16:9 vs 16:10

jayx9 said:
Oled is probably confusing FOV in games and number of pixels... which is why he thinks its better. With 16:9 you get a larger FOV in games, but you still have less pixels than the 16:10 monitor.
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I can guarantee you that no one is confusing any technical aspects in this thread. It's just a bunch of arguing of mostly opinions.
 
RedTalon19 said:
I have a U3011 at home and I feel like I am more efficient performing work on this monitor than the two 22" dell monitors at 1650x1050 I use at the office. This is due to the amazingly easy-to-use Win7 snapping feature to expand a window to exactly half the screen. I find the extra vertical space of the 2560x1600 more useful than the extra horizontal space of the dual 22" monitors which require more scrolling.

I have zero regrets shelling out the extra cash for the 30" over the 27" Dell. Actually, next week I may rotate my work monitors into portrait mode and see how well that works for productivity...
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I agree with you.
 
garbagemule said:
The only conclusion to draw from this is incompetence, sorry. Any 16:10 monitor will display its 16:9-counterpart with black bars if the source is a modern graphics card. You can, indeed, force anamorphic scaling in all games, so long as your graphics card is set up properly. So, assuming gamers know their way around their graphics card's control panel, image stretching is avoidable, and you WILL get the best of both worlds. If you are completely oblivious to this concept, I apologize for the condescending tone, but you are a self-proclaimed "experienced user" in the field, so I think it's fair to throw a bit of mud :)

The only point where the "16:10 is bad for gaming"-argument has any merit is when they are hooked up to gaming consoles, in which case it depends on whether the monitor has 1:1 pixel mapping or not. If not, then go ahead and get a tiny 23" 16:9 monitor to play your console games on, while I hook my console up to a 32"+ TV ;)
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good post.

as an example I just enable "use nvidia scaling with fixed aspect ratio" in nvidia's panel, this is basically software 1:1 pixel mapping. I use it for old 4:3 games and it will work fine for 16:9 games as well. As you say consoles are the exception, however I do use the xbox360 on my monitor for gaming and to me looks fine I have no issue playing games on it. So yes to sum up a 16:10 monitor can compensate and adapt to 16:9 but it cannot be the done the other way round.
 
chrcoluk said:
good post.

as an example I just enable "use nvidia scaling with fixed aspect ratio" in nvidia's panel, this is basically software 1:1 pixel mapping. I use it for old 4:3 games and it will work fine for 16:9 games as well. As you say consoles are the exception, however I do use the xbox360 on my monitor for gaming and to me looks fine I have no issue playing games on it. So yes to sum up a 16:10 monitor can compensate and adapt to 16:9 but it cannot be the done the other way round.
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and AGAIN that is not ALWAYS going to work for every game. hell even right now some games will have black bars all the way around them if I run a 4:3 res. some other games will have black bars just on the side. and thirdly some other games just stretch the image. that is regardless of what is selected in the Nvidia control panel or even in my monitors settings. it is a setting just like any other in that it does not always do what you want it to do.
 
that happens if you running buggy drivers yes, I found all nvidia drivers newer than 182.50 (all the WDDM drivers) do not work properly on scaling. On the 182.50 drivers it works for every game/app. So the problem you describe is a driver issue.
 
chrcoluk said:
that happens if you running buggy drivers yes, I found all nvidia drivers newer than 182.50 (all the WDDM drivers) do not work properly on scaling. On the 182.50 drivers it works for every game/app. So the problem you describe is a driver issue.
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yeah it can vary from driver to driver. and thats part of my my point because you never know and its not guaranteed to work correctly. heck i have used some drivers where the options where not even there at all. sometimes you cant just upgrade or roll back a driver because of this. so those reasons where why I chose just to get a 16:9 monitor. again this was just for gaming so it met my needs.
 
I suppose you could do it with software drivers but that never really occurred to me. The last few 16:10 monitors that I've had had some sort of 1:1 or aspect setting on the monitor itself. So the computer/console/device feeds in the 16:9 resolution (e.g. 1920x1080) and the monitor will black bar things correctly without the video card or software knowing anything.
 
a123456 said:
I suppose you could do it with software drivers but that never really occurred to me. The last few 16:10 monitors that I've had had some sort of 1:1 or aspect setting on the monitor itself. So the computer/console/device feeds in the 16:9 resolution (e.g. 1920x1080) and the monitor will black bar things correctly without the video card or software knowing anything.
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I have that on my monitor and even that cant get it right some of the time.
 
I checked my xbox360 after I mentioned I never had an issue.

In the settings I have it set to 1680x1050 (native res)
In the current game I am playing there is black bars so no stretching.

So seems the xbox360 handles it in software like the PC can.

Its the xbox360 doing it as the monitor does not have 1:1.
 
Though it hasn't been brought up much in this thread, there is also a question of aesthetics. 16:10 looks like a monitor. 16:9 just looks too fat and I don't like the amount of space it takes up on my desk. I have bought "bigger" monitors (read: wider) than I wanted to make up for the shortcoming in the vertical space. Why should I be forced to do that?

Yes, as you can see from my signature, I have a Dell 2209WA which is 1680x1050, but my choice was never between that or a 1920x1080 monitor. It was between that and something like 1600x900. I bring up Server VM's in VNC and VMware all the time where that extra 150 pixels is needed because of toolbars. The standard for our servers is 1024x768.

22" was my limit for my desk. Not everyone wants a huge (one again: wide) monitor taking up precious disk space to get work done. Is 1920x1080 technically more resolution space than 1680x1050? Sure....but I'd have to get something 24" or wider to get the pixel density my eyes prefer. You could even argue for a 42" 3840x1080 ultrawide IMAX monitor that wraps around my desk, but you'd be missing the point argued in the last several pages.
 
valnar same screen as me and the 2209wa is the best I have owned in a long time. Its so good I ordered 2 backups because all the new monitors on the market look sub standard for what I want should this ever die on me.
 
chrcoluk said:
valnar same screen as me and the 2209wa is the best I have owned in a long time. Its so good I ordered 2 backups because all the new monitors on the market look sub standard for what I want should this ever die on me.
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so you are going to have two backups just sitting around for the off chance that the third one may die in several years?
 
cannondale06 said:
I have that on my monitor and even that cant get it right some of the time.
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What exactly would you be using black bars for on a 1080p monitor? I did look up the Asus in your sig and it doesn't support 1680x1050, if that's what you tried.

I don't know about all monitors but some of the more popular and newer 24" 16:10 monitors, like the U2410 list correct support for 480i/480p/576i/576p/720p/1080i/1080p, which is going to cover most 16:9 needs, I would imagine. It also lists 1280x1024 and 1600x1200, which might be used in some older non-widescreen games. Obviously, the support won't be universal across all monitors but most people are going to spend the 30 seconds to check the specs if they know they're going to want to have support for 16:9 content.
 
a123456 said:
What exactly would you be using black bars for on a 1080p monitor? I did look up the Asus in your sig and it doesn't support 1680x1050, if that's what you tried.

I don't know about all monitors but some of the more popular and newer 24" 16:10 monitors, like the U2410 list correct support for 480i/480p/576i/576p/720p/1080i/1080p, which is going to cover most 16:9 needs, I would imagine. It also lists 1280x1024 and 1600x1200, which might be used in some older non-widescreen games. Obviously, the support won't be universal across all monitors but most people are going to spend the 30 seconds to check the specs if they know they're going to want to have support for 16:9 content.
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we were talking about 4:3 content which of course would be black bars on the side. support for something does not mean it will always work correctly.
 
cannondale06 said:
we were talking about 4:3 content which of course would be black bars on the side. support for something does not mean it will always work correctly.
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I haven't personally had issues with black bars but of course that doesn't mean it wouldn't or couldn't happen. Technology works different for everybody.

However, how would proper scaling of 4:3 content on a 16:9/16:10 be any different than trying to scale 16:9 onto a 16:10? Do you have a specific example in mind where it failed miserably (e.g. I don't know, say, Warcraft 1 @ 800x600 on your 16:9 monitor?) I'm just curious in what situations I can expect my own personal monitor to not scale properly in case I need to buy a new one in the future.
 
a123456 said:
I haven't personally had issues with black bars but of course that doesn't mean it wouldn't or couldn't happen. Technology works different for everybody.

However, how would proper scaling of 4:3 content on a 16:9/16:10 be any different than trying to scale 16:9 onto a 16:10? Do you have a specific example in mind where it failed miserably (e.g. I don't know, say, Warcraft 1 @ 800x600 on your 16:9 monitor?) I'm just curious in what situations I can expect my own personal monitor to not scale properly in case I need to buy a new one in the future.
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like I mentioned earlier some games I have played in 4:3 on this monitor have worked fine and simply added the black bars on the sides. other games have put black bars across the top and bottom for some reason at that same res. and other games have just flat out stretched the image. same hit or miss experience I had trying to run 16:9 games on a 16:10 monitor.
 
cannondale06 said:
like I mentioned earlier some games I have played in 4:3 on this monitor have worked fine and simply added the black bars on the sides. other games have put black bars across the top and bottom for some reason at that same res. and other games have just flat out stretched the image. same hit or miss experience I had trying to run 16:9 games on a 16:10 monitor.
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Yeah, I saw that post. The reason I'm asking for specifics is that I'm in the market for a new monitor. No matter what kind of monitor that I get (16:9, 16:10, 4:3, 5:4), one size won't fit all. If I get 16:9, it'll need to try to scale 4:3. If I get 16:10, it'll need to scale 16:9,4:3, etc.

So if you have some specific games that don't scale properly, I can run that in my battery of tests to see if I need to return the monitor and try something else. Do you remember which games in particular "just flat out stretched the image" no matter what settings you tried? Thanks.
 
a123456 said:
I haven't personally had issues with black bars but of course that doesn't mean it wouldn't or couldn't happen. Technology works different for everybody.

However, how would proper scaling of 4:3 content on a 16:9/16:10 be any different than trying to scale 16:9 onto a 16:10? Do you have a specific example in mind where it failed miserably (e.g. I don't know, say, Warcraft 1 @ 800x600 on your 16:9 monitor?) I'm just curious in what situations I can expect my own personal monitor to not scale properly in case I need to buy a new one in the future.
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When I rolled on 23"rs (1080p) I could not play games at 1600x1200 without image crush due to the pixels just not being there.
 
a123456 said:
Yeah, I saw that post. The reason I'm asking for specifics is that I'm in the market for a new monitor. No matter what kind of monitor that I get (16:9, 16:10, 4:3, 5:4), one size won't fit all. If I get 16:9, it'll need to try to scale 4:3. If I get 16:10, it'll need to scale 16:9,4:3, etc.

So if you have some specific games that don't scale properly, I can run that in my battery of tests to see if I need to return the monitor and try something else. Do you remember which games in particular "just flat out stretched the image" no matter what settings you tried? Thanks.
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no I have no idea right off the top of my head. it has been a while since I have had to run any in 4:3 and about the only time I do anything other 16:9 now is if I am running a specific benchmark.
 
cannondale06 said:
so you are going to have two backups just sitting around for the off chance that the third one may die in several years?
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one is been used on spare machine but is also a backup should this one die. 3rd is sitting in box yes.

I had a 4 year period where I was using a monitor not quite happy with, I dont want to repeat that situation again. I think this wont last several years, its on at least 16 hours a day and it wouldnt surprise me if it dies within 2 years.
 
suiken_2mieu said:
When I rolled on 23"rs (1080p) I could not play games at 1600x1200 without image crush due to the pixels just not being there.
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:) of course, you dont choose a higher res than your screen can handle. The game shouldnt have even let you choose the res.
 
chrcoluk said:
:) of course, you dont choose a higher res than your screen can handle. The game shouldnt have even let you choose the res.
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mine does not support it but some 1920x1080 monitors actually support 1600x1200 and 1920x1200. it sounds odd and to me doesn't make much sense but I have seen it listed in specs and even seen it selected in a game and work fine.
 
cannondale06 said:
mine does not support it but some 1920x1080 monitors actually support 1600x1200 and 1920x1200. it sounds odd and to me doesn't make much sense but I have seen it listed in specs and even seen it selected in a game and work fine.
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it sounds odd because tis not possible without some kind of emulation.

If you only have 1080 physical pixel height then you cannot display a 1200 height resolution.

Incidently why would you want to display that anyway? the game doesnt let you see extra on a higher resolution. The only difference will be ever so slightly higher detail. (on a true 1200 monitor).

you have a link to a monitor that does what you claiming?

been selectable in a game means very little, the game is only software. To make it selectable in a game just needs the game to be fooled by the hardware capabilities.

The only time I have seen a higher res been usable is on desktop software where can have the screen scrollable (some parts off screen).
 
I am not sure of the model but I think it was an Acer 21.5 model maybe. it was about a year ago when this occurred so maybe I can look through my post history on that forum. nobody, including myself, believed the guy but he posted a link directly to the specs on the companies site and he even fired up a game and selected 1600x1200.

EDIT: okay it was a 21.5 Asus VH226 1920x1080 monitor. and it shows 1600x1200 as a supported resolution in the manual on the Asus site. http://postimage.org/image/2o1lvjfno/

so that was 1600x1200 not both 1600x1200 and 1920x1200 but its still 1200 lines. he had also posted a 1600x1200 screenshot but it is no longer hosted since it has actually been 2 years ago.
 
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i once tested 16:10 on my 1080p tft (scaling disabled)
immediately thought that's much better

less space wasted
very nice for work and webbrowsing
would make a nice triple-monitor setup that isn't too wide compared to triple 16:9
 
I bought an used 8710w with a 17" 1920x1200 screen, and now I think that 16:10 is the perfect AR for a laptop. The 17,3" 16:9 laptop a friend of mine has is far too wide.
 
as luck would have it nvidia 2 days ago released drivers where they have rebuilt the scaling feature.

the beta 275.27 drivers I will be trying out to see if they the first WDDM drivers that have unbuggy scaling.
 
Huh The Witcher 2 is made specifically for 16:9 and has black bars on 16:10 :(

Looks like more and more games aren't bothering with 16:10 support *sniff*
 
I have tested nvidia's new drivers.

The options show when a analogue cable is used but the scaling is still dvi only, so I plugged in the dvi cable (spare rig uses analog usually as the monitor is aweful on dvi for some reason) and surprise surprise scaling works very well, even 640x480 which on 182.50 required a custom res to be added.

There is 2 extra options.

First is to do scaling on gpu or display, when on display 640x480 failed but when gpu selected it worked. Second is an option to overide games that ignore the setting, which I guess will interest some people here.

I also ran some 2d benchmarks using passmark as incidently 19x nvidia wddm drivers were around 30% slower than 182.50 drivers and these new drivers have massively closed the gap, only an average of 1.8% slower now. (3.2% slower on 3d).

This tested on a 7600GT.
 
mejobloggs said:
Huh The Witcher 2 is made specifically for 16:9 and has black bars on 16:10 :(

Looks like more and more games aren't bothering with 16:10 support *sniff*
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I can understand why letterboxing would bother 16:10 users (of which I am one), but there's something to be said for the presentational aspect of 16:9 and the developer's decision to want to present their games that way. I can respect that as an artistic choice.

That being said, I think it should be optional.
 
cannondale06 said:
mine does not support it but some 1920x1080 monitors actually support 1600x1200 and 1920x1200. it sounds odd and to me doesn't make much sense but I have seen it listed in specs and even seen it selected in a game and work fine.
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A 1600x1200 image displayed on a 1920x1080 screen will be scaled down with black bars on the sides:

http://tvcalculator.com/index.html?2a1d5367b3b5dcbb34d6e3fae5dc2928

It just can't work any other way. You can't make 120 rows of pixels magically appear on an LCD screen. I'll have to go with marketing confusing the consumers about what the manufacturer is actually doing (which is the default state of affairs in the monitor industry).
 
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When I look at a 16:9 screen that isn't a TV (i.e. Monitor / Laptop Screen) I feel as if the display is too short.

phide said:
I can understand why letterboxing would bother 16:10 users (of which I am one), but there's something to be said for the presentational aspect of 16:9 and the developer's decision to want to present their games that way. I can respect that as an artistic choice.

That being said, I think it should be optional.
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It should be indeed, but I'm more or less wondering why we haven't moved to 21:9 (cinematic) Aspect Ratio displays. AR doesn't bother me so much as in order to get that AR they cut out pixels, instead of adding them. I wouldn't mind if my 30" got wider, I mind when you take a hack saw to my display.
Display manufacturers are giving me less and saying it's better. Wtf? Those ignorant of it and supporting of it don't help either.
 
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kache said:
It can't be used with a computer:
7680*4320*60*30=59719680000=55.62gbit/s
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Oh yes it can - just lower the refresh rate and/or bit depth. A lot.

Or more realistically, have it function as four separate monitors and span it, using four DP 1.2 connections. The Eyefinity 6 cards can probably run it just fine. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that that is what they were doing...

That's how the IBM T221 works with its 3840x2400 output. Granted, it's a slow display in terms of max refresh rate 41/48 Hz. But that was 10 years ago. You could run it on anything from a single DVI link to four of them...
 
its just four 1920x1080.

1920 * 4 = 7680

1080 * 4 = 4320

So if you had four 1080p without bezels you could do that with eyefinity no problem.

Its basically 2/3 of this array, without bezels...
http://images.vizworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Eyefinity-4.jpg

I really hate over-under bezels though on full-array content (like games). Side to side, the panels are for periphery immersion so the bezels aren't supposed to cut into the content much. I'd like a monitor below a 3x eyefinity array just for extra application space and dedicated sometimes to videos, etc though, and to maintain some desktop app space outside of the gaming panels while gaming.

I don't think anyone has a problem with 16:9 at very high resolutions.. even x1440 for most people is good. Its more the 1080 high vs 1200 high that is the 'problem' for some people.

Considerations regarding that "4x 1920x1080p" panel by comparison would be things like:

size vs price <<<<<<<<<
panel type (ips? doubtful, though there are some 1080p panasonic vieras that are ips)
response time
120z refresh rate? 3D capable? - possible on TN and not IPS (if they use multiple inputs for the 120hz bandwidth required)
input lag / scaler
ghosting
detail in blacks
inputs

misc concerns :
consoles only play 720p or less in most demanding games, and movies are 1080p. GPU can upscale video fine, but consoles need a scaler.. scaler = greatly increased input lag.

I'd like a big 4x 1080p panel if there were bezel-less screens.. but not for $10k - 20k or who knows how much.. I think the most I'd spend on a monitor/panel-array would be $2k at one time. Modular approach would be more palatable to me (bezel-less screens).

some monitor cable bandwidth info (if this post is accurate...)
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034611951&postcount=3
evilsofa said:
240Hz at any resolution is a lot of bandwidth. You're limited by your cables.

1680x1050 = 1,764,000 pixels
1,764,000 x 60Hz = 105,840,000 pixels per second
105,840,000 x 24 color bits per pixel = 2,540,160,000 bits per second, or 2.54 Gb/sec
To get values for 120Hz, merely double the 60Hz values, and double it again for 240Hz. So:

1680x1050@60Hz = 2.54 Gb/sec
1920x1200@60Hz = 3.32 Gb/sec
Single-link DVI maximum speed: 3.96 Gb/sec
1680x1050@120Hz = 5.08 Gb/sec
DisplayPort 2 pairs maximum speed = 5.40 Gb/sec
2560x1600@60Hz = 5.90 Gb/sec
1920x1200@120Hz = 6.64 Gb/sec
Dual-link DVI maximum speed = 7.92 Gb/sec
1680x1050@240Hz = 10.16 Gb/sec
HDMI v1.3 maximum speed = 10.20 Gb/sec
DisplayPort 4 pairs maximum speed = 10.80 Gb/sec
2560x1600@120Hz = 11.80 Gb/sec
1920x1200@240Hz = 13.28 Gb/sec
HDMI Type B maximum speed = 20.40 Gb/sec
2560x1600@240Hz = 23.60 Gb/sec

You would need HDMI B, which so far has not been seen on a consumer monitor or video card, to do even 2560x1600 at 120Hz (sorry, Displayport fans, you don't get to go there either). There is no cable even on paper that would be able to do 2560x1600 at 240Hz, or even 1920x1080 at 240Hz.

The 120Hz and 240Hz LCD TVs you are seeing actually only take 60Hz or less from the video source, and achieve the fake 120Hz and 240Hz by inserting frames internally within the TV.

Info on video connection maximum bandwidths provided by the very useful List of device bandwidths wikipedia entry.
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elvn said:
its just four 1920x1080.

1920 * 4 = 7680

1080 * 4 = 4320

So if you had four 1080p without bezels you could do that with eyefinity no problem.

Its basically 2/3 of this array, without bezels...
http://images.vizworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Eyefinity-4.jpg
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think you did your math a little wrong there

1920 * 4 = 7680
1080 * 4 = 4320
(1920 * 4)(1080 * 4) = 7680 * 4320
1920 * 1080 * 16 = 7680 * 4320

You need 16 1080p monitors, not 4,
Therefor the image you posed does not exceed 7680*4320, but is actually less than that. You're still missing monitors from that 6 screen setup to equal 7680*4320 (you're going to need 10 more 1080p monitors)
 
dowant120hz said:
nice backlight bleed in the top right corner
that's the quality you get nowadays even if you're paying tens of thousands
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you cant determine backlight bleed when you dont know the ambient light sources. might just be reflections from the lighting in that room.

you would need an all black background in a completely dark room to tell.
 
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