What exactly does increasing the % resolution do?

[warhawk373 10]

I read some guy that said putting it at 200% makes it run smoother.  I thought it was just supposed to make it look better.  Sometimes when I'm playing the campaign or missions my game will stutter while shooting and being shot at.  After I fire a few rounds the stutter stops but when I first engage I basically have to just lay there until the stutter stops so I can aim.  Turning corners is a nightmare because If I see an enemy I have to just pull the trigger and wait for my game to stop lagging to see which one of us came out alive.  Would putting the res to 200% fix that?  If not, would something else fix that?  

 

Processor: Intel i5-4690k @3.5GHz quad-core

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

Motherboard: MSI B85M

 

Shouldn't that setup be able to run arma 3 high-ultra at 60+ FPS?  During heavier campaign missions I get ~30 FPS on medium-high settings.  Like view distance and object distance are both at ~1500m shadows are medium, textures high, objects are medium, res is 1080.  I turned terrain to it's lowest because that increased my frames by like 5-8.  On lighter missions I get ~50-70 depending on how light the mission is.  But I still stutter.

Even in editor I get that stutter from shooting and occasional lag.  The further away I am the less I stutter though.  When I'm 10m away It's the "pull trigger and hope for good outcome" but when I'm being shot at from 300m It's not noticeable. 

[dmarkwick 261]

As far as I understand it setting your resolution % makes it render that much above or below your current resolution setting. I have mine set at 120%, so it renders slightly above my setting, and is sampled back down. I think of it as a slightly more preferable version of AA. If you set your % to 75, you get a "muddy" look, where the lower resolution is sampled upwards.

 

I doubt it will affect your stutter problem, unless you have it set to really high (like your 200% example), that's more likely to be hard drive access or something similar. Try defragmentation, or an SSD drive if you can afford it.

[Gera_CCT 12]

Trees and AA looks better, also you get crispy pictures with increased 3D Res. It forces GPU a little. Mine the Perfect balance of GPU and CPU i use is setting 3d res at 133% and FSSA 2X. Much Better then 100% and 8xAA or 4xAA. I play at 1920/1080 

[Dwarden 1125]

the game will render the screen on higher resolution then downsample it to your actual resolution

as @Gera_CCT wrote it comes on some performance cost (depending on GPU) but brings better visuals (depending on resolution)