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Native resolution and gaming performance

post #1 of 20
10/17/05 at 5:57pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,
this is something I've been wanting to clear up for some time... how much difference does running a game on the notebook's native resolution affect it's performance?

I mean, supposing you have 2 notebooks with identical specs (same cpu, gpu, ram, hdd ), except one has a wxga screen (1280x800) and the other has wsxga screen (1680 x 1050). Now suppose you run a heavy graphics demanding game like Far Cry or Half Life 2 on 1280x800. Notebook 1 will be running on its native resolution while notebook 2 will not. How much difference would there be in performance?
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post #2 of 20
10/17/05 at 6:04pm
performance probably wont be that different (if any difference at all)
just a bit of ghosting on the one that isnt @ its native res
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post #3 of 20
10/17/05 at 6:06pm
The higher resolution will take more grunt from the graphics card.
For instance, at 1200x800 World of Warcraft shows 45fps when running around and doing normal stuff on my laptop.
Increase that resolution all the way up to 1680x1050 and I'm lucky to get 12fps.
The higher the resolution the more area the graphics card has to display or the more area there is to fill with an image that is constantly moving.
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post #4 of 20
10/17/05 at 6:13pm
I guess the right question to ask here is whether the two models have identical performance if we set the WSXGA model down to WXGA resolution and run the WXGA one in native resolution (in other words, does the scaling that needs to be done on the WSXGA model affect the performance in any way?).

The rest is just common sense really, bigger resolutions take more power, naturally.
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post #5 of 20
10/17/05 at 6:31pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalpunk
The higher resolution will take more grunt from the graphics card.
For instance, at 1200x800 World of Warcraft shows 45fps when running around and doing normal stuff on my laptop.
Increase that resolution all the way up to 1680x1050 and I'm lucky to get 12fps.
The higher the resolution the more area the graphics card has to display or the more area there is to fill with an image that is constantly moving.
I'm not asking if running the game at higher resolution hits the performance; I know it does. What I'm asking is this:-
You say you're getting 45 fps on WoW when you run at 1280 x 800. Now assuming from your post that your notebook has a wsxga screen, your notebook is not running at its native resolution. Now take the exact same notebook as yours but put a wxga screen on it so that now it is running at native resolution... what fps will you get?

Ruptured and Freonchill understood my question correctly.
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post #6 of 20
10/17/05 at 10:42pm
The lower the resolution the more FPS you should get out of it, so it native is 1600x1200 and it seems slow, 1024x768 might me much more playable even though its not the native resolution.
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post #7 of 20
10/18/05 at 1:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sangorel
I'm not asking if running the game at higher resolution hits the performance; I know it does. What I'm asking is this:-
You say you're getting 45 fps on WoW when you run at 1280 x 800. Now assuming from your post that your notebook has a wsxga screen, your notebook is not running at its native resolution. Now take the exact same notebook as yours but put a wxga screen on it so that now it is running at native resolution... what fps will you get?

Ruptured and Freonchill understood my question correctly.
Theoretically you would recieve the same performance. You're only changing the display unit.
Think of it this way. Run 1280x1024 with a 17inch crt on a desktop, then run 1280x4024 on a 30inch crt on that same desktop. The only thing that changed was the physical size of the display. Nothing that affects the performance of the machine, just the display.
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post #8 of 20
10/18/05 at 4:07am
performance will be the same, image quality will not though.
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post #9 of 20
10/18/05 at 4:44am
I don’t think that’s how it goes....

I think if you got a WXGA and a WSXGA with same specs (just the screen variable), the WXSGA will look slower, because it demands more from the graphics card.
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post #10 of 20
10/18/05 at 9:31am
I would agree with you, sorry I didn't read your second post when I answered earlier.
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post #11 of 20
10/18/05 at 4:17pm
Thread Starter 
So the general opinion seems to be that there would not be any significant difference in performance due to the "native resolution" factor. Hmm, ok... thanks for the replies everyone.
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post #12 of 20
10/18/05 at 6:14pm
UHHH the performance hit from 800x 600 to 1920x 1200 is HUGE!!!!! My WUXGA lcd does a great job at displaying 1024x768 or 800x600 in wide screen. It doesnt matter if its native or not if its a fun game. Althogh it is nicer in native but very unplayable. At least on a 6600go 128.
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post #13 of 20
10/18/05 at 8:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sangorel
So the general opinion seems to be that there would not be any significant difference in performance due to the "native resolution" factor. Hmm, ok... thanks for the replies everyone.
EDIT - I'm an idiot. You're right. Running at native resolution wether your graphics card can push it or not has nothing to do with performance. The deciding factor is wether your GFX card has the power to push that native resolution.
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post #14 of 20
10/19/05 at 10:59am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by The-Traveler
UHHH the performance hit from 800x 600 to 1920x 1200 is HUGE!!!!! My WUXGA lcd does a great job at displaying 1024x768 or 800x600 in wide screen. It doesnt matter if its native or not if its a fun game. Althogh it is nicer in native but very unplayable. At least on a 6600go 128.
For the last time, I'm not talking about the performance hit when you go from 800 x 600 to 1920 x 1200. Read my second post in this thread... I'm quoting it below:

Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalpunk
The higher resolution will take more grunt from the graphics card.
For instance, at 1200x800 World of Warcraft shows 45fps when running around and doing normal stuff on my laptop.
Increase that resolution all the way up to 1680x1050 and I'm lucky to get 12fps.
The higher the resolution the more area the graphics card has to display or the more area there is to fill with an image that is constantly moving.

I'm not asking if running the game at higher resolution hits the performance; I know it does. What I'm asking is this:-
You say you're getting 45 fps on WoW when you run at 1280 x 800. Now assuming from your post that your notebook has a wsxga screen, your notebook is not running at its native resolution. Now take the exact same notebook as yours but put a wxga screen on it so that now it is running at native resolution... what fps will you get?
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post #15 of 20
10/19/05 at 5:01pm
Ok here i go again....

I had a I600 with a wuxga i hated it ever since i turned it on... things looked so small. It has an 128 ATI x300 . When i tried running WOW on it i dont know how many FPS i got... all i know is that it looked choppy. I never played it on a lower resolution tho... i inmediatly changed the system for a WXGA (not even wsxga). And when i played wow again on the native resolution it looked so damn good, with no choppyness at all.

Regards my statement i asume that with the WUXGA i got less FPS playing on native resolution than on the wxga.

I hope that answers your question.
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post #16 of 20
10/19/05 at 5:07pm
I believe that the resolution post processing (upscaling etc) is actually done by the hardware in the LCD, so you should see no difference whatsoever.

That said - games can look fairly crappy out of Native Resolution.
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post #17 of 20
10/19/05 at 5:24pm
My rule of thumb.....look at what resolutions Apple uses for each screen size. They are typically the most ergonomic and readable resolutions. Going higher will mean smaller text/graphics per screen inch.

For GPU's, each has a maximum resolution that it can maintain reasonable frame rates. So obviously you want that maximum resolution to be the native one of the lcd if you game on it...

x300/go5400 = 1024x768/800x600
x700/go6600 = 1280x800 or 1280x1024
x800/go6800 = 1680x1050? Never tried these
go7800 = 1920x1200? Probably 16x10 is its sweet spot for max quality and fps.

I always try to get an LCD with the same resolution that I expect to be gaming at given the power of the GPU in the laptop and the performance requirements of the games I play.
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post #18 of 20
10/19/05 at 6:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalpunk
Theoretically you would recieve the same performance. You're only changing the display unit.
Think of it this way. Run 1280x1024 with a 17inch crt on a desktop, then run 1280x4024 on a 30inch crt on that same desktop. The only thing that changed was the physical size of the display. Nothing that affects the performance of the machine, just the display.
I'll stand by this.
This is a little bit of a confusing question because it sounds like the original poster is asking if the native resolution is higher will it affect performance. He's not.
What he's asking is this. Give me 2 4750's with the exact same configuration but for the screens. 1 screen has a native resolution of 1440x900 and the other is 1650x1024. If I use the 1440x900 in native resolution and drop the 1650x1024 down to 1440x900 will I see an increase in FPS from the 1440x900 native notebook to the native 1650x1024 running @ 1440x900 notebook? The answer is, theoretically, all things being equal, no. They should be the same frames per second because a specific resolution being the native resolution of a screen should do nothing to performance it should only improve image quality.
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post #19 of 20
10/19/05 at 8:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalpunk
I'll stand by this.
This is a little bit of a confusing question because it sounds like the original poster is asking if the native resolution is higher will it affect performance. He's not.
What he's asking is this. Give me 2 4750's with the exact same configuration but for the screens. 1 screen has a native resolution of 1440x900 and the other is 1650x1024. If I use the 1440x900 in native resolution and drop the 1650x1024 down to 1440x900 will I see an increase in FPS from the 1440x900 native notebook to the native 1650x1024 running @ 1440x900 notebook? The answer is, theoretically, all things being equal, no. They should be the same frames per second because a specific resolution being the native resolution of a screen should do nothing to performance it should only improve image quality.
WOW... your rewording changed the question to really make sense! I'd agree with you, native resolution should have any affect of FPS when you switch to and from.
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post #20 of 20
10/20/05 at 10:29am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalpunk
I'll stand by this.
This is a little bit of a confusing question because it sounds like the original poster is asking if the native resolution is higher will it affect performance. He's not.
What he's asking is this. Give me 2 4750's with the exact same configuration but for the screens. 1 screen has a native resolution of 1440x900 and the other is 1650x1024. If I use the 1440x900 in native resolution and drop the 1650x1024 down to 1440x900 will I see an increase in FPS from the 1440x900 native notebook to the native 1650x1024 running @ 1440x900 notebook? The answer is, theoretically, all things being equal, no. They should be the same frames per second because a specific resolution being the native resolution of a screen should do nothing to performance it should only improve image quality.
Exacto! Thanks for rewording my question to make it clearer. Sorry for the confusion in my original post
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