How much better do you consider gaming at native resolution?

[euskalzabe]

I currently have a 32" QHD monitor. I usually game at 1080p, because I'm still using a 1060 3GB. I normally don't spend more than the $200 range of GPUs, which are geared for 1080p gaming.

I'm wondering, then, when buying a monitor, would you still buy QHD? Or would I still be able to save some money and get a 1080p panel? QHD is clearly better defined, but if I'm not gaming at native resolution, I wonder if I'm really getting the benefit or not. Caveat: I use a 29" 1080p ultrawide at work and I'm happy with it, and I don't think the lower DPI of that resolution at 34" would bother me (I have 27" 1080p monitors elsewhere at home and they're fine).

I'm considering getting a 34" ultrawide later this year, and I can't decide if I should get a QHD or FHD one. That's why I'm interested in knowing what folks here think about it.

 

[kasakka]

1440p has far better fidelity than 1080p. Above 1440p it gets into increasingly smaller benefits so I am fine running 4K at less than native resolution. For desktop use 1440p+ is just much better.

If you want to stick with 1080p then I would not go any larger than those 29" ultrawides.

 

[Desert Fish]

What's wrong with the 32" QHD? Going by my experiences, 34" FHD is fine, but seems like a downgrade. It's also slightly smaller (area).

 

[Archaea]

I can always tell when a LCD PC monitor is running at non-native text. My coworker can’t. Because he can’t he thought I was full of hot air. He challenged me for about an hour one day with a macbook pro and a Dell laptop showing me different resolutions to verify if i could tell when non-native resolutions were used. I could tell every single time. He said he couldn’t tell until the resolution got super low. He was trying to play with font settings a scaling to get everything as Identical bas he could before each question. He’d just shake his head when I got it right each time and wonder why I could see something he could not.

Its up to your eyes if you can or cant. Native is best for a lot of reasons, display lag, sharper pixel mapping, being the big two. But if you cant see it — I guess who cares. I know another guy who os bothered by pixel size way more than me. Hes always pointing it put on my 1080p/4k eshift projector, but I can’t see it and so it doesnt bother me - so I just laugh. It may be nothing more than vision acuity. I still have uncorrected 20/20. The friend who can’t see non-native softness wears glasses. My buddy who sees pixels on my projector screen is an eagle eye.

Personally I’d rather buy a monitor that displays the resolution your system can handle, but the softness of nonnative res bothers me more than the pixel size of lower res. Use you own eyes and pick.

 

[kasakka]

I can always tell when a LCD PC monitor is running at non-native text. My coworker cant. Its up to your eyes if you can or cant. Native is best for a lot of reasons, display lag, sharper pixel mapping, being the big two.

Personally I’d rather buy a monitor that displays the resolution your system can handle, but the softness of nonnative res bothers me more than the pixel size of lower res. Use you own eyes and pick.

You’d never run non native on the desktop but with image sharpening features gaming can work just fine.

 

[Ors]

Depends on many things. Non native is worst for text heavy things. Then again low res is just as bad for anything text. If you do integer scaled non native on a high PPI screen it won't matter at all (1080p on a 24" 4k screen for ex. will look same as on a 24" 1080p screen). I have a 32" 4k screen and 1440p gaming on it is fine, 1080p non integer scaled looks crap, haven't tried integer scaled yet (need new GPU for this), but I expect it to still be bad since the monitor is just too large for 1080p. If it was 5k I would only do 1440p gaming on it...

Regarding your question for the monitor to get, you are the only one who can answer that. If you are fine with 27" 1080p in your normal (non gaming related) use, than a FHD 34" will be fine. Personally I find even QHD to be too low of a res now after getting used to 32" 4k. I do work with text all day though...

 

[euskalzabe]

Thank you all for the replies!

What's wrong with the 32" QHD? Going by my experiences, 34" FHD is fine, but seems like a downgrade. It's also slightly smaller (area).

Thing is, the stupid Philips I bought has ports that face backwards (not downwards), so I haven't been able to wall-mount it, which makes it feel too close to my face, which is driving me to want to replace it. I just got a new 90 degree angle HDMI adapter and a right angle power cord, if that doesn't allow me to wall mount it, it'll need to go at some point this year - probably on Prime day, in 2019 it proved to be an even better sales day than black friday.

I can always tell when a LCD PC monitor is running at non-native text.

Oh I can easily tell native/non-native in desktop. If you show me any text, I have zero doubt when it's native or not. Gaming, since I game at 1080p, is when I don't really notice it as much: I'm already gaming at non-native res for this panel, and although it does look fuzzier, I'm not sure it looks any worse than a 1080p monitor would (although theory says that it would, in fact, look worse, because it's not integer-scaled).

If you are fine with 27" 1080p in your normal (non gaming related) use, than a FHD 34" will be fine. Personally I find even QHD to be too low of a res now after getting used to 32" 4k. I do work with text all day though...

I work with text all day too, and the 32" QHD has served me well. I guess I could consider a 4K monitor too, but if I'm buying a new monitor in 2020 I'd like it to be 144hz, hence the consideration for 1080p, as it's way cheaper than QHD for fast panels. Then again, I tried the 27" 1080p monitor at home yesterday and while it was fine, when I went back to my 32" QHD I immediately preferred it, so this may be my answer right there: 1080p is fine for my gaming, but not for general desktop use.

Maybe I need to stick to a 32" QHD 144hz that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I've read good things about this Pixio, so it's a strong contender if this frigging Philips can't end up in the wall with the HDMI/power adapters I have coming in a couple days. I was hoping this Philips was my last monitor until I buy a miniLED, though - and with their insane prices, it may be a while. I never even checked/thought the ports in my current monitors were backwards facing, because it's STUPID beyond belief. Why the hell make it wall-mountable if the cables are in the f-ing way? I'm still angry about it... (as nice as this monitor is, I'm certainly not buying another Philips anymore, because this is design stupidity) :/

 

[Ors]

Why the hell make it wall-mountable if the cables are in the f-ing way? I'm still angry about it... (as nice as this monitor is, I'm certainly not buying another Philips anymore, because this is design stupidity) :/

To be fair to Philips others do this as well. My LG also has it's ports to the back (although somewhat recessed) and it has VESA mount. Even their flagship monitors have this. They come with decent stands though. VESA mounts aren't just for wall mounting BTW, many stands use this as well, so it makes sense to have VESA even if the design wasn't adjusted for wall mounting.

Just saying you should check all things that are important for you before buying. Can see how you missed it though, next time you won't

1080p is fine for my gaming, but not for general desktop use.

Yeap, reached same conclusion.

 

[kasakka]

To be fair to Philips others do this as well. My LG also has it's ports to the back (although somewhat recessed) and it has VESA mount. Even their flagship monitors have this. They come with decent stands though. VESA mounts aren't just for wall mounting BTW, many stands use this as well, so it makes sense to have VESA even if the design wasn't adjusted for wall mounting.

Just saying you should check all things that are important for you before buying. Can see how you missed it though, next time you won't

To add to this angled HDMI/DP connectors do exist for things like these just like there are wall mounts that are not flush to the wall.

For me 1080p is not enough for gaming. I've been trying 1080p @ 120 Hz on my LG C9 and it really can make a game look "last gen" visually. There's just a lot of small detail getting lost that you don't lose as much dropping down to 1440p.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

For desktop usage I agree with others that have said that native resolutions matter a lot. I can also notice a big drop to text legibility at non-native resolutions.
For gaming a bit less so provided that you're dealing with a high DPI display. I moved from a 2560x1440 display to a DCI-4k Monitor (4096x2160). And while I can tell a difference between games rendered at native versus a lower resolution the "impact" is far less than desktop.
Increased resolution in gaming "looks like" increased sharpness. But as my Radeon VII can't necessarily push native resolution at full eye candy on every game I would often compromise on resolution before compromising on other visual fidelity markers which I think worked the best to my eyes. The image still has, what is called in the film industry, "apparent sharpness", albeit, once again, not the same sharpness as native. I would go to some 3200x1800 resolution (or whatever they are) and there would be a very low drop in "sharpness" with a massive uplift to frame-rate. And in motion, the difference was also much less noticeable. The other visual fidelity things, I personally find, matter much more than resolution in terms of how good the final image looks.
In gaming cases I would say it "matters" much less. Desktop is always native resolution. Never a reason to not be.

 

[euskalzabe]

Just saying you should check all things that are important for you before buying. Can see how you missed it though, next time you won't

You are absolutely right. For the past 15 years all my screens have had down-firing ports, so I assumed everyone did that now to make it easily wall-mountable. I never even thought to check that until this monitor. You're right, now this is in the permanent things-to-check list. Hopefully the angled power cable/hdmi adapter I bought will do the trick, otherwise, this Philips will have to go.

In other news, I just realized I'm the dumbest person on Earth: when I play ultrawide 1080p on my QHD screen... I am playing native res, just with the top/bottom chopped off. 2560x1080 is just a cropped 2560x1440, where there is no scaling. Setting the monitor to FHD indeed looks too fuzzy for my taste, but to be fair a 34 UW would not look that fuzzy at 2560x1080 as the vertical is smaller. So, I can't physically check how things would look to me, which means I'll err on the side of caution and remain QHD at a minimum. Assuming I can't wall-mount and I need to change monitors. Hopefully next week I'll solve the mounting issue.