How bad is 1080p downscaling for gaming?

[Gaco]

I have a friend who is about to buy a new widescreen LCD monitor for his new PC primarily for gaming. We're talking about whether he should buy a monitor with native 16:9 1920*1080 resolution or the more familiar 16:10 1680*1050. He does not have a PS3 or X360 and probably won't have, and Bluray is ok, but not a priority.

The main concern is, what happens when his PC gets older and newer games requires more of the hardware? He would have to choose from downsizing the res from the native 1080p or keep the res but lower the detail settings. I myself would hate to make that choice, but having a 22" 1680*1050 monitor I don't really have a choice but to always stay in 1680*1050, so it's not an issue for me. He is not likely the type of person who would use loads of money to upgrade his PC, though a new graphics card in some 2 years time can't be ruled out.

So what do you say? Sure it's nice to have 1080p on the desktop and in many occasions, but for gaming, it's going to put his hardware under a lot of stress. How much of a concern is this relatively high native resolution? I know that LCD monitors don't scale as well as the old CRT, but how bad is it? I should mention that the cost for the 1680*1050 and 1920*1080 LCD monitor is roughly the same.

For 1080p LCD's, the one lower to 1920*1080 seems to be 1366*768, the next one 1280*720p. That's a big step down from 1920*1080, much farther back than 1680*1050. So if going any bigger in resolution than 1680*1050, you should perhaps go for a 16:10 1920*1200 since it scales down to 1680*1050, much better than 1366*768? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ve...Standards2.svg)
That once again brings back my main question, how bad is downsizing from the native res of resolutions in the magnitude of 1920*1200 and 1920*1080 when gaming?

[sharangad]

I have a 1920x1080 monitor. Since this is actually a monitor it's not tied down to 1920x1080. Using scaling it can run at other resolutions like 1600x900 and 1280x720. Admittedly this isn't the native resolution of the screen but it does generally work.

I run Crysis on an 8800 GT in DX10 mode at 1280x720 without any problems.

[Logical]

I'd definately say go with a 1920x1200 resolution monitor but it means going bigger size...24"

But you do get the best of both worlds as 1920x1200 scales down to 1680x1050 effortless and 1080p looks damn nice too...well at least it does on my monitor for gaming and movies.

[Sazar]

Downscaling definitely adds a little blurriness to the game. I would also recommend going with the native resolution.

[josiahsuarez]

1900x1200 is 16:10. 1920x1080 is 16:9. I don't know what 1920x1200 would be

to the OP, 16:9 is becoming the dominant format for screens. for instance alot of websites with streaming video have it formatted to 16:9, so on a 16:10 screen you get black bars on the top and bottom when playing in fullscreen. some poorly written games will do the same thing (I know Silent Hill: Homecoming put's the black bars in if you don't have a 16:9 screen....very annoying).

[Bman212121]

Originally Posted by josiahsuarez

1900x1200 is 16:10. 1920x1080 is 16:9. I don't know what 1920x1200 would be

to the OP, 16:9 is becoming the dominant format for screens. for instance alot of websites with streaming video have it formatted to 16:9, so on a 16:10 screen you get black bars on the top and bottom when playing in fullscreen. some poorly written games will do the same thing (I know Silent Hill: Homecoming put's the black bars in if you don't have a 16:9 screen....very annoying).

Umm, 1920 x 1200 IS 16:10. 1900 x 1200 is like 16:10.105

[josiahsuarez]

Originally Posted by Bman212121

Umm, 1920 x 1200 IS 16:10. 1900 x 1200 is like 16:10.105

you're right, I got mixed up