I have a game that only plays at high resolution. However, I like low resolution so I am constantly switching. Is this bad for my monitor?
I don’t believe so, as long as you don’t attempt to switch to an unsupported resolution (really an unsupported frequency). In Windows, I think that the display driver will tells the video driver what resolutions are supported, so the video card won’t do anything silly.
On a CRT, I think theres usually a capacitor which has to discharge and then recharge because I can hear the charecteristic thunk so I imagine that theres a chance that might die more quickly. On a LCD, I doubt there would be much of a problem.
I’ve always wondered about this too (regarding a CRT monitor). It certainly seems like it’s struggling whenever you change. I’ve never understood why it needs to make so much noise, but the capacitor answer makes sense.
Nobody yet noticed that the OP said that he prefers a lower resolution for his normal use than for his game. 
Why would you ever willingly use a lower resolution given an acceptable refresh rate?
Why use a lower reolution for some things?
To make the fonts bigger for us older folks. And to make pictures of a given size appear larger.
Offhand… for someone with weak eye problems, a low resolution equals high magnification (bigger letters, bigger pictures) by default. If the resolution is high enough to accomodate the content he wants, why shouldn’t he use it? 
I tend to look for ‘sweet spot’ resolution rather than low or high, by default, myself. 1024 * 768 is usually sweet spot for most display devices and purposes that I’ve tried. I don’t like much going to higher resolutions than that.
shrug I just adjust various OS settings until things are big enough for any given resolution and always take the maximum. It is pissing me off incredibly that resolution of devices is progressing so much slower than other technologies. I want a 600 DPI LCD display and we’re really far off from that.
It is true that a lot of applications are not accomodating of higher resolution, since ideally resolution should have no effect on object size for fonts/vector and even raster graphics.
Some games won’t work with higher resolutions. My girlfriend used to have to cut her resolution and turn off her video card’s acceleration to play the original Sims game because the game would crash or just not work if she didn’t.
That’s why I said “willingly”. When people lower resolution to make things “bigger” there’s usually a better solution that isn’t as hard on your eyes as having to run a 21" at 1024x768.
groman, I don’t think you’re a typical case.
I like to run at 1024 or 1280, because any higher and webpages are tiny (a lot are designed for 800 wide and won’t get any wider even if you enlarge fonts) and any lower and you can only fit 12 icons across.
I am not saying the world is designed for high resolutions, but as long as people chose a lower resolution than possible there’s less consumer pressure on companies to develop higher DPI devices. There’s plenty of software screen magnifiers that let you use view entire windows scaled up. That’s a much better solution IMO.
Think of it this way: There’s a billion reasons to use a higher resolution, and only one not to - shitty software. Holding onto 1024x768 because some legacy things are too small is like holding onto an 8-track and converting all your CDs to 8-track because you still have a few left that aren’t available on CD.
I think we’re starting to get into GD territory though, so I’ll drop it.
I agree. I mean, I run my monitor at 1600 x 1200, but I know several people I’ve worked with that use – get this – 640 x 480…on a monitor that can accomodate 1024. shrug Some people like the big text and don’t mind the pixels. Personally, it drives me batty.
On the monitors at work people set the res higher than 1024x768, but for some reason the monitors can’t deal with that without resetting the refresh down to 65hz - which I can’t deal with. Even 75hz is a pain, 85 is the sweet spot where the flickering doesn’t annoy my eyes and hit me with a massive headache.
So I stay at the lower res, because it allows me to use the higher refresh rate.