
Click to expand...

Yes, but it would be just like running 1024x768 on a 1280x1024 native monitor... which I think looks fuzzy and crappy.
 
Seanmounce said:
Alot of games do support it, Even games that don't like BF2142 I'm running it non WS and it looks fine, can't notice a stretch at all. In my opinion WS is the only way to go, it fits your feild of vision alot better and looks more natural.
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So when you run it non-WS, do you just mean that you run it in a regular resolution and it "stretches" it across your screen, but you just cannot tell that it is being stretched? Or what do you mean?
 
Seanmounce said:
I'm running a fairly similar rig setup and when i switched to 1440x900 i didn't notice a difference in performance. I just noticed how nice DVI looked compared to VGA. :D
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Could you elaborate on this? What was immediately obvious? What wasn't so obvious but still made a big difference? I'm excited to find out the differences myself (since I'm switching from VGA to DVI now, too), but it sounds like it might be a week or so before I get the replacement so I can find out
:(
 
I've a ViewSonic VX1935wm that is also at 1440x900 and found many of my games worked fantastic at that resolution, but a couple didnt'.

Some games are mistakenly programmed to only offer a select number of resolution choices and 1440x900 isn't one of them. Some do allow you to use 1440x900, but the field of view doesn't change from a 1024x768 or 1280x1024 display.

That's why it's important to understand that resolution support for decent presentation of the games relies on two things:

1. Resolution support.

2. Field of view (FOV).

When both are supported together, such as most of the Valve Source games (HL2 and whatnot), the result is beautiful. Without the correct FOV, it's stretched and circles are ovals.

For a fantastic list of games, and some mods to work arround those that are not native, check out this fantastic resource at WidescreenGamingforum: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=Master_Games_List_-_A
 
dbaldus said:
Yes, but it would be just like running 1024x768 on a 1280x1024 native monitor... which I think looks fuzzy and crappy.
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Not all monitors downscale like crap

i run some games at 1280 x 1024 on my viewsonic vx2025vm native 1680 x 1050 and there is zero fuzzyness or blurryness.
 
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