22" Native Resolution Question

[LipsOfVenom]

I have a 22" LCD with 1600x1000 native resolution. Is it ok if I play games at 1024x768? Is the native resolution just a suggestion, or am I stuck with that? My GeForce 6800GS really doesn't do well with new games at that resolution.

 

[kitty500cat]

The native resolution is probably the highest resolution your monitor can support, and possibly the best-looking as well (trying something like 1280x1024 for normal use [non-gaming] probably wouldn't look too good, as it would be distorted and stuff).

Any resolution 1600x1200 or lower should be fine for gaming, and your monitor should support it. However, if you tried a game in a resolution higher than 1600x1200, you might run into problems there instead.

 

[Xorior]

The native resolution is the "Real" or maximum resolution of your screen. Lower resolutions will always give better performance. However, if scaling is enabled by the video adapter, lower resolutions may be stretched to fit the full screen (more processing power), which will make your game at 1024x768 still be full screen. The problem i noticed with scaling on my XPS laptop (19" Widescreen) was that it would scale games even while at the native resolution ( and it's not supposed to) which means all that extra processing power is still being used to scale the image to the same size. I went to my video card options and set scaling to "Center Output" or (Do Not Scale) and my games would then play at my high native resolution with no problems, because it wasn't scaling every image. (Note i have a top end video card) The fall back is you may want to turn scaling back on for older games that have hard coded resolution modes, or they'll be small and centered to the screen. Hope this helps. Scaling is useful, but can sometimes cause performance problems, especially when playing at high native resolutions. Also, if you want to game at native resolution, I suggest keeping your OS at the native resolution also. I have windows at 1920x1200 and play all of my games at 1920x1200. No problems unless scaling is on!, and no resolution changes means my desktop icons stay where I put them! lol

 

[MetalX]

Wait... is it 1600x1200 or 1600x1000?