Just because I'm curious...

Personally, I'm a 1024x768 man, m'self, but prefer some games in 800x600.

What's your take?

Mostly 640x480 and occasionally 800x600 in 3D games, at least until I get a replacement for my PCI Banshee card. 2D games? 800x600-1024x768.

Brad Grenz

I view 1024x768 as a minimum nowadays for a decent gaming system. Although there are diminishing benefits from higher resolutions, 1280x960 is my resolution of choice. It is my windows desktop res, as well.

I have benchmarked a few games at 1600x1200 and 1920x1440, though. They look incredible. Higher resolutions are definitely desirable..

1024x768 anti-aliased or 1600x1200 for games. 1280x960 for my desktop.

Let me through in a pitch for the Nvida 22.50 beta drivers at least for XP and a GeForce3. They are like buttah. You can find them at www.3dchipset.com. NHL 2002 previously semi choppy on the game intros at 1024x768 no AA and playable on ice is now extremely smooth at 1024x768 w/AA for both intros and game play. DAOC runs at 1600x1200 with no slowdown. Overall a big thumbs up on these babies. A friend with a GF2 also mentioned increased performance and image quality (I saw image quality increases as well).

I run my home desktop at 1152x864; with most games I stick to 1024x768. At work I keep my desktop there, too (any more than that and things get really, really small on a 17" monitor).

>I have benchmarked a few games at 1600x1200 and 1920x1440, though. They look incredible. Higher resolutions are definitely desirable..

But just not practical, since developers never seem to make interfaces that resize to workable levels. I was trying to play DAOC at 1600x1200, but the interface is almost invisibile. Even at 1280x1024 it's pretty small.

Agreed, Desslock. I tend to just use 1024x768, after that the 2d interface elements tend to get too small for my aging eyes.

1024 x 768 is my preference; higher resolutions don't really offer enough of an advantage on my 17". Alternately, I'll use lower resolutions if my poor little rig complains about the framerate.

- Alan

For the desktop, 1024x768x16 on the Viewsonic PF790 (19", 18.1 viewable). For games, generally the same, but if the performance is really smooth, I'll keep bumping it up until I hit the edge of chugginess. Normally, 1280x1024x16 will do that in action games.

I rarely use 24/32-bit color; the performance hit isn't worth the subtle increase in quality to me, generally speaking. Same with high-quality sound.

1024 x 768 for both games and desktop. Running a 19" (18" viewable) with a GeForce 2/64mb card.

Except for DAoC, my games of choice as RTSs, so anything over 1024x768 just makes everything (unites, interface, etc) way too small.

"I rarely use 24/32-bit color; the performance hit isn't worth the subtle increase in quality to me, generally speaking."

Try playing Colin McRae Rally 2.0 with the in-car view. The windshield is an ugly banded mess in 16bpp. And any game with a lot of distance fogging (Ground Control, AVP2, etc) invariably looks awful in 16-bit color.

There isn't much of a performance hit for 32bpp with a GeForce 3 card, or a GeForce 2 Ultra. It's worth it from where I'm sitting, especially if you limit yourself to 1280x960x32bpp or lower. Hell, on the newest GeForce3s, 1024x768x32bpp and 1024x768x16bpp perform identically.. and nearly identical on the previous GeForce3s.

"Same with high-quality sound."

I'll admit that 22khz 16-bit doesn't sound too bad, but I can definitely hear and appreciate full CD-quality 44khz 16-bit sound when it's available. There's no real performance hit on a modern PC, this is more an issue of memory usage, as the storate space doubles. But memory is dirt cheap.

"But just not practical, since developers never seem to make interfaces that resize to workable levels."

True. More developers need to learn how to use scalable fonts and design for everything from 640x480 to 1600x1200. I can sorta understand this in 2D games where everything is scaled to pixels, but in a 3D game based on polygons, it's downright sloppy.

I almost always use 1024x768x32, and crank the detail levels as much as I can. If I've still got speed to burn, I turn on AA. It's so rare that games scale the interface properly, or the text, that I simply find anything over 10x7 on my 19" monitor hard to see.

Wumpus brought up sound, lemme say, very few games use very high-quality sound, but when they do, I can certainly tell. I wish more games would supply 44KHz sound samples for those that happen to have a lot of RAM.

Personally for DAOC I like the 1600x1200 with the large chat font and the chat portion stretched out so you can see about 10 lines at at time. I can have all of my relevant windows open and still have a reasonable field of view. Plus 1600x1200 beats 1024x768 with AA at least in this game.

Oh and count me in for 24/32-bit color, 16-bit is pointless with the hardware I have.

"Try playing Colin McRae Rally 2.0 with the in-car view. The windshield is an ugly banded mess in 16bpp. And any game with a lot of distance fogging (Ground Control, AVP2, etc) invariably looks awful in 16-bit color."

"ugly mess" and "looks awful" are subjective. Both look just fine to me. Sorry, but it's the truth.

"I'll admit that 22khz 16-bit doesn't sound too bad, but I can definitely hear and appreciate full CD-quality 44khz 16-bit sound when it's available."

I'm 22% deaf in my left ear, 19% in my right. The only real distinction I can make in sound quality is "performance at high volume." So congratulations to anyone that can tell; I can't.

Then again, one advantage is I can pack more MP3s on a CD than you can, since 128K is as high as I'll ever want or need. ;)

I'm sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you. Damn, I'm hilarious. But seriously. Sorry to hear that. One of my biggest fears is going through the rest of my life deaf or blind. I'm not sure which would be worse.

""ugly mess" and "looks awful" are subjective. Both look just fine to me. Sorry, but it's the truth."

Well, whatever, but there is very little benchmarkable performance difference between 32bpp and 16bpp at 1024x768x32bpp on modern high-end video cards (GeForce3 any flavor, Radeon 8500). So I'm not sure what you'd be gaining by going to 16bpp in those cases.

Enh, it ain't no big deal. And blind would be worse. Far, far worse.

"Well, whatever, but there is very little benchmarkable performance difference between 32bpp and 16bpp at 1024x768x32bpp on modern high-end video cards (GeForce3 any flavor, Radeon 8500). So I'm not sure what you'd be gaining by going to 16bpp in those cases."

The difference is I play games, not benchmarks.

"The difference is I play games, not benchmarks."

Not when the benchmarks are recorded game demos.

I'm telling you-- 16bpp doesn't improve performance except at EXTREME resolutions (1280x1024 and up) on modern video cards.