Non-native gaming

[melloyellowaz]

If I have a 20.1" LCD with a native of 1680x1050 how bad is the quality if I switch down to around 1280 res for gaming? Maybe someone with a viewsonic 2025wm can answer this? Thanks.

 

[Mogadon]

It's OK but you'll prefer it if you have the resolution at 1680x1050.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

In my experience, it's not that bad. You just have to try it and see. I personally see very little difference in FPS's with the monitor scaling. I've also heard that it depends on the monitor; that some of them actually scale better than others. I'd try it and see.

 

[Mogadon]

The VX2025WM is the only widescreen LCD i've ever owned.

From the research I did one of the only complaints about this monitor was it's scaling ability, the others were the crap speakers and lack of large height adjustment.

There's a 20+ page thread over at hard forums about this monitor. Alot of people that contributed to that thread had owned Dell 2005 / 2007FPW's among others and the majority claimed to like this monitor more.

I love it, like I said i have nothing to compare it to, to me scales fine but it's just preferable / better at its native resolution.

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

Depends on the monitor as some scale better than others. It would obviously effect strategy games for instance more than FPSs. But I really doubt you would notice during fast-action gaming.

 

[nullpointerus]

It depends on the game and the scaling hardware. With a racing game like NFS:MW, I find the IQ is slightly better if I use a lower resolution and 8xS AA. In a FPS like F.E.A.R., I definitely appreciate the native resolution as every pixel counts when I'm trying to snipe someone far away.

nVidia's drivers allow you to choose whether your video card or monitor should do the scaling - one might be significantly better than the other. ATI's drivers may also have this, but I can't say for sure as I haven't used an ATI card in my personal desktop for a while now.

 

[trabpukcip]

NFS: MW can be hacked to force the use of non 4:3. the cars look better just more zoomed in so don't use the close cam, although the gauges and map are a bit squished, but it sure beats a streched 4:3 image.

 

[T2k]

As long as you maintain your native aspect ratio, it's nothing horrible. With my older X800XTPE-based rig I had to scale down regularly and it wasn't a big deal for my 2405FPW.

 

[amheck]

I agree, I've never really understood the big hoopla about having to game at nataive res. I think it all looks pretty good. Of course, I play at 1600x1200 if I can, but if not, I've never been disappointed.

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: trabpukcip
NFS: MW can be hacked to force the use of non 4:3. the cars look better just more zoomed in so don't use the close cam, although the gauges and map are a bit squished, but it sure beats a streched 4:3 image.

Actually, I don't have a widescreen.

 

[Auric]

Native is a misnomer. There is a maximum number of addressable pixels. If the graphics driver and/or panel allows for maintaining a 1:1 aspect ratio then the game can be run at any lower resolution -in this case 1280x960 or 1280x1024 as the game allows with perfect quality, but simply using a smaller area of the display. Degradation only occurs when stretching or scaling beyond the set resolution is allowed or forced.

 

[aniruddha23]

I used to have 2005FPW and other than the Fonts for the Menus I noticed absolutely no diffrence at the 1280 resoultion. In fact I used to prefer that because it gave me better fps with more eye candy.

 

[Ike0069]

I've researched this exact question comparing the Dell 2005/7 FPW and the Viewsonic 2025W.

It seems the Dells scale slightly better than the Viewsonics, but it does seem that the majority of people that have used both monitors actually prefer the Viewsonic.

I've also read from many, that sometiems a lower res with AA/AF looks as good or sometimes better than native res with no AA/AF.

 

[Sureshot324]

I just got the viewsonic vx2025wm last friday. I've mostly been playing Sin episode 1 on the weekend which runs fine at the native 1680x1050 on my x800xl, so can't comment that much on scaling.

I did however try ghost recon advanced warfighter at 1350x768 or something, and it did look kinda pixilated and blurry. What I found on my old 17" lcd (1280x1024 native), is that 1024x768 looked ok but 800x600 looked pretty bad. I think if you only scale down one resolution below native it generally looks ok.