LCD and Widescreen

TimFiji

I saw some threads searching for which monitor to buy, but I think my question is different enough for a new thread. I'd love a widescreen for the new computer I'm building, but my friend had told that with wide screens, it's difficult to find a balance between response time and color reproduction. So the question is, are widescreens worth it or do they have problems as I was told?

randombattle

I recently bought a wide screen monitor and I haven't noticed any real problems at all. Just takes some time to get all the settings the way you want on the monitor itself.


A big annoyance though is that some games dont support widescreen. So they will absolutely look like ass unless you either get it to run in a window or do something to force it into the right resolution. There are a few websites all about getting widescreen gaming to work right.

Deusfaux

randombattle wrote: »

A big annoyance though is that some games dont support widescreen. So they will absolutely look like ass unless you either get it to run in a window or do something to force it into the right resolution. There are a few websites all about getting widescreen gaming to work right.

What the fuck are you talking about?

You can:

A- run the game stretched to fill the screen (lame!)

B- find a way to make the game fullscreen 16:10 if its not built right in (widescreen gaming forum) (best!)

C- run the game in a window (lame!)



OR D- Run the game with black bars on the sides, how much black bar will be based on the res you're running at, monitor's native rez, monitor's ability to scale, and driver's ability to scale (2nd best!)


response times and color reproductions are not going to be issues for I'd say... 99% of people. Don't worry about it unless you already find yourself being a picky person in that regard.

saikocat

I bought a 24" widescreen LCD and daaaamn, I will never switch back. You'll love the extra space, trust me, and you get used to it really quickly.

Oh and bookmark http://www.widescreengamingforum.com - your new best friend.

Dírhael

A 16:10 / 16:9 widescreen LCD has exactly the same advantages & problems as a 4:3 or 5:4 LCD. The aspect ratio has absolutely nothing to do with response time or color reproduction.

TimFiji

That's the kind of things I like to hear. I love widescreen since having it on my laptop. I've been looking at 22" ones which seem to be pretty reasonable.

Synapse

One problem is some monitors (mine!) don't have a black bar option at all....would be lovely and fine if i could run some older games non-widescreen (star craft, fallout, diablo etc etc)....instead i just throw it up on my secondary CRT, which is a bit of a pain because I have to reset the primary, which then decides to fuck up window placement and icon placement...blehg.

Does vista handle multi-monitors any better?

Dírhael

TimFiji wrote: »

That's the kind of things I like to hear. I love widescreen since having it on my laptop. I've been looking at 22" ones which seem to be pretty reasonable.

If I were to recommend something, it would be to either go for a good 20.1" WS or if you need bigger, a 24" one. Both of those sizes will give you a better selection of good panels. The 22" models available today pretty much all use the same panel (a "mid-range" TFT one), and the differences mostly is with extra features. There's nothing wrong with a TFT panel as they are very fast etc., but if colors are the most important thing for you then some form of IPS panel is what you're looking for...and even if you should decide to go for a TFT model, there are many more of a much higher quality available in 20.1/24" sizes.

Also, the 22" models all comes with the same resolution (1680x1050) as the slightly smaller 20.1" ones so you will not get more screen estate with them, just a somewhat larger monitor.

Dírhael

Synapse wrote: »

One problem is some monitors (mine!) don't have a black bar option at all....would be lovely and fine if i could run some older games non-widescreen (star craft, fallout, diablo etc etc)....instead i just throw it up on my secondary CRT, which is a bit of a pain because I have to reset the primary, which then decides to fuck up window placement and icon placement...blehg.

Does vista handle multi-monitors any better?

I wouldn't know about Vista & multiple monitors, but what you should look into is a Nvidia GFX card. Their drivers give you the option for using a fixed-aspect ratio scaling handled by your graphics card *, so it wouldn't matter what monitor you are using. You will get black bars on the left & right side instead, which is what you want with non-native WS games.


* Note: This is not available yet in their Vista drivers, but any reasonably up-to-date XP driver pre-dating the 97.xx drivers have it. It should be in the 97.xx series driver as well, but those drivers are currently somewhat bugged.

corcorigan

Apparently you can expect LCD prices to plunge this year, so maybe waiting a bit...

Then again that might just give you a reason to have two 20" widescreens in a year...

polaris314

Dìrhael wrote: »

I wouldn't know about Vista & multiple monitors, but what you should look into is a Nvidia GFX card. Their drivers give you the option for using a fixed-aspect ratio scaling handled by your graphics card *, so it wouldn't matter what monitor you are using. You will get black bars on the left & right side instead, which is what you want with non-native WS games.


* Note: This is not available yet in their Vista drivers, but any reasonably up-to-date XP driver pre-dating the 97.xx drivers have it. It should be in the 97.xx series driver as well, but those drivers are currently somewhat bugged.

Yeah, I have yet to get pillarboxing working on my setup at all.....I really hope Nvidia fixes it once and for all soon!