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Is it dangerous to increase my screen resolution above native (recommended)?

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  • Screen Resolution
  • Graphics Cards
  • Monitors
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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November 18, 2013 6:32:52 PM

EDIT: So, since initially I couldn't find anything through multiple google searches, I decided to ask. Now, since i clicked on the "More about" section, I believe I've gotten my answer of "you can, but probably shouldn't do that", but see no way to completely take down my post. So thank you Tom's Hardware (and the users within) for being my savior yet again.

OK, so. I just recently built a new rig. Beforehand i was using my graphics card in a newbie HP computer and had my screen resolution cranked up to 1920x1080 (I like a large, spacious desktop). When I play games, I set the in-game resolution to my monitor's native (1280x720). My question is: If I set my resolution back to 1920x1080, is it going to cause adverse effects or a shorter lifespan on my monitor or graphics card? I have the option to set it higher, and didn't notice anything bad before, but now that I have a bit more into parts, I'm trying to be more cautious. Thanks ahead of time.

(Important) Specs:
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 MoBo
Intel Core i5 3570k
GTX 580 (connected DVI)
720p Sanyo Monitor

More about : dangerous increase screen resolution native recommended

a b U Graphics card
November 18, 2013 7:02:16 PM

How is your monitor's native is 1080p then the game sets it to the monitor's native 720p?! If your monitor is LCD, you cant increase the resolution above the native because you have 1920x1080 physical pixels in there, you cant do anything to increase them to get higher resolutions. I will assume you have a native monitor of 1080p, then set the game res to 1920x1080, the gpu is made to be stressed and to work, not to feel comfort! You should be playing games at 1080p if you have a monitor that supports it, things that decrease lifespan are overclocking (not in all cases, most probably when increasing voltages), and very high temps. Set the game to the highest res possible and check the temp using msi afterburner or evga precision, if it rises above 86 (where it should be while loaded if you are using REFERENCE cooler), then you have to worry other than that enjoy the game at 1080p and have fun.
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a b U Graphics card
a b C Monitor
November 18, 2013 7:14:53 PM

As above, your monitor only has so many pixels, its not like it magics up new ones when you force it to. Running it at a non native resolution just means that your monitor has to scale the image to fit, very few monitors don't have the capability to do this, and those that don't will just produce random colours on screen rather than a decipherable image.

Take for example console gaming, most people have either a 1080p or 720p display, the vast majority of console games are sub-720p, yet everything works just fine.
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November 21, 2013 9:55:53 AM

rubidium said:
How is your monitor's native is 1080p then the game sets it to the monitor's native 720p?! If your monitor is LCD, you cant increase the resolution above the native because you have 1920x1080 physical pixels in there, you cant do anything to increase them to get higher resolutions.
Actually, I just remembered the screen is a TV and its LED, not LCD. Its 720p, but Windows allows me to set the screen resolution to 1920x1080. So, being that its LED, am I to presume that increasing my desktop res to 1920x1080 should be fine?
rubidium said:
Set the game to the highest res possible and check the temp using msi afterburner or evga precision, if it rises above 86 (where it should be while loaded if you are using REFERENCE cooler), then you have to worry other than that enjoy the game at 1080p and have fun.
Thanks for the advice, I was actually gonna start doing some stress tests this weekend and was gonna research a decent temp monitor program. Saves me some time =D

cookybiscuit said:
As above, your monitor only has so many pixels, its not like it magics up new ones when you force it to. Running it at a non native resolution just means that your monitor has to scale the image to fit, very few monitors don't have the capability to do this, and those that don't will just produce random colours on screen rather than a decipherable image.

When I do have it set to the 1920x1080 resolution, nothing seems distorted, which made me remember that its an LED screen. So my whole issue and need to question seems like I should probably start remembering small details a bit more.
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a c 198 U Graphics card
a b C Monitor
November 21, 2013 11:05:45 AM

Sounds like it's a 720 resolution panel, if so, the higher resolution is created by 'interlacing': http://neuron2.net/LVG/interlacing.html
This is the only way to fool a flat panel monitor to display (what appears to be) a higher resolution that it normally can.
Such devices will usually show something like 'HDTV@1080i' or 'HDTV@1080 interlaced' in their specs.
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