How Resolution Scale ACTUALLY Works

What is 75% of 1080p? It doesn't have a simple answer. It's a topic with a lot of misconceptions and misinformation that I'm hoping this video will clear up, so stick around because I’m gonna explain it in a way that even YOU could understand.
Omni Resolution Scale Calculator: www.omnicalcul...
Resolution scale chart: i.imgur.com/FY...
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#resolutionscale #resolution #pcgaming #computergraphics #tech

[@PhantomRaider100]

This was actually super helpful, this will help me better understand how to better optimize my games when I'm gaming. I'm still somewhat new to the pc gaming world, so this actually helped me better understand resolution optimizing. Thank you Mr Dweeb, much respect and love from the USA. =)

[@TechDweeb]

My pleasure my dude, glad it helped you out

[@HedgehogY2K]

You opened my eyes and I have found a round about way of calculating this potentially without having to use a calculator.

[@Anticlimacticwhale]

Pray tell

[@tutacat]

​@@Anticlimacticwhale One way to simplify it is to use the square root of the scale factor. This also bypasses needing the square-root of the result and remove any guesswork (0.75)**0.5 ~= 0.86603 * 1080 ~= 935p

[@infinity2z3r07]

My suspicions about res scale were correct!! Always a minimally useful number I was too lazy to figure out anyway. Thanks TechDweeb! 😎

[@da1punisher]

Both educating, and facetiously throwing a little shade at people on the wrong side of the Dunning-Krueger curve? Well done my good man.

[@baroncalamityplus]

I've only recently started following you and I've been going back and watching your old videos. This one is amazing. You explained resolution scale better than even Digital Foundry has.

[@TechDweeb]

Thanks buddy! I made this so that I could stop explaining it in my comments and just link the video :P

[@TheMetalisImmortal]

Love from Turkey! I really love your job and character. I think your channel deserves minimum 400k subs.

[@TechDweeb]

Thanks buddy!

[@waden9933]

Your videos are awesome! Keep up the good work!

[@Ambiguousss]

Hi TechDweeb, hope you're doing good. This video is very helpful, thanks. Would you please consider concepts like, monitor resolution, retina displays and which should we go for etc for a future video? Also ponder on queries like, why are there no mainstream 22" or 20" 1080p IPS monitors or mainstream high refresh rate 1440p 24" monitors.

[@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep]

25% of 1440p is 720p, and 25% of 4K is 1080p. I like to think of it that way, because a 1440p screen is four 720p screens, and 4K is four 1080p screens. I like to think of it like that when I'm hurting for screen real estate when doing work, so I remember I can just smush windows into the corner of my 1440p screen using Power Toys (Windows 11 even has it built in).

[@dobrealexandru1776]

For the ones that want to understand how to calculate this on your own , you need to use the aspect ratio witch is 16:9 , basically from 1920p x 1080 for eg , you will have 1920 x 1080 = 2.073.600 , 75% of that is 1.555.200 , giving the current aspect ratio we will have 16 heights = 9 widths , this means that height = 9 widths / 16 , this means that (9 widths / 16 ) x width = 1.555.200 , this means that ( 9 widths^2 ) / 16 = 1.555.200 , this means 9 widths^2 = 24,883,200 , this means widths^2 = 2,764,800 , this means WIDTH = APROX 1663 , this means that 16 heights = 9 x 1663 , this means height = 14 967 / 16 , this means HEIGHT = 935 , that 's why 75% of 1920p x 1080p is 1663p x 935p , because of the aspect ratio.

[@barangayhalliksikutibs2507]

Was curious about render resolution/scaling then this video was the first one to popped up at my search, within no hesitation I've just subbed because of how clear and straight to the point this video, keep up the good work my guy!

[@TechDweeb]

Thanks buddy!

[@alitaimoor1482]

Thanks a lot. That was really helpful. Downloaded the chart too.

[@kemikal5471]

Thanks for taking the time to explain this. Now i can better optimize my games for the hardware in my pc

[@HedgehogY2K]

I was having trouble understanding until I thought... If the end goal is the pixel count rather than the rated resolution. I typed in 1600x900=1,440,000x.5 or divided by 2=720,000. And from there you can guess the rest by choosing a close enough resolution that results in that pixel amount. For example, I know 720p is well past 720,000 so I'll type in somewhere between 576p and 648p and work my way down til I find the exact resolution that makes up the estimate of 720,000 equaling 1131x636. Gee, can't wait to benchmark 764p in Minecraft on my Tecra A11... No I don't I'm not using an HD60 Pro this time, I can stay at 636p over the course of the MJPEG benchmark.

[@lucky88shp]

Very well explained for those who don't get it, and think they know what they talking about without checking the facts!

[@snake2106]

lol i am an ACCA qualified person (Basically a chartered accountant), despite that i always calculated resolution scaling as generic percentage of native resolution 🤣😂. I have an old gaming laptop with GTX 980m with 8gb vram, planning to upgrade next year but till then this little beast is still performing well in games. Resolution scaling and tech like Nvidia NIS and amd FSR helps a lot to achieve 60 fps

[@Mark9150]

Love the Chart good vid man

[@4carhur1more]

This helped answer my question on whether or not my graphics card was actually having trouble or not. I was apparently setting my resolution to just about 4k in a game I had no interest in setting to 4k. Sounds like I've got over 144 fps in my tales of arise playthrough after all!

[@yamiboy9906]

Very instructive indeed. Thanks.

[@kryspyhohos1238]

very helpful and easy to understand thanks

[@inztrumentallyill1673]

How dare you not believing my feelings are facts 😤 😃 I watch and like all your videos to support your ambitious and passionate channel

[@TechDweeb]

Oh YOUR feelings are facts. Just yours though.

[@MORGUEZHR]

Games released by PlayStation Studios tell you the exact render resolution of a game next to the output resolution. Now that I've tested the resolution slider on pretty much the rest of them, I can safely say that the guy that corrected you were onto something. I'm not in the business of telling whether you're right or wrong; I'm just here to say that it might not be the case on every game that the resolution slider refers to the percentage of the pixel count of the output resolution.

[@TechDweeb]

Yeah there are a few games that do it this way - the wrong way. God of War and Halo Infinite are 2 that I can think of. And some games do it in their own weird way. What I show here is how it should work, this is what resolution scaling actually is (by definition). And this is how most games do it.

[@acpcardoso]

That was informative. Thank you

[@GamerGoated]

i not finna lie but i like how he sounds

[@219SilverChoc]

While I've hadn't had a change to pixel count most resolution scales, my experience with most resolution scales I've messed around are per axis, atleast they are in most UE4 games. For example, AMID EVIL allows you to use nearest neighbour scaling, which results in ugly artefacting unless you are using an integer scale. To get 1 pixel for every 4 display pixels, you have to go down to 50% instead of 25% as it's done per axis. There are some games which actually are based on the overall pixel count however, Doom Eternal's resolution scale bottoms out at 50% of the overall pixel count instead of per axis like Doom 2016. I also remember some Ubisoft games doing their resolution scalers by overall pixel count, but like Doom, they pick and choose per game for whatever confusing reason. Don't get me started on the trend I've seen recently of 'Quality' and 'Performance' popularised by DLSS and FSR, are PC gamers that fucking embarrassed by rendering below native resolution, even with state of the art anti-alising and reconstruction tech? Sorry for the ramble, hope it's clear enough, really good video otherwise BTW!

[@pablors33]

Bravo... in so many ways

[@hannesjohne4622]

I came here to find out how scaling behavior works in Windows settings (Start > Settings > System > Display > Scale and layout). They are actually the other way round: when you have 1920px as resolution and set scale to 150%, then it's not 1920px*1.5 but rather 1920px/1.5 = 1280px All calculators I found online are multiplying and not dividing the percentage. However, web designers for example have to consider that your users may have scaling enabled to 125% (scale resolution: 1536px) or 150% (scale resolution: 1280px). This can mess with your break-points and suddenly you display the "mobile friendly" page to your desktop users.

[@josefranco7590]

Great video! But, what are the advantages of scaling vs just dropping the resolution? Also, I was totally not expecting the bass drop at the end of that song 🤣😂

[@TechDweeb]

Good question. Performance-wise, there is no difference. 1080p scaled down to (approx) 720p won't give you any more or less performance than native 720p. HOWEVER, when you run at 1080p downscaled your 3d game graphics will be running at 720p, but the rest of the game (like the 2d menus and HUD) will be native 1080p. So you'll have nice clear readable text and crisp menus and stuff, it's just the 3d graphics that'll be downscaled. Best of both worlds!

[@TechDweeb]

I should mention that USUALLY the in-game menus and stuff aren't downscaled, but sometimes they are. However it's still preferred (imo) because you can still run at your monitors native resolution, and then you can tweak the resolution scaling on the fly without switching resolutions, and you usually have more fine control over the exact resolution:performance ratio rather than be locked into a handful of fixed resolutions.

[@Agumon5]

Ah yes, the notorious 900p resolution that all base XB1 and Xbox One S owners have loved and embraced for a generation as a poor substitute to 1080p. Thanks, Dweeb!

[@unkownomega]

Bet that guy won't comment saying your right these days people can't stand being wrong lol.

[@미안22]

Sounds like KZbin 😂😂

[@rn3srk1]

Thats the kind of geeky stuff I love to watch to my hearts' content! One video topic I'd seriously suggest you cover, would be: different mobo vendors and gpu aib's and tier's.

[@TechDweeb]

Oooh good suggestion

[@Qoobel]

I've heard that integrated graphics in PCs have higher input lag compared to dedicated gpus due to weaker access to memory. Since you've asked if we were curious to see some more explanatory videos... I haven't found a single video on youtube tackling this particular topic and actually showing the difference - if there is any at all. Please? :)

[@SeeJayPlayGames]

a noble pursuit but I think accurate measurement of input lag would require a high speed (1000 fps would be best for ms resolution) video camera pointed at your hand and the screen... is there another way I'm not thinking of?

[@tutacat]

square root of percentage (0.75)**0.5 ~= 0.866 * 1920p ~= 1662.8p * 1080p ~= 935.3p

[@AlexJohn-f4m]

I always set my resolution scale as far down as I can. Retro mode for life.

[@eliasraspail3650]

Thank you a lot

[@cael_84]

Plot twist Shadow of the Tomb Raider doesn't have the resolution scale numbered.

[@TechDweeb]

It does in the standalone launcher, but not in game for some reason :/

[@cael_84]

@@TechDweeb ohhh nice! Great video by the way!

[@youzernejm]

You are a nice person, I'd just give the math formula to everyone who asks 👹

[@TechDweeb]

I like the way you think

[@lou5368]

awesome video

[@murtazataha7177]

Hey man. So I just went down the downsampling (supersampling rabbit whole recently). I had a question. Would a 9X pixel count (3X scaling of each factor) result in ideal downsampling. For example 8K content on a 1440p display. As this would subdivide each pixel into 9 parts ( a grid of 3x3 effectively)

[@bradencluster4739]

I don't understand increasing the scale. If you have a 1440p monitor, what's the point of increasing the scale above that if you can't actually get more pixels? Thank you.

[@TechDweeb]

It can make the image super crisp. It's basically super antialiasing. So something like a power line in the game that would have jaggy pixel edges, if you render the game beyond the native resolution, the quality of the aliasing on the edges would be super smooth. It's a pretty small effect though, not usually worth the performance hit, but that's the reason why someone would theoretically want to.

[@bradencluster4739]

@@TechDweeb Wow! That was a super fast and helpful response. Thank you! :)

[@thatonequack707]

holy shit this was amazing thank you so much for the tutorial

[@bHappyk]

Your way of scaling is half correct. Just tested Unreal Engine 5's scaler, and it scales from height, rather than the total pixel amount. So it depends on the implementation, meaning you may not know the actual resolution for each game. Btw DLSS/FSR also scales from height/width.

[@TechDweeb]

This is the proper way of scaling, but some games do it improperly :/

[@MyTwinFlame]

Some people say 200% scale res is acually x4 times the pixel count

[@TechDweeb]

Well it depends on the game, some games do res scale the WRONG way. This is how it actually SHOULD work (this is fundamentally what res scale is, trust me, I know from my work in gaming and other industries). The reason 4k is called 4k is because 1080p can be thought of as 1k (1080 is basically 1000). 4k is 4 x 1k, because 4 1080p's worth of pixels is 2160p (even though 1080 [the number] x 4 does not equal 2160). When we scale the resolution we should be scaling the area (total number of pixels on the screen), not the dimensions of the borders. Picture this. Take a 10x10 square, and make it 200% (2x) bigger. What are the dimensions of your new square? If you say 20x20 then that's not right, that's 400% (4x) bigger. This is why res scale is important, we don't scale the dimensions, we scale the area, because the actual size of a thing is determined by the area contained within it.

[@ionamygdalon2263]

By the way, I took a screenshot of the table with resolutions and scaling you made. It does mention the name of your channel, so are you ok with me sending it (as a screenshot) to some of my friends?? I have a lot of respect for you, so I just wanted to ask.

[@TechDweeb]

Of course! I'll do ya one better. Here's a link to the actual graphic: i.imgur.com/FYGXxYl.png

[@ionamygdalon2263]

@@TechDweeb Wow !! You are the best 😎

[@starshock2002]

should have put 800p on the chart for people playing with resolution scale on the steam deck :P

[@masterchririus]

wow, different voice.. I'm used to the newer one..

[@lastinline1958]

Wait, now, The World doesn't revolve around me? Are you sure about that? That doesn't sound right at all.

[@Mohammed_x]

thx man

[@Raderade1-pt3om]

I think it depends, for me it works on resolution dimensions not total resulting pixels.

[@GUYANESEGT]

why use resolution scaling when you can just change the actual resolution? i see some people setting games to 1080p and scaling to 50% or 75% and such. wouldn't it be better to set the actual resolution to as close as the numbers you want it to be?

[@TechDweeb]

No because then the HUD and interface elements like menus would also be low resolution and pixely. If you use resolution scaling you get HD interface elements (because they aren't demanding), but the in-game graphics can run lower to increase performance.

[@ts8960]

I have a queston, will 4k content look better on 1080p monitors rather than 2k/3k monitors due to simpler scaling down factor? Since with a 1080p monitor, each pixel of the 4K content can be represented by a block of exactly 4 pixels, while with a 1440p it doesn't scale down to a whole number.

[@Cryptolorian]

I am more confused than I was to begin with. I give up and will just play everything in 4k from now. Faque it!

[@stormolflak]

Yea!

[@ruudygh]

whats the point of calculating the % out of total pixel? What is the use case?

[@kwaggs]

I always thought 50% of 1920x1080 was just 1080p divided by 2..

[@TechDweeb]

Nope. It's 1920 x 1080 = 2073600 / 2 = 1036800 = 1358 x 764 So it's 764p. Weird huh?

[@kwaggs]

@@TechDweeb Yeah. Thank god you made this video, I'd be living a lie my whole life.

[@SeeJayPlayGames]

@@TechDweeb actually, the real formula is: x/sqrt(1/f)=x' ; y/sqrt(1/f)=y' Where x and y represent the native res and x' and y' represent the scaled res and f is the scaling factor expressed as a decimal (say, 0.5 for 50% or 0.66 for 66%). This should work for any arbitrary scaling factor. The fact that it uses square roots is also why the numbers come out weird. And if they had this formula on the calculator site, I wouldn't know. I didn't GO to the calculator site to figure that out, I'm just a dweeb like that and figured it out myself.

[@TH3N00BK1N9]

Hello TechDweeb, I've come across this video wondering what would give better image quality. Correct me if I'm wrong but with 1620p Nvidia DLDSR, image quality would look much better than 1080p scaled up to 1.5x because 150% of 1080p is 1323p (2352 x 1323) comapared to 2880 x 1620. I play Genshin Impact and it only has a "Render Resolution" option of 1.5, and so for a better looking image, 1620p DLDSR would look much better right?

[@LordBadenRulez]

Did you just prove there is no such thing as a stupid comment? Because I learned a lot from the other guy's ignorance.

[@TheDwarvenDefender]

I knew that 50% of 2160p was 1527p, but my GPU is low-spec, so I don't play many games with Resolution Scaling, which are often AAA games, so I thought that if I played one and set the Resolution Scaling in the options menu to 50% of 2160p, it would render the game at 1080p, having been programmed not for the true scaling, but for the layperson's understanding of resolution. Do you mean to tell me that if I set a game's Resolution Scaling to 50% of 2160p, it truly will render at 1527p instead of 1080p? My data just doesn't match up with the idea: I just downloaded the RE8 demo in the midst of writing this comment, and at the same low(est) settings, I got about 32 FPS at 1080p (1.0 scaling,) about 32 FPS at 2160p (0.5 scaling,) and about 22 FPS at 1440p (1.0 scaling.) To me, this suggests that 2160p on the 0.5 scaling option renders at 1080p in the game, which would actually be 25% of the original resolution.

[@TechDweeb]

Well the thing is that some games do 'scaling' differently (incorrectly). The correct way is to have 50% scale be 50% of the TOTAL PIXELS, but some games (RE8 might be one of them) make 50% scale be 50% of the DIMENSIONS (which would actually make it 25% scale). Most games stick to the way it SHOULD be done, which is the way it's done in the calculator in my link, but not every dev is on board apparently.

[@mememanfresh]

@@TechDweeb or they could just give it a different name

[@mememanfresh]

@@TechDweeb fortnite is also one of those game that does it "wrong"

[@ionamygdalon2263]

Brilliant!!! Just brilliant 😁😁😁 This is the video that should have been sent as chainmail to all who have a steam account haha 😂

[@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep]

I know it's not intuitive at all but I kinda figured it was obvious... I can't believe people get this wrong, I'm sure they would realise that it's wrong when they think Bout it, the same way they learned areas in math on school

[@denns0r]

"on the streets" 🤣

[@AustinBaldwin88]

So if I run a game at 200% resolution, is it technically making the graphics better? And would I have to change the resolution on my PC display settings to match so it runs smooth?

[@lorenzovertemati4104]

My life is a lie, I apologize to all the youtubers to whom I wrote comments about how they were wrong Sorry

[@ajeshsajan]

hello....My project going to take out to 720p. in that sequence have 720 p video (original recorded on 720p) and scaled video have 720 p (which scaled from 1080p to 720 p). Can I ensure quality of 720 p video (which recorded original 720p)?

[@sepimomane5158]

nice video

[@sanyi8157]

Why is this different than just changing your res? I know some games does not have a lot res options so you can addjust your res finer with this option?

[@TechDweeb]

True, but the benefit to resolution scaling is that the HUD and interface elements will still be in HD, just the 3d graphics won't be. That's why I always use resolution scale instead of just changing the resolution whenever it's available.

[@Gozkul]

Well if i use 1080p screen upscaling res to 200%, is noticeable?

[@sanctusstreams101]

How does a graphics card work in contrast to a actual Core with integrated graphics ?

[@Arbetix]

Hello i just wanted to know if i can force any game that doesn't have resolution scale setting to %25 scale for better fps (blurry graphics) is there an app or something i can use? if it doesn't work then its ok (i use 480p resolution btw)

[@TechDweeb]

Yes. There is a program called CRU (custom resolution utility) that will allow you to create super low custom resolutions. Some games won't run at non standard resolutions but some do, you'll have to experiment.

[@Arbetix]

​@@TechDweeb it didn't work but thanks anyway :)

[@pootispoot]

I have a macbook pro and want to hook it up to a 4k monitor. I need to scale it to be able to see the UI properly. Does scaling the resolution from 4k to 1080p only effect the UI elements or does it effect video playback quality? In which case will I need to switch resolution scaling constantly to see videos or games rendered properly? Ty

[@makadoxvsdk9530]

I have a laptop with Nvidia GTX 1650 mobile gpu. But playing games on it with 1080p high settings looks like I am downgrading the internal resolution scale to like 50%. The game has no resoultion scale settings and neither my nvidia gpu. But still all games I play looks like very blurry or low resolution even on 1080p resolution. WHy is that is it Monitor or gpu ISSUE?

[@TechDweeb]

Check the settings in the NVidia control panel, there's probably something set weird.

[@makadoxvsdk9530]

I have just set my Nvidia Global settings quality to "High performance Nvidia processor" nothing else.@@TechDweeb

[@DrSatan066]

Holy shit man this is 7th grade math. We are fucking doomed. Why does this need to be a video. Nice video tho lol.

[@tutacat]

the name 4K is silly, going by width is not useful

[@maximoffz]

Hello kind sir. Could you please explain some info for idiots like me. Got 2 questions here. I am playing Diablo 2 Resurrected on a 1920x1080 resolution. In the settings I have Resolution scale set to 100%. In this case as you explained 1920x1080 is 2 073 600. Does this mean that if I switch to monitor 2560x1440p, and change the Resolution scale in settings to 50% --> (will be 1810x1018p) then I will get about (+ -) the same graphics quality as 1920x1080? Second question. If my monitor is 1920x1080 and I change the Resolution scale to 200% then it will become 2715x1527, and by logic I should get better graphics quality, but how is that possible if my monitors hardware maximum is 1920x1080. Could you please clarify. :)) What is this 200% for?

[@TechDweeb]

1. Yes, that's correct, 50% of 1440p is 1018p. You'll get about the same 3d quality as 1080p, but your interface and stuff will be at 1440p, so it's definitely a better choice to run at a higher resolution and then downscale to 50%. 2. And yes, you're right about upscaling too, it runs the game at a higher resolution than your display but then shrinks it down to fit your native resolution. The only difference you'll see in quality is the antialiasing (the edges of your 3d shapes will look smoother). It's very intensive and should only be done if you have lots of headroom to spare, but it can definitely make games look a lot sharper and is worth doing if it doesn't impact your FPS too much. Hope this helps!

[@maximoffz]

@@TechDweeb Thank you kind sir, now its a more clear for me :)))

[@MrRickPatel]

If I’m outputting 2k on a 4k screen does resolution scale apply? Do I just stick with 100%? Pls help thanks

[@kanishkamandrawal9825]

Bro how much resolution scale is good for 1080p gaming on 15.6 inch

[@bigninja6472]

Thanks for opening my eyes to the hidden Truth 😁

[@tutacat]

1440x810 would be 56%

[@abdel-moneembadr9028]

my monitor dell u2410 1920x1200 what scale ?

[@Raderade1-pt3om]

Idk about how resolution scale works in pc games but on my Tab S with resolution of 2560x1600p, I have app called game tuner that let me change resolution of eligible apps using percentage slider, so I checked there 75% scale gives me 1200p and 50% gives me 800p. Basically it scales based on vertical resolution not overall pixels so I expected same for this,, Idk

[@aayushbasyal361]

Does this affect ping?

[@hidden-leaf]

"we never wanted kids" lmao

[@elfiankhuzairi23]

So 100 is true resolution

[@operatorsix6933]

blame the parents!.

[@janX9]

1:01 natural Born killers

[@sms-ux5kl]

barely any games actually scale this way. most games scale by vertical resolution (75 render scale at 1440 is 1080)

[@Rayer24]

If I turn the resolution of my game to 4k I get 60fps. Then I change the resolution to 1080p and the resolution scale to 2x (or 200%). I get the same FPS because the same number of pixels are being rendered (but not shown). 3840x2160 = 8,294,400 (1920 * 2) * (1080 * 2) = 8,294,400 (2560 * 1.5) * (1440 * 1.5) = 8,294,400 So how does that work?

[@TechDweeb]

2x resolution scale isn't (1920 * 2) * (1080 * 2) = 8,294,400, that's 4x resolution (the same way as, in my video, 10x10 is actually 4x the size of 5x5). Check out the calculator linked in the description if you want to play around with your values.

[@haseebishere4658]

Bro test quadro t400 emulation

[@TechDweeb]

Check back tomorrow ;)

[@haseebishere4658]

@@TechDweeb thanks for replying

[@eldraque4556]

piss funny

[@_tanzil_]

The letter "N" doesn't exist in your speech btw 🐶