So I'm not technically minded when it comes to frame counting and input lag, but is there any truth in turning down you resolution to make Battlefield 3 run better and help you online?

I'm playing on Xbox 360 at 1080p ... but if I switch to 720p will my game run smoother, less input lag and in turn improve my performance? The Xbox 360 isn't the beast it was years ago, so it stands to reason you'd need to lower the resolution to make the game run better right? Is this what the higher level players do? I've heard of stuff like this, but I don't fully understand it.

Apparently the 360 only upscales to 1080p. It's usually always best to run at native resolution, so if you're tv supports 1080p I don't see the problem. If it supports up to 720p, then you should probably run it at 720p although it wouldn't make much difference as far as what I've experienced.

With my limited technical knowledge, I can say that I'm pretty sure that upscaling does not affect performance, which is what the Xbox does. PC's that support higher resolutions will actually run in those resolutions, which takes more graphical power.

@Brendan said:

With my limited technical knowledge, I can say that I'm pretty sure that upscaling does not affect performance, which is what the Xbox does. PC's that support higher resolutions will actually run in those resolutions, which takes more graphical power.

For posterity, This^

@PandaBear said:

The Xbox 360 isn't the beast it was years ago,

Implying the 360 was ever a "beast"... lol right.

@BigChickenDinner: It was pretty powerful, so eff you.

@big_jon: Sorry but no. Technical power != the advantage of having a singular set of hardware to develop for.

@PandaBear said:

So I'm not technically minded when it comes to frame counting and input lag, but is there any truth in turning down you resolution to make Battlefield 3 run better and help you online?

I'm playing on Xbox 360 at 1080p ... but if I switch to 720p will my game run smoother, less input lag and in turn improve my performance? The Xbox 360 isn't the beast it was years ago, so it stands to reason you'd need to lower the resolution to make the game run better right? Is this what the higher level players do? I've heard of stuff like this, but I don't fully understand it.

No, that's only for PCs. Changing stuff like that does nothing for console games as they're usually running at 720 regardless, and upscaling to 1080p does not actually make it 1080 or impact performance. It just fits the screen better but visual fidelity isn't improved.

@big_jon: Even when the 360 was brand new it was using dated hardware, as was the ps3 in terms of its GPU. It's just how consoles are.

The 360 doesn't render it at 1080p, so it doesn't really affect it. On PC it would.

@SSully: I felt as soon as Nvidia released the 8800GT the xbox became outdated. I think xbox benefits from its xbox live service over the hardware, although now steam has caught up for pc it is feeling a bit like a relic. Still the games do still look good on it. I played 200 hours of Skyrim on it and its still a pretty game on such old hardware.

@SSully: I hope the nextbox can do 1080p native and get 60 fps out of most games, I would be a happy camper.

@benspyda said:

@SSully: I felt as soon as Nvidia released the 8800GT the xbox became outdated. I think xbox benefits from its xbox live service over the hardware, although now steam has caught up for pc it is feeling a bit like a relic. Still the games do still look good on it. I played 200 hours of Skyrim on it and its still a pretty game on such old hardware.

Oh I think both the ps3 and 360 are fantastic consoles. The games are great, and they still look good enough, but calling either machine a beast is a joke when compared to modern PC's.

@big_jon: Agreed. Those are two things lacking in most games on consoles that I really miss.