Hi guys. I'm in a bit of a dilemma here.. A year ago (pretty much bang on) I moved out of my mother's house where I had my PC all set up. When I moved in here (a huge farm house in Dorset near Sandbanks) there was nowhere at first to set up my desks (I used two) That was my "at that time" rig. I was running 480s in SLI so I bought a Foxconn board and that case on Scan clearance for £90 or so, and a PSU for £60 (Cougar GS). When the summer ended I put the gear back into my Aurora case and then had a leak etc,etc etc.. Any way yes, I could not set up my stuff as in the pic above. As time went on and I realised the relationship was 'for real' and I was going to be fully committed I decided to sell the LG passive 3D monitor in the picture above. I wasn't using it and it was just sitting there losing value. I managed to get back what I paid for it (£140 or so on a Amazon clearance) and bought a M11X for my daily email needs. Then I procured my Area 51 ALX chassis and sold the Aurora.... Fast forward to now. Since then a lot has happened and I have basically transformed what was a damp unused room in a state of disrepair into a liveable room with nice decor and carpet. There is room in here to set up my desk array as above. One is here, one is at mum's still but I'm going there tomorrow. Any way, I have a choice. I would like a poll but hey, just speak up and let me know what you guys think. At mum's I still have the monitor I was using before I went 3D. It's a Hannspree affair and cost £130 years ago. 1080p, speakers in the monitor ETC. However, even though it's 1080p and works perfectly well it has a slight blue hue to it that no tweaking or calibration could remove. As I say, it works really well the picture is just a bit cold. Right now mum is using that as a TV with a Freeview HD box plugged in via HDMI. My second choice is a Lenovo Thinkvision L197WA. It's a 19" monitor but it's 1440x900 so 16:10 I believe. Either way it looks taller in screen size than my Hannspree. It's DVI and the picture quality is just out of this world. I picked it up on Ebay and was going to use it as an accessory screen over a year ago whilst I was still at mum's. I broke off the stand and mounted it to the wall and the stand was sadly not reusable. However, thanks to my skills as a carpenter I have made a new stand that actually looks OK. Here it is here.. Fully tilt-able because it's using the wall bracket. Sooo, my question is this.. What would you guys prefer? image quality over pixel density? I know that 670 SLI is massive overkill for 1440x900 but do you think I could offset the lack of resolution by using, say, 8XMSAA ? Apologies it's a bit long winded I tend to type as fast as I talk lol.
Personally, I prefer image quality. That being said, I'm not sure I could downsize from any given resolution other than a very minor shift. Specifically referring to going from a 16x10 to a 16x9. I went from a 16x10 19in, to a 16x9 23in, to my current 16x9 27in. The first two were LCD backlit, the current one being LED backlit. All three were 1920 across, but that first one was 1200 vertical as opposed to 1080. I lost pixels, but I gained in quality and physical screen size. I've gone with a larger physical screen rather than higher resolution, partly due to cost. I managed to get some really good deals on all three monitors. I imagine that if I ever step up to a higher resolution, it would be difficult to adjust back down to 1080. I'm not sure you would notice that much of a difference by maxing out the AA. But, you will definitely notice the resolution difference. Personally, given the particular situation at hand, I'd stick with the blue-ish 1080 for a little while longer until you can save up for an equivalent or better replacement.
I'm kind of wondering if 900p uses the same textures as 1080p. Or, whether a game producer like DICE includes textures for every resolution setting. Screen size? tbh there isn't much in it. The Hannspree is 23" 16:9 and the Lenovo is 16:10 19" but for some reason looking at it now it seems more than big enough. I'm currently running the PC on a 50" TV @ 1080p but tbh the image quality is ****ing dire. For some reason the TV likes to leave 'burn in' marks on the set even though it's an LCD. When gaming I can clearly see outlines of my desktop picture or windows I've had open. I guess I'll see how it goes. I mean the Lenovo was over £200 at the time of its launch in '09 and it was easy to bag a Acer or what not then for £100 or so. I'll let you know how I get on and I will take some high res camera pics with 8XMSAA
As far as I know texture quality is not dependent on resolution. That's why you often get a separate setting for textures. The only difference is that, the lower the resolution, the smaller the 2D plane on which the textures are projected, so not all details (every pixel of the original texture) may be visible. (correct me if I'm wrong here please) Including a separate texture set for every resolution would be absolute madness for developers.