CPU being bottleneck at low res/old games explanation?

[iminurstuff]

i've made some suggestions for some people's computer builds on another forum, and i think i'll end up needing a proper explanation to link to for an explanation of how your CPU can bottleneck you at low resoltuions/old games.

if someone here can give a proper explanation, it would be very much appreciated. i *think* i understand it pretty well, but i probably can't explain it sufficiently to prove it to doubters. or if someone knows a link to an already existing explanation, that would be quite nice as well.

errrr, i put this in the video card forum...sorry if its the wrong one, but its video card related?...

 

[CDdude55]

It's been said that the lower the resolution, the more CPU dependent, so if you have a crappy CPU, you'll have a crappy gaming experience at that low res. The higher the res the more pixels needed to be pushed, hence making it more of a task for the video card.

I don't have any links to though.

 

[cadaveca]

At lower resolutions, more data is transfered between the cpu and gpu(due to the higher framerate), as well as the driver(which runs off of cpu) has to work harder managing the higher framerates.

That's the short and long of it. Every time a frame is completed, new driver commands must be sent for each succesive frame, so the vga knows what it is doing. @ 60FPS, that happens 60 times per second, but @ 120FPS, that happens 120 times per second, so it's not really the lower res causing the need for more cpu...it's purely based on the number of frames rendered.

At higher resolutions, the same work is being done by the cpu per frame, so workload doesn't really change...it's all about the gpu's driver.

 

[iminurstuff]

oh well, i figured it would be understood lower res = higher framerate, apologies. (obviously if you can run a game at 1920 x1080 at 60 fps, you'll run it at 640x480 a lot faster)

thanks for the responses