pls help me understand display resolution and framerate

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Hi,
New to pc gaming. Can someone pls explain how understand what resolution and framerate to use for gamer pls?

Ewan
 
Resolution is the number of pixels or dots that make up an image. Most basic monitors up to 24” (although there are some bigger at this resolution) are ‘1080p’ or 1920 pixels wide and 1080 high. Then you have what’s known as 1440p which is 2560 pixels wide and 1440p high. Other common resolutions are 3440x1440p and 4k or 3840x2160p. The ‘p’ means progressive as it can update every pixel on the same refresh. Older TV’s sometimes had 1080i or interlaced, every other frame was updated, the odd pixels 1, 3, 5 etc then on the next pass 2, 4, 6 etc.

Frame rate is how often the picture on the screen can be changed or refreshed, hence refresh rate.There are many variables, but generally for gaming you want more than 60Frames Per Second or FPS. Limits caused by the monitor, the power of your graphics card, even the type of cable and connection you’re using can influence the frame rate.
 
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Higher resolution increases performance cost but gives better image quality. Every monitor has a native (optimal) resolution it’s designed to display.

FPS (frames per second) is how many images your graphics card generates each second—for example, 60 FPS means 60 unique frames every second.

Your monitor also has a refresh rate, measured in hertz (Hz), which is how many times per second it can refresh the displayed image.

If your FPS matches the monitor’s refresh rate, motion looks smooth. You can have FPS lower or higher than the refresh rate—lower FPS makes things look choppier, like a slideshow, while higher FPS can still help reduce input lag and screen tearing, even if the monitor can’t show every frame.


I have a 240hz monitor and usually just set it to 120hz and cap it at 100fps.. anything above that makes no difference to me, 60 is prob the minimum to appear mostly smooth but not fluid, although a lot will probably say 100 or 120.
but its a luxury same as high res.

4k is a hell of a lot more demanding on a gpu than 1080p

  • 1080p (1920 × 1080) = ~2.07 million pixels per frame
  • 4K (3840 × 2160) = ~8.29 million pixels per frame
(not actual size image)
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Hi,
New to pc gaming. Can someone pls explain how understand what resolution and framerate to use for gamer pls?

Ewan

Resolution is a general term that refers to the amount of detail in a given system.

In games it may refer to many different systems, for example the display resolution, the texture resolution or the shadow resolution to name a few. In all cases the general principle is that the higher the resolution the more detail (think higher quality)

Because everything in the game needs to be computed mathematically, the higher the resolution of the various settings the longer it takes to calculate, and so the lower the frame rate. These settings are inversely proportional to one another, the higher the resolution the lower the fps.

Normally what gamers do is turn up the quality of the settings as far as they can until the frame rate becomes too slow, that way the game looks as good as possible, but remains playable. The balance between visuals and frame rate is entirely subjective, use whatever feels best for you. It's usually best to experiment a bit when first installing a game to find a sweet spot you're happy with.
 
hi,
Thanks for all the replies. sorry should have said my monitor is a

LG Electronics UltraGear Gaming Monitor 27GQ50F-B - 27 inch, VA Panel, 165Hz, 1ms MBR, 1920 x 1080​

my graphic card is a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 GPU
 
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