Hughe performance differences on different resolution

[Ygarl]

Originally Posted by Myxir

I just was testing with several resolutions in windowed mode. I discovered that 1024*768 in windowed mode gives about +50% FPS compared to 1280*1024 in windowed mode.
That seems a very big difference to me. I never saw such a big difference in another game so far.
1280*1024 in windowed mode with disabled window decoration gives me ~30 FPS on max settings which seems a bit low to me. Changing from highest to medium (including AA and Anisotropic filter) brings like +5 fps only.

System
Ubuntu Karmic 64 Bit
AMD Athlon II X3 435 (2,9ghz)
4 GB Ram
Nvidia GTS 250 (195.36.15)

Can somebody confirm or prove me wrong? It seems a bit odd to me.

Do bear in mind that there are 1280x1024 pixels at the higher rez (=1.3m pix) vs 1024x768 (=7.9m pix) at the lower... or about 40% more pixels. So you are going to get approximately 40% lower FPS.
Simple maths: set data rate in your card x higher amount of data per second = lower frame rate per second.
Only way around this is to get an even faster card so you never dip below about 40 FPS (client side at least - you have no control over what you get from the internets: i.e. LAG). Honestly though: you may subtly notice a visual difference from 30 to 50 FPS say, but you can only REACT at about 20FPS anyways assuming you have perfect reaction time and already planned what you were going to do.
So it may look vaguely less smooth but it should play exactly the same realistically.
Try the 1152x864 mode if your card has it. I find it an excellent compromise on RO and on Perfect World as you get decent screensize plus you get about 20% fewer pixels