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> 60fps at the displays standard resolution This has been kind of problematic for MacBooks since the first retina model. They ship with HiDPI displays that are

> 60fps at the displays standard resolution This has been kind of problematic for MacBooks since the first retina model. They ship with HiDPI displays that are beautiful for text and video, but people don't seem to realize the resolution is just way too high for gaming on an ultrabook. I used to game in 900p comfortably on my Intel integrated 2013 MBP. In native 1600p the same titles would be a slideshow.

sjwright 6y ago
I don't understand the logic behind this complaint. What is so different about playing a game rendered at 900p on a 900p display and the same game rendered at 900p on a 1600p display?
- Toutouxc 6y ago
  Except a minor loss of sharpness, no difference. I was pointing out the fact that expecting native-resolution gaming from a machine, whose display is totally overkill for its size (for gaming, that is), may not be the smart thing to do. And it was even more absurd in 2012 when people built gaming rigs with 1080p screens and suddenly there was an ultraportable with a 2560x1600 screen (that was so-so usable for 720p or 900p light gaming).
- neogodless 6y ago
  Imagine you have 16 bright circle lights in a straight line, but you want to fill the full string of lights edge to edge with 9 perfectly uniform and spaced circles the same size as the lights? You can't. You can turn the lights on in a very non-uniform manner. Extrapolating that to all the pixels on a screen, and you can't get quite the image fidelity because some pixels need to be partially activated for ideal images. Best case scenario you do exactly half (one fourth the total pixels) for images that align with your pixels, but at dramatically decreased image quality.
  - sjwright 6y ago
    What has any of that got to do with gaming in any practical sense? With the barest minimum of smooth scaling, fidelity wouldn’t be any worse on the monitor with higher pixel pitch. Now you might have a point if talking about pixel art games, but none of those will tax the GPU to any extreme level—in which case you could render at a native 1600p or a perfect pixel doubled 800p.
pdpi 6y ago
Blizzard games deal well with this — on my iMac 5k, the UI is rendered at full 5k resolution, while the game world is rendered at 1440p. 1440p on a 27” display is perfectly fine (it’s what I play on on my PC now) but the UI at 5k does make a significant difference in text legibility.
- Toutouxc 6y ago
  Not only Blizzard games, I've seen this in ArmA, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Simple Rockets 2 and others. Consoles do this pretty often, with a FullHD/4K GUI and lower (or even dynamic) resolution for the 3D. Very comfortable.

sjwright 6y ago

I don't understand the logic behind this complaint. What is so different about playing a game rendered at 900p on a 900p display and the same game rendered at 900p on a 1600p display?

Toutouxc 6y ago
Except a minor loss of sharpness, no difference. I was pointing out the fact that expecting native-resolution gaming from a machine, whose display is totally overkill for its size (for gaming, that is), may not be the smart thing to do. And it was even more absurd in 2012 when people built gaming rigs with 1080p screens and suddenly there was an ultraportable with a 2560x1600 screen (that was so-so usable for 720p or 900p light gaming).
neogodless 6y ago
Imagine you have 16 bright circle lights in a straight line, but you want to fill the full string of lights edge to edge with 9 perfectly uniform and spaced circles the same size as the lights? You can't. You can turn the lights on in a very non-uniform manner. Extrapolating that to all the pixels on a screen, and you can't get quite the image fidelity because some pixels need to be partially activated for ideal images. Best case scenario you do exactly half (one fourth the total pixels) for images that align with your pixels, but at dramatically decreased image quality.
- sjwright 6y ago
  What has any of that got to do with gaming in any practical sense? With the barest minimum of smooth scaling, fidelity wouldn’t be any worse on the monitor with higher pixel pitch. Now you might have a point if talking about pixel art games, but none of those will tax the GPU to any extreme level—in which case you could render at a native 1600p or a perfect pixel doubled 800p.

pdpi 6y ago

Blizzard games deal well with this — on my iMac 5k, the UI is rendered at full 5k resolution, while the game world is rendered at 1440p. 1440p on a 27” display is perfectly fine (it’s what I play on on my PC now) but the UI at 5k does make a significant difference in text legibility.

Toutouxc 6y ago
Not only Blizzard games, I've seen this in ArmA, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Simple Rockets 2 and others. Consoles do this pretty often, with a FullHD/4K GUI and lower (or even dynamic) resolution for the 3D. Very comfortable.