So if you set resolution scale to 50% of 2560 x 1440, that’s 50% of the resolution? It’s essentially cut in half? It would be displaying only half the pixels?
It renders at half the resolution then upscales to the full resolution, usually the 2D elements like menus and hud and whatever will still be rendered at the full resolution. Which is the main advantage of using resolution scale.
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In addition to what @Dexter_Kane said: No, it is displaying a full 2560x1440 image, but which is rendered at 1280x720. It’s like taking a photo and scaling it to 200% in your favorite image editor.
I would actually point to the performance gains as the main advantage, especially on lower-end hardware 
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I mean that’s why you would use resolution scaling over just using a lower resolution. Because you render the text and 2D elements at native resolution so they don’t become blurred by the monitors scaling.
Just to be clear: resolution scaling is not an universal term.
In gaming you can scale dynamically (each part of the screen is rendered at a specific resolution and then combined together using Anti-aliasing)
The next scaling often used is related to static pixel placement - like on a LCD screen. Screens like this are unable to display different resolutions and have to scale.
Now the last thing is scaling due to size of the pixel - which seems to be the thing you are talking about. This is done also with a form of anti-aliasing. But that is not the main function, the main function is to implement DPI into the UI. Which in windows was not really possible until Vista. You are then not scaling the image, but rather rendering a different image in the first place.
Well, I know that in a lot of circumstances, it’s given me a LOT of performance. And honestly, i’d be hard pressed to tell the difference from my actual full resolution. Lots of FPSes gained.
Now i’m just hoping my GTX 960 will hold out for Doom Eternal. It’s a 4GB model, it should be OK.
Isn’t 720 a quarter of 1440?
1080 is a half the pixels…sorry
@Prenihility scaling does go the other way too- you might only have a 1080p screen, but if you render a larger screen, then scale it down, the image can appear smoother/better.
I think this is called super scaling, or super sampling
Not sure what you’re referring to? I didn’t talk about 1080.
I was talking about scaling a 1280x720 to 2560x1440. If you want to do that, you set the scaling to 200% in an image editor because each side gets double the length. Of course it’s 4x the amount of pixels, but I didn’t talk about total amount of pixels either…