How Wide is too Wide?

[NamelessPFG]

I agree. 1920x1200 is perfect for the PC, because it can be scaled to a high-res 4:3 1600x1200 that so many legacy programs and games could be set to, but not current widescreen resolutions.

With 16:9 1080p, the highest scaled "classic" resolution that most of those older legacy programs and games can be set to is 1280x960/1024 (or 1400x1050 in very rare instances), which really detracts from image quality over 1600x1200, imo.

This is why I prefer no less than 1200 pixels tall for a modern monitor resolution, right here. I still like to frag like it's 1999 sometimes! (Though, funnily enough, Q3A and UT don't have much issue with modern widescreen resolutions, with the latter even doing Hor+ FOV if you use the DX10/DX11 renderer.)

1440 pixels tall is fine, even with minor letterboxing if using 1:1 scaling on the display end. 2160 pixels tall might have more distracting letterboxing in 1:1 scaling, though, but I'd hope by that point that PPI/DPI becomes so high across the board that the image quality hit from non-integer scaling becomes a non-factor at typical viewing distances. (I've actually thought about this being needed for CRT shaders to really work, emulated fat phosphor dot/stripe subpixels and all.)

 

[Dan_D]

I agree. 1920x1200 is perfect for the PC, because it can be scaled to a high-res 4:3 1600x1200 that so many legacy programs and games could be set to, but not current widescreen resolutions.

With 16:9 1080p, the highest scaled "classic" resolution that most of those older legacy programs and games can be set to is 1280x960/1024 (or 1400x1050 in very rare instances), which really detracts from image quality over 1600x1200, imo.

I couldn't disagree with this statement more. 1920x1200 is 16:10, which is awesome but monitors at this resolution are small. When you start increasing the size then the pixel pitch starts to suck ass. 2560x1600 was better, and it still is in my opinion. I use a 2560x1600 monitor every day. Even that isn't what I'd consider perfect. A 40-43" display at 4K is even better. I'm sure I'll prefer even higher resolutions at some sizes when we get to that.

 

[DejaWiz]

I couldn't disagree with this statement more. 1920x1200 is 16:10, which is awesome but monitors at this resolution are small. When you start increasing the size then the pixel pitch starts to suck ass. 2560x1600 was better, and it still is in my opinion. I use a 2560x1600 monitor every day. Even that isn't what I'd consider perfect. A 40-43" display at 4K is even better. I'm sure I'll prefer even higher resolutions at some sizes when we get to that.

Let me clarify: for 1200p vs 1080p, I think 1200p is superior. This is especially true since a majority of monitors made and sold today are still 1080p.

My next monitor is going to be a 16:9 1440p 144Hz so I can utilize 4:3 1600x1200 in my legacy games.