Stereoscopic (S3D) displays present different images to the two eyes. Temporal multiplexing and spatial multiplexing are two common techniques for accomplishing this. We compared the effective resolution provided by these two techniques. In a psychophysical experiment, we measured resolution at various viewing distances on a display employing temporal multiplexing, and on another display employing spatial multiplexing. In another experiment, we simulated the two multiplexing techniques on one display and again measured resolution. The results show that temporal multiplexing provides greater effective resolution than spatial multiplexing at short and medium viewing distances, and that the two techniques provide similar resolution at long viewing distance. Importantly, we observed a significant difference in resolution at the viewing distance that is generally recommended for high-definition television.