Enjoy gaming in a seamless, borderless full-screen experience.
Enjoy gaming in a seamless, borderless full-screen experience.
I possess an Alienware 17 R5 i9 laptop equipped with a GTX 1080 graphics card. The display resolution is 1080p at 60Hz. I’m currently using a 43-inch Sony Bravia TV, connecting it to the laptop via HDMI and duplicating the screen in Windows. My television is quite outdated, so I’m considering purchasing a 4K PC monitor. For a 1080p display to work properly on a 4K screen, the graphics card must support integer scaling. I have a GTX 1080, which is a Pascal GPU. Unfortunately, Pascal cards don’t offer integer scaling, so I’m limited to relying on the screen’s scaling. This often results in a blurry image. I came across a tutorial at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfTTCU_O86U. It suggests setting the monitor to 4K and adjusting the DPI scaling to 200% to simulate 1080p without changing the actual resolution. At the 0:43 mark, it advises using borderless full screen and avoiding exclusive mode. By 0:47 it says, if the game offers resolution selection, you must set it to 1920x1080. On my current TV, the Windows resolution is already 1920x1080. In most games, when I enable borderless full screen, the resolution picker disappears. I assume the game assumes a 1920x1080 resolution when that option is gone. If I switch to a 4K monitor and set Windows resolution to 4K with DPI scaling at 200%, will the game still display correctly? How do I verify the game’s resolution when that option is hidden? If the game behaves strangely, I can try overriding its DPI scaling in the system settings to match Windows’ scaling and force it to follow. If it still doesn’t work, I might switch to window mode instead of borderless full screen, set the game to 1920x1080, and use the tool at https://tanalin.com/en/projects/integer-scaler/ to fix it. This approach seems to be what the video recommends.
I won't adjust the game's resolution to 4k. I need to follow what the video recommended, but I'm a bit unclear on a few details.
Try it now. Adjust your Windows scaling to 200% on your current 1080p display. Launch a game in borderless fullscreen mode. If everything functions correctly, the game should now render at 960 x 540. Check the game’s settings to confirm its actual resolution. Even if the display doesn’t show it, you should be able to distinguish between 1080p and 540p easily.
I’m unable to test it. I can’t adjust the DPI scaling to 200% because I don’t have access to a higher-resolution monitor.
You can still adjust the settings, it isn't included in the standard choices. Navigate to Advanced scaling options, under Scale and layout. Spoiler: Input a custom value of 200. Spoiler: You'll have to log out and back in, but now you're at 200% scaling. Spoiler: Even with less than full capacity, like 150%, you can proceed. It won't cut the resolution in half, just shift it to 75%, making 1080p appear as 1440 x 810.
4K doubles the resolution of 1080p, displaying a full 1080p image as if it were four smaller pixels. Ideal scaling.
It's ideal when the graphics card handles scaling with integers. But my card can't do that.