native res / any truth?

Every thread I read here talks about how you have to make sure your system can handle the native res of a LCD before buying. But does this really matter, or is this talk all rumour? In any pamphlet or manual of LCD's I've never noticed any text about trying to keep at native res at all times. In fact, the documentation treats res changes just like CRT dox do, meaning change whenever you feel like it.

I even tried it on my Dell2405fpw, and I don't see any problem running games at any resolution, even if not widescreen. I play most games at 1920x1200, but even when I have to switch to 1600x1080 or even normal res like 1600x1200 (for NHL 06 for example) the games still look stunning.

So, where does all this anti-non-native-res talk come from? Is it something that is common knowledge gone haywire, or is it a technology limitation and is presented as such by the companies?

I have to agreed with you. When I had my 2005fpw I didnt notice a lot of difference at lower res while gaming. The desktop looked bad tho. I think the newer LCD's have so many pixels now it's starting to matter less. On the other hand, my old Dell laptop looks horrible when not at native res.

There's a certain crispness to the game that you can only get when playing at native resolution. The game can still look great, but the graphics card isn't giving you the per-pixel accuracy that gives you an edge in multiplayer games. It's virtually impossible to tell because your eyes adjust so quickly, but I definitely feel more accurate when I play at native LCD resolution.

Now if only my rig was happy running 1920x1200 with max settings

I know in 2d my fonts look like crap at anythinb but native res on my 930B.

3D I've seen it at 102x76 and 128x102 and they both looked good but I still use native res.

Games can look pretty good at non-native resolutions, but wait until some text comes on the screen. The problems with non-native resolutions are not as obvious on graphics as apposed to text, and some monitors scale things better than others. Also, some users simply don't "see" much when they look.

I don’t see anybody explaining it like this so far so...

LCD screens are different than CRTs in the way they display the image on the screen. CRTs shoot or throw electrons onto a coating on the glass tube(with a much smaller "pitch" than LCDs) that light up when hit with an electron, thus creating what we see. The coating simply lights up when hit, thus you can change where the stream goes with ease and simply change the width and height of the streams of electrons manually with controls on the CRT when you change resolutions.
However, LCD's work differently. They have a set count of pixel groups, say 1152x864. So you end up with a perfect set of pixels lining up exactly as they should be when you put your display at 1152x864. However when you display at 1024x768 your screen tries to fit the 1024 pixels evenly across the entire screen. However you end up with a problem, when you divide 1152 by 1024 you get 1.125. So that means for every pixel in 1024 wide mode your display needs to put up 1.125 pixels on the monitor. Well, when you are physically limited to a set pixel size, how can it display 1.125 pixels. In short, it can't. Instead it tries to fit those in some how(I don't know much about this part), and no matter what happens it can't do it perfectly so every so often a pixel will be colored funky or off to one side. You end up with what looks like text that has been reduced too much in a jpeg or gif file.

I've included what it kind of looks like, I can't duplicate it exactly. But, this will give the general idea.
Note: You might have to get close to your monitor to see the difference.
Note2: Uber big version http://sunrunner20.brainspore.net/f...429e79e399d07/gallery3/Nativenonnative_BG.jpg

sunrunner20 said:

I don’t see anybody explaining it like this so far so...

Click to expand...

There's a reason for that; you aren't answering the question he asked. He was asking why a game might look acceptable in a non-native resolution, not why one might not.

lets see if i can show why non native res is a no no for me
pixels space between verticle lines-- \/----------\/--------- \/
----------------------------------|---------|-----------|--------|
where monitor trys to display color (-------black----)(------red---)
the lower of the two is when u try to run at a lower res than native
the left pixel will be black the right will be red but the center pixel is up in the air
you will get black or red or something in between but it is not what the game and card intended to display this will make many if not all boarders between colors wrong

the reason is you wont most likely notice if a character in your game is distorted because you dont really know how s/he is suppose to look, but when you see text you can easily tell its distorted because you know how it is suppose to look

larva said:

There's a reason for that; you aren't answering the question he asked. He was asking why a game might look acceptable in a non-native resolution, not why one might not.

Click to expand...

Trypt said:

So, where does all this anti-non-native-res talk come from? Is it something that is common knowledge gone haywire, or is it a technology limitation and is presented as such by the companies?

Click to expand...

Actually, he's asking for the reasons why we're told not to use non-native resolutions, which sunrunner20 answered.

Well, I guess to water it all down:

Non-native res qualities will vary monitor to monitor. Mine looks like crap on non-native res, so... YMMV! Note, mine (with monitor drivers installed) only has 4 resolution options anyway... So it's not like you can just pick any ol' resolution you want to.(unless you force it)

Mine are: 12x10, 11x8, 10x7, 8x6. I haven't gamed in anything other than the native res, and don't want to, it looks crystal clear. Desktop looks bad on mine though at 11x8, i've tried that.

All lcds create blurriness when at anything other than native. Games are ok, but thats just because its harder to notice when there is no text.

Ok, let me sum it up for those who can't apply the knowlage I gave.
1. Common desktop resolutions are rairly, if ever, evenly divisable by eachother. (I should make a table of them)
2. pixels are indivisable
3. partial pixels from wrong resolution causes information to bediscarded or overwritten.
4. Discarded or overwritten data looks like sh**

Happy?

games look absolutly horrible on my 19" LCD at anything other than native, so does pretty much anything else

I suppose large pixel pitch probably doesnt help hide the effects of Scaleing either