Monitor questions and a gaming newbie.

[lttlejoe]

OK I'm monitor ignorant so excuse what will seem to most as a dumb question.
I'm an older geezer who's decided to have a go at gaming so while I understand the basics of putting together a computer, I know virtually nothing about gaming & monitors and I'm simply winging it as I go.

I'm waiting until later in September after my holidays etc to update my existing mobo etc with something like a Ryzen 1600/2600, but the other day I treated myself to a GTX 1060 3Gb mini and being impatient, stuck it in my old mobo with it's Phenom 11 x 4 955 BE cpu to see what would happen and I was actually amazed at the performance from something as old and outdated as the Phenom cpu.

I downloaded the free version of 'Fortnite' and while I was rubbish at playing it, even with most of the settings on 'epic' and a 120 fps limit I was able to get it silky smooth at 60-90 fps average with no trouble whatsoever. I could have got far higher fps counts by lowering the quality but I wanted to see what it could achieve with the highest settings.
I had originally intended to just go for Ryzen 2400 G APU based system for entry level gaming but I'm so glad I didn't as I now think I'd have been rather disappointed in the performance after seeing this. The performance of the 2400 G APU is only similar to a GTX 1030 so hardly suited to more demanding games.

My current monitor is an older HP VGA-only monitor with a maximum display size of 1680 x 1050 but with an HDMI-VGA adaptor I got it running perfectly and crisply with the GPU and will be more than adequate until after I upgrade my cpu etc and then I'll buy a new monitor.

My question is: as my monitor has only 85% of the pixel count of a 1080p screen, if I bought a new monitor now would I see any marked improvement in both the visual aspects as well as a reduction in fps count? I would assume that more pixels would be sharper but take more rendering and therefore lower the fps performance...is that correct?
While I'm not exactly skint, I'd rather wait until after I get the bits to upgrade the computer ( CPU + Mobo + 16Gb ram and new PSU) before I buy a new 1080p monitor and then if I make do with this for the time being, I can maybe afford a better quality monitor to match my new upgrade.
I doubt I'll be anything more than a casual gamer and I certainly won't be a maximum fps junkie, but I do like to buy decent quality items rather than something cheap that I won't be happy with.

 

[eeii]

I think the best way of explaining it is the greater the resolution the more pixels the graphics card has to render. So the harder the graphics card has to work.
You are correct. Lots of things can effect FPS. It depends on what your system is doing at the time. For example some games can be cpu bound like the open world ones. Before you launch the game open resource monitor or msi afterburner (you will need to install this) and game for a while then alt tab from the game and have a look at the graphs you will see from there where your weakest link is (cpu / ram / GPU)
You will see a slight improvment from the going from your current resolution to 1920 x 1080 it will not be dramatic.
I would make a guess that you will see a reduction in frame rate but not by much.

 

[lttlejoe]

I think the best way of explaining it is the greater the resolution the more pixels the graphics card has to render. So the harder the graphics card has to work.
You are correct. Lots of things can effect FPS. It depends on what your system is doing at the time. For example some games can be cpu bound like the open world ones. Before you launch the game open resource monitor or msi afterburner (you will need to install this) and game for a while then alt tab from the game and have a look at the graphs you will see from there where your weakest link is (cpu / ram / GPU)
You will see a slight improvment from the going from your current resolution to 1920 x 1080 it will not be dramatic.
I would make a guess that you will see a reduction in frame rate but not by much.

Thanks for the reply which is sort of the way I was thinking. I'm under no illusions with the current set up...I'm on 8 Gb of DDR 3 ram with an old cpu so the 1060 GPU will never reach its full potential but between them they're doing OK and if I was on a seriously low budget limit or like many gamers in poorer countries, this set up would probably do all that they want of it. I thought it would be terrible which is why I was somewhat surprised.

I'll definitely download those progs to see what is happening but as I say, I won't be expecting too much as I know where the weaknesses will be.
Having said that, this afternoon I upped the frame limit on Fortnite and it was still constantly returning around 60-100 fps without any stutter etc even on the highest settings which I thought was not bad at all. Fitting the 1060 was definitely the correct move for me and I'll be able to install it in the new rig too.

As I've already mentioned, I'm not worried about fps figures as long as the games are comfortably playable which is really all that matters...if I get a better monitor and it slightly improves things visually but I lose a few fps as a consequence it won't bother me as it won't make my playing any worse! . If there was an app that I could install that would improve my playing I'd soon install it!