About Games Resolution Matching Desktop Resolution

[Guest Tozzifan]

hello,although I've read before about suggestions to set up games resolution equal to desktop resolution because games would be better performing, I did not verify that suggestion so farlast night I tried that in FSX and (!) I've checked out that suggestion: increasing resolutions (in my case, from 1600x900 to 1920x1200 to 2560x1200) wouldn't cause the huge fps drop I would expect: I've noticed only 2 or 3 fps drop :( I have a non professional technical knowledge of computers, thence I'd like - if possible - a quite comprehensible explanation of this peculiaritythanks

[tfm 169]

hello,although I've read before about suggestions to set up games resolution equal to desktop resolution because games would be better performing, I did not verify that suggestion so farlast night I tried that in FSX and (!) I've checked out that suggestion: increasing resolutions (in my case, from 1600x900 to 1920x1200 to 2560x1200) wouldn't cause the huge fps drop I would expect: I've noticed only 2 or 3 fps drop :( I have a non professional technical knowledge of computers, thence I'd like - if possible - a quite comprehensible explanation of this peculiaritythanks

High-end GPUs can deliver reasonably consistent performance across a range of different resolutions including high resolutions. Consistent performance means that it might not get faster at lower resolutions, but it shouldn't get intolerably slower at higher ones. Under FSX the CPU struggles to provide the GPU with a constant supply of suitable data even at lower resolutions. So a high-end GPU at low resolutions usually has sufficient reserves to tackle higher resolutions without ill-effect. This means that choosing a higher resolution does not generally threaten the ability of a high-end GPU to deliver consistent performance. (I say "generally" because you might have a high-end GPU which turns out not be quite high-end for your purposes, because it lacks sufficient memory or because some error of configuration or design deprives it of its theoretical potential.) But what about the CPU? The CPU is massively over-worked in FSX. Choosing a higher resolution adds to its woes. BUT: the extra work imposed on the CPU by choosing a higher resolution is RELATIVELY small COMPARED WITH the other work the CPU is already doing anyway. If you like, processing higher resolutions requires a RELATIVELY small ADDITIONAL proportion of the CPU's OVERALL effort, compared with lower resolutions. So choosing a higher resolution will not bring most modern CPUs to their knees.The combination of those considerations means that FSX's performance on a PC with a high-end GPU and a modern CPU will seldom be reduced significantly by choosing higher resolutions. If you have a high-end GPU and suffer a significant down-turn in performance when choosing higher resolutions then this is almost certainly because you have reached a tipping point in terms of what your CPU can handle. This would suggest that the CPU must really be struggling quite hard already, in which case you probably aren't getting a very good experience anyway even at lower resolutions.Tim