Resolution question

[OnionRings]

So I was wondering something, my PC can sometimes struggle with heavier games like witcher at 1080p so I thought about backing down to 720p but when I do it looks terrible, everything becomes larger and blurry, is this normal? How come consoles that play 720p look crisp and clear and not huge and blurry like my pc games? Am I doing something wrong?

[vanished]

well they do also look bad, but you don't notice usually because you sit farther away

 

And yes that's normal.  It's a result of trying to map 720p to a 1080 LCD panel, which has discrete pixels, unlike a CRT which can adjust.

[WoodenMarker]

If you're using a 1080p display, the pixels wouldn't line up and the image would have to be upscaled from 720p.

[OnionRings]

Oh ok so its my monitor then, so then how come TVs and consoles change fine? Are they a different type of screen? (my old 32'' was LED not LCD)and is there a way to fix it? Would changing my monitors native resolution under properties do it or no?

[Shiv78]

1 minute ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

Because you play on consoles from farther away. And yes, that's normal, pretty much the reason why higher resolutions are better.

Also, consoles upscale ALL their content to the TV's res (usually 1080p) so the effect is less noticeable.

[OnionRings]

1 minute ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

Because you play on consoles from farther away. And yes, that's normal, pretty much the reason why higher resolutions are better.

Alright then so I stick to 1080. I was JW if maybe I had a setting wrong or something but nope, sounds good, I just need to get a new GPU then lol. 

[OnionRings]

Thanks all.

[Shiv78]

Just now, OnionRings said:

Alright then so I stick to 1080. I was JW if maybe I had a setting wrong or something but nope, sounds good, I just need to get a new GPU then lol. 

Stick to 1080p and just lower the settings rather than res.

[vanished]

15 minutes ago, OnionRings said:

Oh ok so its my monitor then, so then how come TVs and consoles change fine? Are they a different type of screen? (my old 32'' was LED not LCD)and is there a way to fix it? Would changing my monitors native resolution under properties do it or no?

It's also worth mentioning that it's possible you had a 720p TV, which of course would make 720p content look better than a 1080p screen of the same size.