What is the truth when it comes to non-native resolution gaming?

[carzacc]

Is it true that playing at a non-native resolution makes the image look blurry and distorted?

For example, does it look much worse to play at 1280x720 on a 1920x1080 compared to playing at 1280x720 with a 1280x720 monitor?

[don_svetlio]

yes, it's true. 720p on a 720p panel looks better than 720p on a 4K panel

[TheRandomness]

Just have a look at youtube. 480p on a 1080p screen is gross.

[vorticalbox]

1 minute ago, TheRandomness said:

Just have a look at youtube. 480p on a 1080p screen is gross.

What if you change your screen to 480p? 

[TheRandomness]

Just now, vorticalbox said:

What if you change your screen to 480p? 

Then it'd be fine.

[vorticalbox]

Just now, TheRandomness said:

Then it'd be fine.

then i suggest @carzacc to change the screen resolution to the one he wishes to game on.

[Mira Yurizaki]

8 minutes ago, TheRandomness said:

Just have a look at youtube. 480p on a 1080p screen is gross.

That's kind of a bad comparison considering YouTube uses a low enough bitrate that's passable but not exactly the best. 1080p videos don't even look that good compared to a Blu-Ray movie

 

@carzacc

To answer your question, yes, it makes the image blurry. The lower the resolution "steps", the worse it looks. In your example, 720p is about 3 "steps" below 1080p, as the standard resolutions below it are 1680x1050 and 1440x810 (that's if you don't count 1368x768 as another step). Though I've found if you use a high DPI monitor, like a 24" or 27" 4K monitor, it doesn't look as bad if you use the "normal" resolution for that size (1080p and 2560x1440 respectively).

[Sakkura]

The monitor has to stretch/interpolate the pixels to make it fit, which results in crap like this:

 

 

So yes, all else being equal, 720p on a 1080p screen looks worse than 720p on a 720p screen. Heck, 540p might look better than 720p on the 1080p screen (540p can give a non-interpolated image on 1080p because each 540p pixel is exactly equivalent to 2x2 pixels on 1080p).

[carzacc]

8 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

The monitor has to stretch/interpolate the pixels to make it fit, which results in crap like this:

 

IMAGE REMOVED FROM QUOTE

 

So yes, all else being equal, 720p on a 1080p screen looks worse than 720p on a 720p screen. Heck, 540p might look better than 720p on the 1080p screen (540p can give a non-interpolated image on 1080p because each 540p pixel is exactly equivalent to 2x2 pixels on 1080p).

I get it now, thanks you all for answering, this community is always very helpful

Edited September 18, 2016 by carzacc
Removed the image for readability

[Godlygamer23]

16 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

What if you change your screen to 480p? 

It'd still be horrifying to look at, but it'd look better.