I remember Gran Turismo 5 looking sharp as fuck on the PS3 with its 720p 4xMSAA.
Now even 1080p looks blurry, with trails, artifacts. Man.
GamingBadly2000
It’s just not HD anymore, Margaret!
SorryNotReallySorry5
I used to be happy at 1080. I didn’t need all the power but got all of the visual *clarity*. They just had *prettier* visuals.
Now we have to play at 1440 just to make DLSS less of a bitch to look at. But that doesn’t make it perfect. Instead of classic rendering power, they’re now chasing AI-made frames and they don’t give a damn that they simply aren’t as good as classic rendering. It runs “better,” but at this point most of the cost of GPUs are funding the R&D for AI more than the ACTUAL FUCKING POWER the gpus have.
Grayzone Warfare is the MOST EROGIOUS game there is. It ONLY utilizes AI bullshittery to get over 45FPS. It’s blurry, full of artifacts, and ghosting is constant to the point of looking like motion blur. Input lag incredibly obvious. The best I could do is use FSR at Native AA with post processing sharpening set to *100*. Still blurry, but it doesn’t literally strain my eyes to play at least. Stalker 2 is another.
Memonlinefelix
Idk 720p and 1080p still look good to me. Especially on old consoles. Upscaling only make them worse.
Sortedfood
It’s because of screen size and pixel quality back in the day. Screen size was not that big, so even 240p looked great because small screens had few pixels, so the images were not being stretched. 720p Today ≠ 720p Then: YouTube and streaming services compress 720p so much now that it looks muddy and full of artefacts, especially compared to native 1080p or 4K.
720p is “Fake HD.” Today: In 2008, 720p was actual HD. Today, it’s often used as a fallback resolution or upscaled from lower quality, so it looks worse.
Scaling Issues: Watching 720p on a 4K display or 6.8″ phone stretches the image. The pixels are more visible, making it blurrier or jagged.
144p looked fine in 2008 because our screens, expectations, and tech matched it.
720p looks worse today because our displays and standards have evolved, but streaming services squeeze 720p with aggressive compression.
Because the displays matched the resolution. There’s a reason the PS2 looks amazing on a CRT, but looks like crap on a modern display, especially if you use composite instead of component or RGB and don’t use scalers.
Revolvere
I’m actually still okay with 720p if the screen is small enough. Like on my modded Switch Lite OLED and my Ayaneo Air 1S handheld PC. Both screens are 5.5″ which have a relatively high pixel density at 267 PPI. That’s a higher PPI than most standard monitors.
For example, a 27″ 4K monitor has a PPI of 163. So technically, the smaller 5.5″ screen at 720p still has a much sharper image than 4K 😂
Ok-Grab-4018
The right one is 1080p
LowB0b
1280×1024 was the goat from 2003 until 16:9 monitors popped up
Draedark
Yes, 720p (I forget what the p is for) was the HD standard for fast motion/sports for a hot minute. I think the reason it would appear blurry now is that the screens have 4x to 8x more pixels. So the 720p image gets scaled up to fit. I would wager 720p still looks good on a 720p display
Kotschcus_Domesticus
dlls performance entered the chat
Unhappy_Geologist_94
720p isn’t that bad, it comes greatly into clutch whenever i need to game on the go with my shitty laptop
Jackpkmn
I disagree, because 720p is exactly half of 1440p. So you can have a nice 2x integer scale of 720p on a 1440p display. And modern monitors are nowhere near as dim and smeary as the ones we had back then were.
ACGNerd
3 letters:
T A A
Wander715
The right side is what 1080p looks like after you make the switch to 4K.
Takeasmoke
i had 800×600 monitor in 2008 ofc 720p looked great
Jan1270
The difference is the Bitrate and compression. If you have Media (like a DVD) from back in the day, it does still look good.
Qweeq13
Yeah, with the 4k monitor, things look pretty bad in old full HD.
Surprisingly, I didn’t find 1440p as a downgrade from full commercial 4k.
In applications that support it, HDR makes the biggest visual difference to me. I don’t even have a proper HDR monitor, and Doom the Dark Ages looks incredible with HDR.
Kittysmashlol
I still remember it being labeled as HD along with 1080p on youtube. I got really confused as a kid when they took away the HD label lol
studyinformore
Lol what. God no it wasn’t good. CRT’s were still superior in resolution, even at 720p. There were still good CRT’s that could go above 1080p and 45hz, which looked smoother than 720/1080p60 back then.
My ancient syncmaster 997df can do 2560×1440 at 64hz with oled white/blacks and 0 input lag, because CRT lol. But everything is tiny with a 19″ screen lol. Limiting factor being VGA bandwidth.
WarrioR_0001
720p still rocks fine on a 15.6inch screen
LJChao3473
I remember watching YouTube on 480p and being like why would i need to watch it on 720p if this looks clean
Me with my professional grade 480i monitor (picture quality is actually amazing for SD content and is way better than anything you can get with upscaling)
Some time later this summer I’ll probably get a broadcast grade monitor that will also do 1080i
Positive_Try929
Screen sizes
Rusty9838
Just use screen from 720p era.
Neoxenok
The funny part about this is that 720p is still considered “high definition” and 360p is “standard definition”.
1080 “Full HD”
1440 “Q HD”
4K “Ultra HD”
OldLonelyBeaver
8k or bust /s
arftism2
the main problem with 720p now is the math doesn’t mix.
720p on a 720p monitor looks great, but even with upscaling 720p on 1080p is shit because the math doesn’t work well.
Ralph090
I remember when 720p was considered HD…
Venn--
Gotta love everything “blurring” everything on purpose, regardless of if it actually looks better or not. Like posting a 2×2 pixels picture on Reddit, and it being a blurry mess instead of the pixel grid.
my_cars_on_fire
I got into anime back in like 2010. Back then, the best way I found to watch anime was torrents, as there weren’t really any legitimate options. So I ended up with a 1TB external hard drive with anime stored on it.
I found that hard drive about a year ago and it was *FILLED* with 720p files. They all sucked! Deleted everything, because the quality was absolute garbage!
34 Comments
I remember Gran Turismo 5 looking sharp as fuck on the PS3 with its 720p 4xMSAA.
Now even 1080p looks blurry, with trails, artifacts. Man.
It’s just not HD anymore, Margaret!
I used to be happy at 1080. I didn’t need all the power but got all of the visual *clarity*. They just had *prettier* visuals.
Now we have to play at 1440 just to make DLSS less of a bitch to look at. But that doesn’t make it perfect. Instead of classic rendering power, they’re now chasing AI-made frames and they don’t give a damn that they simply aren’t as good as classic rendering. It runs “better,” but at this point most of the cost of GPUs are funding the R&D for AI more than the ACTUAL FUCKING POWER the gpus have.
Grayzone Warfare is the MOST EROGIOUS game there is. It ONLY utilizes AI bullshittery to get over 45FPS. It’s blurry, full of artifacts, and ghosting is constant to the point of looking like motion blur. Input lag incredibly obvious. The best I could do is use FSR at Native AA with post processing sharpening set to *100*. Still blurry, but it doesn’t literally strain my eyes to play at least. Stalker 2 is another.
Idk 720p and 1080p still look good to me. Especially on old consoles. Upscaling only make them worse.
It’s because of screen size and pixel quality back in the day. Screen size was not that big, so even 240p looked great because small screens had few pixels, so the images were not being stretched. 720p Today ≠ 720p Then: YouTube and streaming services compress 720p so much now that it looks muddy and full of artefacts, especially compared to native 1080p or 4K.
720p is “Fake HD.” Today: In 2008, 720p was actual HD. Today, it’s often used as a fallback resolution or upscaled from lower quality, so it looks worse.
Scaling Issues: Watching 720p on a 4K display or 6.8″ phone stretches the image. The pixels are more visible, making it blurrier or jagged.
144p looked fine in 2008 because our screens, expectations, and tech matched it.
720p looks worse today because our displays and standards have evolved, but streaming services squeeze 720p with aggressive compression.
360p in 2025:
https://preview.redd.it/x7laatcmhc6f1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c5d8031f3936b3888be78e9039f9052310bc4cd
Because the displays matched the resolution. There’s a reason the PS2 looks amazing on a CRT, but looks like crap on a modern display, especially if you use composite instead of component or RGB and don’t use scalers.
I’m actually still okay with 720p if the screen is small enough. Like on my modded Switch Lite OLED and my Ayaneo Air 1S handheld PC. Both screens are 5.5″ which have a relatively high pixel density at 267 PPI. That’s a higher PPI than most standard monitors.
For example, a 27″ 4K monitor has a PPI of 163. So technically, the smaller 5.5″ screen at 720p still has a much sharper image than 4K 😂
The right one is 1080p
1280×1024 was the goat from 2003 until 16:9 monitors popped up
Yes, 720p (I forget what the p is for) was the HD standard for fast motion/sports for a hot minute. I think the reason it would appear blurry now is that the screens have 4x to 8x more pixels. So the 720p image gets scaled up to fit. I would wager 720p still looks good on a 720p display
dlls performance entered the chat
720p isn’t that bad, it comes greatly into clutch whenever i need to game on the go with my shitty laptop
I disagree, because 720p is exactly half of 1440p. So you can have a nice 2x integer scale of 720p on a 1440p display. And modern monitors are nowhere near as dim and smeary as the ones we had back then were.
3 letters:
T A A
The right side is what 1080p looks like after you make the switch to 4K.
i had 800×600 monitor in 2008 ofc 720p looked great
The difference is the Bitrate and compression. If you have Media (like a DVD) from back in the day, it does still look good.
Yeah, with the 4k monitor, things look pretty bad in old full HD.
Surprisingly, I didn’t find 1440p as a downgrade from full commercial 4k.
In applications that support it, HDR makes the biggest visual difference to me. I don’t even have a proper HDR monitor, and Doom the Dark Ages looks incredible with HDR.
I still remember it being labeled as HD along with 1080p on youtube. I got really confused as a kid when they took away the HD label lol
Lol what. God no it wasn’t good. CRT’s were still superior in resolution, even at 720p. There were still good CRT’s that could go above 1080p and 45hz, which looked smoother than 720/1080p60 back then.
My ancient syncmaster 997df can do 2560×1440 at 64hz with oled white/blacks and 0 input lag, because CRT lol. But everything is tiny with a 19″ screen lol. Limiting factor being VGA bandwidth.
720p still rocks fine on a 15.6inch screen
I remember watching YouTube on 480p and being like why would i need to watch it on 720p if this looks clean
Bitrate. The answer is bitrate.
DVD’s ARE 480p!!!! Idk how we ever watched that.
https://preview.redd.it/x0e72u9goc6f1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8df133e9dc50b6d965cce3c03afc13b03d29ec23
Me with my professional grade 480i monitor (picture quality is actually amazing for SD content and is way better than anything you can get with upscaling)
Some time later this summer I’ll probably get a broadcast grade monitor that will also do 1080i
Screen sizes
Just use screen from 720p era.
The funny part about this is that 720p is still considered “high definition” and 360p is “standard definition”.
1080 “Full HD”
1440 “Q HD”
4K “Ultra HD”
8k or bust /s
the main problem with 720p now is the math doesn’t mix.
720p on a 720p monitor looks great, but even with upscaling 720p on 1080p is shit because the math doesn’t work well.
I remember when 720p was considered HD…
Gotta love everything “blurring” everything on purpose, regardless of if it actually looks better or not. Like posting a 2×2 pixels picture on Reddit, and it being a blurry mess instead of the pixel grid.
I got into anime back in like 2010. Back then, the best way I found to watch anime was torrents, as there weren’t really any legitimate options. So I ended up with a 1TB external hard drive with anime stored on it.
I found that hard drive about a year ago and it was *FILLED* with 720p files. They all sucked! Deleted everything, because the quality was absolute garbage!