1280x1024 stretched looks blurrier on another monitor

[cjcj11]

Hi, so generally for when I play Counter Strike, i play at a 4:3 resolution stretched to 16:9, specifically 1280x1024. I have 2 1080p monitors, one of which is a 24 inch dell, and another is a 23 inch lg IPS, i notice that when the dell is running the 4:3 stretched, it is much sharper and actually looks really good. on the lg however, that resolution stretched to the full screen is way blurrier. does anyone know what is causing this?

It's not really a problem right now as i just use the dell to play, but when I start school my 2 displays will be separated, one at school and one at home, so at one of the two ill be forced to use the lg, which for some reason absolutely sucks at 1280x1024 stretched.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[rhysiam]

If your PC is sending the monitor a signal in the wrong resolution, then it's the monitor that has to do the work to convert each frame into the correct number of pixels for its own display. LCDs have a fixed number of pixels, so the only way the do this is by analysing the pixels in the source image and interpolating - or approximating the correct colour for each pixel.

My guess would be that the Dell monitor does a much better job of that process than your LG display.


Does your computer really struggle that much with CS:Go that you have to drop the resolution to get playable frame rates?

You might actually be better dropping to 720P (1280 x 720), at least then you'd have the correct aspect ratio so things wouldn't be stretched. It's also possible the cheaper LG display handles that interpolation process at a higher quality - but that's pure speculation on my part (worth trying though).

 

[cjcj11]

If your PC is sending the monitor a signal in the wrong resolution, then it's the monitor that has to do the work to convert each frame into the correct number of pixels for its own display. LCDs have a fixed number of pixels, so the only way the do this is by analysing the pixels in the source image and interpolating - or approximating the correct colour for each pixel.

My guess would be that the Dell monitor does a much better job of that process than your LG display.


Does your computer really struggle that much with CS:Go that you have to drop the resolution to get playable frame rates?

You might actually be better dropping to 720P (1280 x 720), at least then you'd have the correct aspect ratio so things wouldn't be stretched. It's also possible the cheaper LG display handles that interpolation process at a higher quality - but that's pure speculation on my part (worth trying though).

okay so its purely hardware based then, that was my fear. and it has nothing to do with framerates, well sorta. in cs go stretching the 4:3 resolution heads are wider which means more area on your screen to hit heads.
also both of those monitors are capable of doing 75 hz at 1280x1024 while only 60hz at 1080p, so i mean. a 25% increase in hz is also helpful.

 

[rhysiam]

okay so its purely hardware based then, that was my fear. and it has nothing to do with framerates, well sorta. in cs go stretching the 4:3 resolution heads are wider which means more area on your screen to hit heads.
also both of those monitors are capable of doing 75 hz at 1280x1024 while only 60hz at 1080p, so i mean. a 25% increase in hz is also helpful.

Fair enough, I must confess I had no idea that was a thing for CS:Go. Learn something new every day.

I'm not 100% sure my "guess" is correct, but I can't think of any other explanation for why the picture from the same PC would be so different on two otherwise similar displays - that look similar at their native resolution. It certainly makes sense.

 

[helpstar]

maybe window mode could help, desktop in normal 1080p resolution and game window scaled to your needs

 

[cjcj11]

I will try this tomorrow as soon as I get the chance

 

[rhysiam]

maybe window mode could help, desktop in normal 1080p resolution and game window scaled to your needs

That's a really interesting idea as that would get the GPU to resize game, which should do so at a much higher quality.

I've never really played around with Windowed mode gaming myself, but my understanding is that it hands over the final frame to the Windows Desktop Manager, which can introduce additional input lag between the game engine and the rendered image actually appearing on your monitor. You'd want to pay careful attention to whether there's a noticable decrease in response time. Fire the gun or move the mouse and check that the delay is not an issue.

But for sure, that's a great suggestion and definitely worth trying.