Question Can I force a game to run in 720p while still having it cover my entire screen?

[NovaInfernus]

Changing resolution makes the game smaller which I don't want. I wan't the game to cover the entire screen but run in 720p instead of 1080p for better performance.

 

[LinuxDevice]

I think it depends on the hardware and driver. For NVIDIA hardware, that usually means you can change that with the GeForce Experience app. Windows itself has its own settings, but I don't know what is available there (and it might be more basic than a vendor-specific driver).

Also, some Windows systems can be told to magnify things. It depends on the Windows version. Something like this might apply:
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/4597/windows-10-feature-focus-display-scaling

 

[SkyNetRising]

Can I force a game to run in 720p while still having it cover my entire screen?

What graphics card do you have?

For Nvidia cards go into Nvidia control panel/Adjust desktop size and postition
and set scaling to either Full screen or Aspect ratio.

 

[TerryLaze]

Changing resolution makes the game smaller which I don't want. I wan't the game to cover the entire screen but run in 720p instead of 1080p for better performance.

Games only get smaller if you use windowed mode, if you run them in full screen the monitor will adapt to the resolution and it will always cover the whole screen.

...And look terrible if you go too low on resolution, going from 1080 to 720 will make every single pixel be 2 pixels wide and 2 pixels tall so every pixel will be 4 pixels.

Which is why they invented dlss/fsr for bigger differences in resolution.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Games only get smaller if you use windowed mode, if you run them in full screen the monitor will adapt to the resolution and it will always cover the whole screen.

No. This depends on graphics scaling in driver settings.
No scaling will result in small 720p image in center of 1080p screen - in windowed as well as in full screen mode.

going from 1080 to 720 will make every single pixel be 2 pixels wide and 2 pixels tall so every pixel will be 4 pixels.

Again - No. 1080p is (1920x1080) and 720p is (1280x720).
1080 is not 720x2.
1920 is not 1280x2.
For 720p image each pixel doesn't get stretched to 2x2 pixels on 1080p screen.

This is true for 4k (3840x2160) and 1080p (1920x1080) resolutions though.
For 1080p image each pixel will be exactly 2x2 pixels on 4k screen.

 

[TerryLaze]

No. This depends on graphics scaling in driver settings.
No scaling will result in small 720p image in center of 1080p screen - in windowed as well as in full screen mode.

Yes it will, try skyrim windowed mode, there are tons of games that will do it.
Most won't start centered but in the top left corner though.

Again - No. 1080p is (1920x1080) and 720p is (1280x720).
1080 is not 720x2.
1920 is not 1280x2.
For 720p image each pixel doesn't get stretched to 2x2 pixels on 1080p screen.

Sure, even worse, cause now pixels will be partial pixels and not whole pixels.

 

[NovaInfernus]

Games only get smaller if you use windowed mode, if you run them in full screen the monitor will adapt to the resolution and it will always cover the whole screen.

...And look terrible if you go too low on resolution, going from 1080 to 720 will make every single pixel be 2 pixels wide and 2 pixels tall so every pixel will be 4 pixels.

Which is why they invented dlss/fsr for bigger differences in resolution.

Borderless fullscreen mode fixed it on one game but not all games have it. I'll try the nvidia control panel thing later.