Why do games or other graphical applications run choppy on lower resolutions, but faster on max monitor resolution?

3

This is considering I'm well above the system requirements.

A non game example is the Cooliris app for Google, when I run on a regular chrome window is choppy when scrolling through the panels, but when I hit f11 for full resolution it runs much faster.

enon

Posted 2011-06-02T02:39:22.507

Reputation: 622

Answers

1

I would guess that it has less to do with the resolution and more with clipping.

When running inside a window the GPU must take into consideration what area(s) to render and what areas to clip, depending on where the window is located on the screen and any other windows that might overlap.

When running full screen, all these clipping decisions can be skipped.

Mike Fitzpatrick

Posted 2011-06-02T02:39:22.507

Reputation: 15 062

Also, when hitting F11 in chrome, you aren't increasing the resolution of the running program. You are just giving it exclusive access to the full screen. Like he said, it likely means less rendering and processor time for background apps and the desktop to take up. – Ben Richards – 2011-06-02T04:37:20.077