I've heard that running a 1440p monitor at 1080p will make it look bad. I know what resolution is and it's less pixels but would it look worse than a regular 1080p monitor at full res?
If you scale resolutions to non-integer multiples, the in-between pixels end up with interpolated pixels which are some blend of their neighboring pixels. In other words, you lose some sharpness.
Yes because it will strech to make it 1080P. Whats your current monitor res? Just open any game and make the res one notch down and apply it. Instantly disorentates the game and gives some people headaches after awhile.
Not a single LCD gets scaling right, unless it's a really high end TV, they have good scalers. I'm guessing black bars isn't an option? Even though it's not going to look like 1080 on 1080, it's not going to look bad at all, unless you really look for the difference, you'll quickly get used to it. Our brains do that.
If you scale resolutions to non-integer multiples, the in-between pixels end up with interpolated pixels which are some blend of their neighboring pixels. In other words, you lose some sharpness.