Best resolution for desktop

Because you would need much bigger graphics to render 1:1 at 1080, and bigger graphics means worse performance.

So I recommend designing your assets to be at maximum 720 at 1:1, and upscaling for bigger resolutions. With the sharpen trick the graphics still looks very good even upscaled.

That sharpen trick is interesting. Wouldn't that cause a drop in performance, however?

Most desktop computers have such powerful GPUs that I'm sure they can render in 1080 just as fast as 720. Games are generally CPU bound, not GPU bound. I'm happy to be proven wrong with benchmarks though!

You might also want to use Point sampling with letterbox integer scale to avoid blurriness.

In my desktop I get a significant difference depending on the size of the images, the size of the canvas, and the size of the browser window.

My PC configuration is:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0 GHz

4 GB ram

Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT 512mb

Win 7 32 bits

I will try to prepare a benchmark to have quantitative data to analyze, but I already made individual tests that resulted in fps drops related to the factors that I stated above.

Regarding setting 'point sampling' and 'letterbox scale' it works well for pixelated graphics, but for digital painting or vectors the blurriness normally looks better for upscaling than the blocky look. Then a sharpen filter can enhance the acutance in machines that support it.

sqiddster

Probably there will be a small drop in performance for every effect that you use. I used this trick in CC and I normally got good results.

OK, this is all very interesting. I'll have to be more careful with the size of my graphics!

Another very important question: I have an object which contains all of my static scenery objects as different frames in one animation. Does the game load all of these images even if they are not all used in a layout? Is this an issue?

I can't really recommend of specific screen size, but according to w3schools 2012 log files, the most common screen size is over 1024x768. 1366x768 is currently the most popular. This also confirmed by StatCounter Global Stats.

Karzay yeah, but it depends on your audience. If you're aiming for an audience like Steam, then looking at steam's harware surveys data is better.

Most people don't actually have a good graphics card, so graphics is a huge part of performance (window size, graphics size etc.).

I've really found regular 720p is a good way to go. I have no complaints from Blight users yet, it looks fine being scaled onto 1080p, but also looks very good (not perfect) on displays like 1680x1050, and others. That being said, I would not go beyond that resolution because you may sevely limit your player pool. I've limited mine a little with that restriction, but 1080p would cut out a good many people. And 720p still looks fine in this day and age--remember, there are hardly ANY ps3 or 360 games that run native 1080p. Heck, most/many are under 720p and then upscaled. Just remember that the amount of crap on-screen is going to have a greater effect than just the resolution. That, and poorly-optimized huge images.

Cool, thanks everyone

Hey squid , found this for you !

Primary Resolution

For steam games , it's 1920*1080 , Pretty High !

Just to know .... What is the preferred resolution + settings ( Fullscreen   Mode) for Android Phone Device

Mobile devices are really inconsistent and have no specific window sizes that are common. You could target a specific model of phone, but they will always be the minority of your audience. Even on iOS with the new iPhone 5 screen size and various iPad / retina sizes, there's such a range your best bet is just to fluidly support any screen size, as described by that tutorial.

It looks like I'll be going with 1366 * 768 for the moment. It looks like the aspect ratio is a TINY bit off 16/9, but I guess that's OK. Also, that's my screen size ;)

Nice discussion.

i have a similar dilemma right now.

i am building a windows8 game for desktop pcs, i have finally decided to go for 1366x768

<img src="http://i.haymarket.net.au/News/windows-7-screen-res-sizes.jpg" border="0" />