Native resolution.

[davisflow]

Should I purchase an LCD monitor with a 1920 x 1080 native resolution?

I have just purchased parts from Newegg for my new PC and I currently have a CRT monitor.
The PC I will be building should run current games at 1920x1080.
(-Athlon II X3 440. 3.0mhz. -DDR3 1600 4gb. -Radeon HD 5770.)

So, from the reading I have done, LCD monitors have no advantage over CRTs other than size, and power usage.

The problem that concerns me the most is the native resolution. From what I know, if I purchase an LCD monitor with a 1920 x 1080 native resolution and try to run it at a lower resolution, there will be obvious blurring and poorer image quality. Which is exactly what I would be trying to avoid by purchasing a monitor with 1920 x 1080 resolution.

My concern is that my PC will not be able to run future games at the 1920 x 1080 resolution and I will be forced to decrease the resolution on the monitor, which will completely void the point of even buying the monitor with the 1920 x 1080 native resolution.

Of course, if money were not a concern there would be no problem as I would simply upgrade my PC as needed.

So, what do you think, is my assessment of the situation correct?

If so, it sounds like keeping a CRT is the best option for the budget gamer as CRTs can scale to any resolution without problems.
Anyone know where to buy decent, and new, CRTs?? 😱

 

[jaguarskx]

I wouldn't be overly concerned with strictly using native resolution. Yes, it will provide you with the best / sharpest text and graphics over lower resolution, but it is not like sticking needles in your eyes.

Have you or your friends ever played any Xbox 360 or PS3 games on a HDTV? How does the graphics look? Do you have friends who complains about text and graphics looking slightly fuzzy? Why do I ask? At best consoles games are rendered at 720p then stretched to the entire HDTV screen. I have friends who have these consoles, I don't ever recall them complaining about fuzzy graphics.

The following as links to a review of my inexpensive Asus VK246H 1920x1080 LCD monitor. The first is for text, the second is for graphics for different resolutions:

http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/review/2009/review-asus-vk246h-part9.html#Text
http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/review/2009/review-asus-vk246h-part10.html


The following review link is for text and graphics interpolation of my more expensive NEC LCD2690WUXi:

http://www.prad.de/en/monitore/review/2009/review-nec-lcd2690wuxi2-bk-part14.html#Interpolation

 

[davisflow]

Wow, great. Thank you for your help. Really appreciate the links : )

 

[davisflow]

Best answer selected by davisflow.

 

[davisflow]

So a follow up question about native resolutions and scaling in LCD monitors.
I am looking at the Samsung XL2370-1 Monitor, which has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080.
I would like to know which resolutions will be available with this monitor on my system.

-Athlon II X3 440. 3.0mhz. -DDR3 1600 4gb. -Radeon HD 5770.

So I made a couple phone calls, and Samsung reported that this monitor could scale to all resolutions below 1920 x 1080, 15 total resolution settings. They also stated that the available resolutions were dependent upon your GPU.

I have been unable to find information anywhere about available resolutions with the HD 5770.

I would hate to buy this monitor and find out that I have the option of 1920 x 1080 and then 1024 x 768 without higher available resolution settings.

Anyone know where I can get this info? (Without buying the monitor and actually hooking it up)

Thanks.

 

[panto]

I'm sure if you install the latest 5770 drivers you'll have more resolutions available than you want to know about. It's likely that you'll end up choosing the native resolution for windows desktop and occasionally lowering to something like 1680x1050 in games if you don't choose to lower details instead. The number of resolutions available is really a non issue since you'll only ever use one or two. And I can almost promise you there will be many resolutions to choose from between 1920x1080 and 1024x768. It's probably not listed because it's trivial.

 

[davisflow]

Ah, great. Thank you for the reply : )