CRT to LCD Resolutions

[dklingen]

I have been holding out and still running 19" CRTs on all of my computers. However, I am intending to start my migration to LCDs. I hope that one of the knowledgeable individuals that already use LCDs can answer these questions pretty easily:

1) Resolution scaling and gaming. My video cards are x1900XTs and run pretty much all games at 1280X960 - 4AA/8AF extremely well. Logically (to me), it seems I should buy an LCD with a native resolution that matches (basically a 17"). However, I need to know if I buy say a 22" (future proofing) will it work at ~1280x960 and look good in games? Will I be able to say read text (I have read this is the scaling issue and you cannot)?

2) What happens in a game if you have a widescreen LCD and the game does not support the wide screen resolutions? Is there black bars, does the screen compress? It will be awhile before I buy video cards that can run at 1680x1050 easily (though I expect all future games will support widescreen and numerous resolutions).

My key point is that I want to but the biggest LCD I can afford for non-game stuff, but it is really important to me that the LCD scale for games very well.

Any insight that anyone can offer would be appreciated!

Thanks,

dklingen

 

[kypron7]

I currently have a Samsung 22" LCD, and I run a lot of games at 1280x1024 (or 1280x960). In my driver options for my video card, I can pick either "Display adapter scaling", "fixed aspect ratio scaling", or "centered output". I leave the settings on "centered output", so all games will run in the middle of the screen with black bars around, but are still perfectly clear (just like they are running at native resolution) If I leave the settings on Display adapter scaling, any non-native resolution will be stretched to fit the entire screen, but be really fuzzy and look like crap. The "fixed aspect ratio scaling" will basically stretch the image to fit the lcd except for black side bars, and leave it in 5:4 aspect ratio. (still fuzzy as hell)


You have an ATI card, so your driver options might be different, but I dont think there is any reason you cant do the same.

 

[dklingen]

Kypron7 - thank you for the feedback!

 

[0roo0roo]

run the game at native resolution and lower your fsaa levels. if that doesn't work fallback on the other options. sooner or later you'll upgrade your video card and it won't be a problem don't buy a low resolution lcd, most of the time you aren't gaming after all.