Screen resolution

[PlayLives]

What screen resolution should you use to have graphics in game show up at optimum level?
Also, why do the sims show up better/bigger when I have my screen tilted? (I have a flat pannel)

thanks

[Ancient Sim]

I've just got a new PC and am now able to play at 1024x768 resolution, whereas before the game would automatically default me to 800x600 regardless of what my desktop was set at.  I've not noticed anything different in terms of the picture size or anything, only that the icons are smaller and there are more items shown in the buyable catalogues.  The loading screen isn't so good because there's a huge border round it, whereas before it filled the screen completely, but that's not really important. 

I have noticed that the cinematics are in a sort of letterbox screen, with a large gap above and below, but I'm not sure if they're meant to be like that because I didn't have them before.  I would have thought they would have filled the screen, but they don't.  I do get a sort of mini cinematic thing when someone moves into a house that fills the screen (shows them arriving in a taxi), but that's the only one (so far) that does. 

[kaarinah]

You should use the monitor's recommended resolution, usually 1280x1024.

[Paperbladder]

I just use the 800x600 resolution even though I'm capable in going into the larger ones.  Why on earth should I play the game with less settings on a bigger resolution if the current one works?

Cinematics are letterboxes on my computer too, I wonder if it has anything to do with resolution?

[kaarinah]

Flat monitors are made to show the clearest picture in recommended resolutions, you loose some quality as soon as you use any other . Other than that it doesn't really matter.

In The Sims 2 I didn't find the difference too big but I use the recommende resolution anyway, in Oblivion the difference in quality between 800x600 and 1280x1024 is enormous.

[Hegelian]

If you have an LCD monitor, there is only one "native" resolution. A CRT has an electron gun which can "paint" the screen using a wide range differentof resolutions (that is, the number of picture elements, a.k.a. pixels, expressed as width x height) because it is not dependent on the actual physical phosphors for its resolution (that is, image size);  but an LCD is comprised of fixed pixels and the width x height array is its true or native resolution. LCD monitors have a limited capability to display resolutions other than their native one, but this requires either discarding data for lower resolutions (the screen image looks larger) or inventing data to fill in the spaces for higher resolutions (things on the screen look smaller), and this generally looks like crap. I know that a lot of people with LCD monitors run them at lower-than-native resolutions because they find the image on the screen at the native resolution is smaller than they would like (text, icons, etc.), but doing so largely negates the advantage in sharpness LCD monitors have compared to CRTs. Frankly, using an LCD set below its native resolution (i.e, running a 1024x768 monitor at 800x600) gives me a headache. The degradation of text quality is especially noticeable.

Therefore, the optimal resolution for TS2 on an LCD is the same as it is for any application—the native resolution of the monitor. Although there is some variation between models, in general the native resolution is 1024x768 for 15-inch monitors and 1280x1024 for 17- and 19-inch monitors. I can tell you from personal experience that the game looks much better at the native resolution than it does at something lower (although not as good as on a CRT).

LCD screens have a limited viewing angle, outside of which the image looks washed out. Although modern panels have a much wider viewing angle than did earlier LCD monitors, it still isn't as wide as that of a CRT.

I don't understand the comment about "less settings on a bigger resolution." Resolution is the number of pixels across the screen and from top-to-bottom; higher resolution means more pixels in the same physical space, therefore images are smaller (but your screen is still filled if your monitor and driver settings are correct). Monitor resolution is an absolute value:  1280 pixels across by 1024 pixels down. It is not a relative value, i.e., pixels per inch (or dots per inch or any other similar term). Running at a higher resolution will result in a sharper, more detailed image. Although with CRT monitors there are peformance tradeoffs at very high resolutions (1920x1440, for example), these should not be a factor at "normal" settings, which for CRTs would be 1024x768 for 17-inch monitors and 1280x1024 for 19-inch monitors.  LCDs should be run at their native resolution.

[Paperbladder]

Essentially, my game tends to lag a little more when I use the 1024x768 resolution than it does at the 800x600 resolution.  I don't know if this is just a placebo effect though.  By the way, I do use a CRT monitor.

[akatonbo]

Huh, so I should probably be playing the game at the same resolution (1280x1024) that I normally use on my 17" flatpanel instead of at 1024x768? I suppose I'll have to give it a try.

[PlayLives]

Yeah, akatonbo, that is what I had it set to so I was wondering if changing to another resolution would make the graphics crisper or something. I guess it doesn't.

[J. M. Pescado]

Huh, so I should probably be playing the game at the same resolution (1280x1024) that I normally use on my 17" flatpanel instead of at 1024x768? I suppose I'll have to give it a try.

If your monitor is distorted for 1280x1024, that is the ONLY resolution you should use. Most STANDARD monitors are optimized for an aspect ratio of 4:3, but some weird monitors run at 5:4. If your monitor does this, most things will appear distorted if you use anything else. Check what the highest resolution your monitor supports is, and if it's 4:3, then ONLY use 4:3 resolutions. If it's 5:4, then only use 5:4 resolutions. Otherwise your pictures are going to look stretched or squashed.

[akatonbo]

*shrugs* I've been using 1280x1024 in Windows XP for over a year and 1024x768 in TS2 for months and my graphics don't look distorted to me in either case. I have no idea what resolution my monitor was intended to be used at or how to tell, and I've never thought that switching between those two resolutions on any other monitor I've ever played with that was capable of 1280x1024 looked funny for any other reason than not being used to the size difference. I am fairly sure that I had to jack my resolution up from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 when I got my computer, and I am fairly sure that I had to raise it from 800x600 to 1024x768 in-game when I first started playing, too.

I just tried 1280x1024 in the game and saw no appreciable difference at all in gameplay graphics, and while the UI got annoyingly small, I do like the fact that I can view more objects in the catalog at once, so I'll probably stick with it.

[Hegelian]

Huh, so I should probably be playing the game at the same resolution (1280x1024) that I normally use on my 17" flatpanel instead of at 1024x768? I suppose I'll have to give it a try.

If your monitor is distorted for 1280x1024, that is the ONLY resolution you should use. Most STANDARD monitors are optimized for an aspect ratio of 4:3, but some weird monitors run at 5:4. If your monitor does this, most things will appear distorted if you use anything else. Check what the highest resolution your monitor supports is, and if it's 4:3, then ONLY use 4:3 resolutions. If it's 5:4, then only use 5:4 resolutions. Otherwise your pictures are going to look stretched or squashed.

With a CRT there are a lot of options, since the resolution is essentially created in the driver, but with an LCD there is only one resolution, which is the pixel dimensions (WxH) of the actual crystals in the display panel. Any other resolution requires software intervention (even if built into the monitor); in order to display a lower-than-native resolution (i.e., 800x600 on a monitor with a native resolution of 1280x1024), the monitor must add pixels (data) to the image in order to get the 800x600 image to fill a 1280x1024-pixel array (this is called interpolation, and results in significant degradatiuon of the display image). The alternative is to show the 800x600 image at actual size, which sometimes can be set in the video driver (although many games will run only in full-screen mode), but this rather defeats the purpose of having a 17- or 19-inch monitor, since what you will see is the image that would be displayed on a 15-inch LCD.

Note that standard display resolutions are multiples of 256; 1024x768 equates to 4*256 x 3*256 (4:3) while 1280x1024 = 5*256 x 4*256 (5:4). While distortion may be an issue with a CRT if you use the monitor controls to expand the display image to fill the visible part of the screen and don't make the adjustments exactly proportional in each dimension, an LCD doesn't have this problem. One would assume (or at least hope) that any reasonably well-designed game that allows you to select resolution from within the game (as TS2 does) will display properly at each supported resolution. Hence, there should not be geometric distortion either at 1024x768 on a monitor with that native resolution or at 1280x1024 on a monitor with that resolution. However, you probably will see some distortion if you run the game at 1024x768 on a monitor with a native resolution of 1280x1024. Note again that these are absolute dimensions in pixels; they are not dots per inch or pixels per inch, and cannot be converted into that sort of measurement since the physical dimensions of the display screen can vary between monitor models of the same nominal diagonal size.

With a CRT, geometric distortion is more likely to be the result of the gross changes in screen geometry when expanding the image to fill the visible screen than by any difference between running at a resolution with an aspect ratio of 5:4 on a monitor that is nominally 4:3; but in any case, any such distortion can be corrected using the monitor controls.

The relatively new widescreen LCD displays with an aspect ratio of 16:9 are not part of this discussion.   

I won't state this as absolute fact, but I am fairly certain that for an LCD monitor the highest resolution available in the display-driver controls is the native resolution, assuming the monitor is properly installed in Windows. If you have a 17-inch or 19-inch monitor, this is most probably 1280x1024.

Note that unlike with a CRT, where the refresh rate should be set no lower than 75 Hz and, optimally, at 85 Hz, refresh rate is really not relevant to an LCD since it doesn't "paint" the image on the display screen as does a CRT. However, Windows requires that a refresh rate be selected, so with an LCD it is best to stay at the default value, often 60 Hz.

[Metalkatt]

So, how do non-awesomes like some of us figure out what our native resolution is for an LCD?  (When I say noneawesome, I mean it.  I had no clue there was this much of an issue.)

[RainbowTigress]

I run my 17" CRT at 1024x768.  This is what most websites are optimized for nowadays, and I've gotten used to being able to see more on my screen, although the text and icons are smaller.  Everything looks squashed at 800x600.  When I installed TS2, it automatically ran at 1024x768.  Later I installed it on another computer with an older graphics card to test something out, and the only resolution available was 800x600.  The text and icons were bigger, but the main thing I didn't like about it was that I was unable to open the sim's wants panel and needs panel at the same time.  If I opened the needs panel, the wants panel would shrink down, and vice versa.  But I didn't really play on this PC as it wasn't intended for gaming, so I didn't worry about it too much.  On my game PC, I tried playing in windowed mode after hearing so many people talk about it.  But even though the game was set for 1024x768, it acted as if it were in 800x600 mode by not letting me see the wants and needs panels at the same time.  This resulted in much annoying and unecessary clicking, so I went back to playing in full screen mode.  If I could figure out how to get it to display 1024x768 in windowed mode, I'd do it.

[J. M. Pescado]

So, how do non-awesomes like some of us figure out what our native resolution is for an LCD?  (When I say noneawesome, I mean it.  I had no clue there was this much of an issue.)

With a ruler. Measure the length and width, and take the ratio of the two.

[Hegelian]

So, how do non-awesomes like some of us figure out what our native resolution is for an LCD?  (When I say noneawesome, I mean it.  I had no clue there was this much of an issue.)

It will be in the monitor's documentation, probably listed as "recommended resolution." If you don't have the documentation (and why don't you??), you should be able to find the specifications on the manufacturer's Web site. If you can't find it there, then you can try setting the resolution to the highest available in the video driver, since it is likely that is the native resolution.



If text (and everything else) doesn't look razor-sharp, then you are probably not using the native resolution. Keep in mind that on many LCD monitors, text, icons, and other stuff can look really small compared to what you may be accustomed to when the monitor is set to the proper resolution. If you find that over time these things are too small to adjust to, then you should probably switch to a CRT (while they are still available).   

[PlayLives]

Well my screen and game settings were set to 1024x768. I changed them both to 1024x1024 and everything seems the same except icons on desktop are smaller and wants/needs panel is smaller in game. I thought the graphics would be sharper or something but I guess not. Does anyone know why the graphics appear bigger and more realistic when I tilt my screen?

[Hegelian]

Well my screen and game settings were set to 1024x768. I changed them both to 1024x1024 and everything seems the same except icons on desktop are smaller and wants/needs panel is smaller in game. I thought the graphics would be sharper or something but I guess not. Does anyone know why the graphics appear bigger and more realistic when I tilt my screen?

1024 x 1024 should not be a supported resolution. Did you mean to type 1280 x1024?

LCDs have limited viewing angle. When viewed from outside that angle, the image will appear washed out and one-dimensional.

Edit:  When I switched the game from 1024x768 to 1280x1024 on my LCD, I thought the improvement was significant. But now I run the game on a CRT, where it looks much better than on any LCD.   

[PlayLives]

yes, that's what i meant.