I tried gaming at one point on my 32'' 720p t.v that outputs vga to the pc at 1360x768 and it looked like complete crap in games even fully maxed
He prob had a old crt,heck i had one for the longest time that did 1600x1200 and honestly the game looked very good on it,just to freaking small in the end,and took to much desk space.
If he was happy with the resolution of the old monitor,then it worked and it made upgrades far and few for him,if you purchased a 9800gtx in 2007,it can play BF3 at 1440x900 even today....let alone 1280x1024.