Running Higher Res

[ShiWarrior]

not sure if this belongs here or in monitors

Basically i am thnking of getting a new monitor, a 19" WS (1440x900) or 22" WS (1680x1050)

and ive just tried the 1440x900 res on my ageing 17" CRT (that can actually goto 1600x1200) with my rig in sig and i was shocked to see no performace drop in games at all

HL2
Far Cry
Oblivion

could it be reverting back to another res?

is my graphics card good enough for this highrer res ? becuase it only has 256Mb

I want to b sure i can play games in native res before I buy, thanks

 

[gt_junkie]

Hi ShiWarrior,

You should be absolutely fine all the way up to 1680x1050 i would have thought. Some of the very newest games may push your rig but those games even when run at highish/medium settings look ace!

What res do you generally play in at the moment?

If it's 1280x1024 then that's just over 1.3 million pixels onscreen so if you then get a 1440x900 (which is actually just under 1.3 million pixels) you're stressing your x1950 even less!

Also, if you can play at your 17" crt's native res of 1600x1200 (which equals 1.92 million pixels) and move to a 22" @ 1680x1050 (1.76 million pixels) it once again reduces the ammount of work your ATi is doing!

You could do with a 512mb card in the future but res has nothing to do with that memory usage. It comes down to the quality, and consequently size, of the textures on screen. Think something like Doom 3 that has an ultra setting. With a 256mb card you shouldn't be able to run that smoothly.

Buying my 22" belinea was one of my very favourite and satisfying upgrades! Just do it. You won't be disappointed!

gt

 

[ShiWarrior]

my native res is 1024x768, and thats what i run at, everything accross the board....

its a 17" CRT Sony Trinitron goodness

Thanks for your reply, well informative!

 

[ShiWarrior]

oblivion wont go above 1600x1200 but according to the widescreen website in the sticky it should!

it ran fine @ 1600x1200, i cant belive runing a higer res doesent make much difference

 

[gt_junkie]

1680x1050 will be a lower res and i'm fairly certain that oblivion's only letting you run at 1600x1200 because that's what your monitor maxes at! My GX2 will run 2560x1600 but i don't have that option in my display properties because my display only goes to 1680x1050. I run oblivion at 1680x1050 so it must be an option that activates when you have a monitor that supports that resolution!

If Oblivion runs fine @ 1600x1200 then it will run just as well (if not very very slightly better) at 1680x1050... of course you'd need a 20" or 22" monitor to do that though!

gt

 

[james.miller]

when you take a look at the actual pixel count, it becomes a little clearer

1024x768 = 786,432
1440x900 = 1,296,000
1280x1024 = 1,310,720
1680x1050 = 1,764,000
1600x1200 = 1,920,000

as you can see, 1440x900 isn't much of an adition load on the system and is infact a lower resolution than 1280x1024. you have an x1950 dont forget, its more than happy at 1680x1050 and even 1600x1200 in most games

 

[gt_junkie]

Exactly, like i said yesterday... you'll be fine!

gt