Gaming resolution for a 720p plasma

J

Jimmy the Greek

Gawd
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Aug 20, 2002
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I recently bought a 720p plasma to use with my PC.

I've tried running my games at 1920x1080, and the graphics seem marginally better than when I run at 1280x720. Are they actually better, or is it more of a placebo effect since the display is 720p native?
 
mightymn said:
720p TVs are actually 1366x768. That should give you the best results.
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Not true.

720p TV's can also be...

1024x768 (rectangular pixels), 1280x720, 1280x768

OP: Try 1024x768, see if you can set it to 16:9 aspect ratio.

EDIT: What TV do you have?
 
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Native resolution will give you the sharpest picture. Unfortunate that its 1024x768.. I never understood how that resolution works on a 16:9 display.
 
1024x768 looks sharper, but the aspect ratio is borked. I guess people just live with the stretched picture, and enjoy the better image quality.
 
Jimmy the Greek said:
I recently bought a 720p plasma to use with my PC.

I've tried running my games at 1920x1080, and the graphics seem marginally better than when I run at 1280x720. Are they actually better, or is it more of a placebo effect since the display is 720p native?
Click to expand...

If you recently bought a monitor with such a resolution then obviously you are the kind of guy that would brake 1 coin in half just to give yourself the impression that you've got 2...
I mean... wtf.. 720p is so oldschool, I'm suprised you even managed to find one.
I'm suprised someone still wants to actualy build/buy such a low res monitor, I'm buying my sis a new one cuss her monitor has the same res and man it SUCKS. You can forget about gaming :/ (Unless you play lame games)

My intentions are not to insult you so if I did I apoligize, but I just cannot understand why you would buy such a monitor for gaming (I hope you realised before your purchase that you could not expect performance)
 
720P plasmas almost always scale, even when you tell them not to. On Panasonics, any HD source at 720P still gets overscanned when using a PC input (HDMI or component). You can try turning off scaling options. Also some panels assume that any VGA input is at 1024x768, even when you set it to 1366x768, etc - resulting in blurring. Usually 720P LCD's fare much better and you can get 1:1 easier. If that Samsung really is square pixels, that's unusual.
 
lawless2142 said:
720P plasmas almost always scale, even when you tell them not to. On Panasonics, any HD source at 720P still gets overscanned when using a PC input (HDMI or component). You can try turning off scaling options. Also some panels assume that any VGA input is at 1024x768, even when you set it to 1366x768, etc - resulting in blurring. Usually 720P LCD's fare much better and you can get 1:1 easier. If that Samsung really is square pixels, that's unusual.
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Not realy aware about the size of his monitor though, just know that it kills your eyes when it's 26" LCD (don't know if it looks a lot better on plasma though, but I doubt it)
and even then I think games start to look good when at 1680x1050 res and up, but that realy depends upon the size of the monitor.. the smaller it is, the better it usualy looks but larger makes it easier to take the game serious ;)
 
SXTC said:
If you recently bought a monitor with such a resolution then obviously you are the kind of guy that would brake 1 coin in half just to give yourself the impression that you've got 2...
I mean... wtf.. 720p is so oldschool, I'm suprised you even managed to find one.
I'm suprised someone still wants to actualy build/buy such a low res monitor, I'm buying my sis a new one cuss her monitor has the same res and man it SUCKS. You can forget about gaming :/ (Unless you play lame games)

My intentions are not to insult you so if I did I apoligize, but I just cannot understand why you would buy such a monitor for gaming (I hope you realised before your purchase that you could not expect performance)
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I didn't actually check what tv model he has, but resolution is far from everything. I, for example, am fine with 1366*768 for most purposes (including gaming and high def tv). I have way more issues with bad black levels, poor contrast, and bad viewing angles.

It really depends on the person though.

edit: almost forgot, if this is for gaming, input lag is A HUGE FACTOR, way bigger than getting a resolution higher than 720p.
 
Op its simple
The higher the resolution the more the picture looks like the original.
Higher the resolution the less stress there is on the cpu the more work on the gpu.
On low resolutions the work is more on the cpu and it will have to work harder to keep up with the gpu which will run away from it due to the low workload.
So play your resolution according to your gpu nothing else. Play on one that your gpu can handle. Remember you want the graphics workload as much as possible on it so the cpu can keep up
 
Spooony said:
Op its simple
The higher the resolution the more the picture looks like the original.
Click to expand...
hmm? he is limited to his tv resolution. Anything higher is going to ,at worst introduce resolution scaling artifacting, and at best offer no benefit.

Spooony said:
Higher the resolution the less stress there is on the cpu the more work on the gpu.
On low resolutions the work is more on the cpu and it will have to work harder to keep up with the gpu which will run away from it due to the low workload.
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Higher resolution does not lower the stress on the cpu. It will increase the stress on the gpu (if you're not rendering 3d things this may be irrelevant as the stress is minor).

It does put more and more stress on the gpu as compared to the cpu, but it's not shifting work from the cpu to the gpu.

Spoony said:
So play your resolution according to your gpu nothing else. Play on one that your gpu can handle. Remember you want the graphics workload as much as possible on it so the cpu can keep up
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I think what spoony is trying to say is that you want to play at a resolution that doesn't bottleneck one part of your hardware more than the other. For exmaple, if you're running at 60fps @ 640x480 and bump up to 1024x768 but still see 60fps, you are being cpu limited. You can probably bump your graphics settings higher.

Although i wouldn't quite use his wording. Either way, no, you will not see better image quality running 1080p material on a 720p display.
 
I have a Panasonic 58 inch plasma and I tried hooking my computer up to it, but found the scaling to be pretty horrid. I wonder if it has gotten better with newer plasmas...
 
serpretetsky said:
hmm? he is limited to his tv resolution. Anything higher is going to ,at worst introduce resolution scaling artifacting, and at best offer no benefit.


Higher resolution does not lower the stress on the cpu. It will increase the stress on the gpu (if you're not rendering 3d things this may be irrelevant as the stress is minor).

It does put more and more stress on the gpu as compared to the cpu, but it's not shifting work from the cpu to the gpu.


I think what spoony is trying to say is that you want to play at a resolution that doesn't bottleneck one part of your hardware more than the other. For exmaple, if you're running at 60fps @ 640x480 and bump up to 1024x768 but still see 60fps, you are being cpu limited. You can probably bump your graphics settings higher.

Although i wouldn't quite use his wording. Either way, no, you will not see better image quality running 1080p material on a 720p display.
Click to expand...

stress->meant workload on the cpu (forgive me I'm not actually english)
Op plasma screens are horrible for pc monitors. 720p plasma televisions do not handle a computer input well and show a very jaggy image on plasma's larger sizes
and they suck in airplanes aswell which isn't important but anyways
 
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Samsung PN42C450

1,365 x 768 (Native)

I would be basing my efforts around it's native resolution @ 60hz refresh. You may have to mess with TV menu settings and graphics card settings. It can take quite a few tweaks before it looks right.

Edit: looks like this plasma is actually 1024x768 with rectangular pixels.
 
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SXTC said:
If you recently bought a monitor with such a resolution then obviously you are the kind of guy that would brake 1 coin in half just to give yourself the impression that you've got 2...
I mean... wtf.. 720p is so oldschool, I'm suprised you even managed to find one.
I'm suprised someone still wants to actualy build/buy such a low res monitor, I'm buying my sis a new one cuss her monitor has the same res and man it SUCKS. You can forget about gaming :/ (Unless you play lame games)

My intentions are not to insult you so if I did I apoligize, but I just cannot understand why you would buy such a monitor for gaming (I hope you realised before your purchase that you could not expect performance)
Click to expand...

It's a funny story...at the beginning of the year, I had an LGA775 desktop and 27" SDTV in my bedroom (1080p LCD in the living room). I used to upgrade fairly often, but hadn't done anything significant since buying an E8400 in late 2008.

I decided to upgrade the TV, wanted something cheap but decent, and ended up getting this plasma for under $500. I wasn't looking to break the bank or anything, I hadn't gamed in awhile, and didn't care about fancy specs.

After a few weeks with the TV, I hooked it up to my desktop and got back into PC games. I started playing more demanding games, which led me to buy the GTX 570. Then I realized my CPU was a bottleneck, and upgraded to Sandy Bridge. Now it hits me that I'm not getting the right resolution, and I'm getting the upgrade bug again.
 
just let us know when you are ready to upgrade (I reccomend anything between 25.5 & 30 but best price for performance is 27" in my opinion)
 
For my money, 1024x768 looks noticeably better now, but I still can't adjust it to a 16:9 aspect ratio. Is there a solution for this in Windows 7 / Nvidia drivers?
 
edit: nm, apparently there was some confusion as to whether this plasma is 1365x768, or 1024x768.

OP, plasmas with 1024x768 are not as PC friendly because they use rectangular pixels to achieve the widescreen aspect. PC's prefer to work with standard square pixels, a 1365x768 display would have been preferable.

Hopefully it pans out well for you, we would all be curious to hear of a PC "fix" for plasmas with that rez. Personally i would do some more digging at the AVS plasma sub-forum.
 
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