Widescreen or non-Widescreen LCD

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brighton

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2006
Messages
180
so im getting a new LCD soon, I want to get a widescreen 20" lcd thats res 1680x1050

question is can my rig handle that high res in games? I think most games i play support WS like css, bf2, oblivion, (Unreal 2004 i dunno?)

what do you guys think should i just get a standard 19" lcd instead.. :confused:
 
Widescreen to future proof yourself in the futer. I think you should have posted this in the Display forum to get more answers.
 
DooLocsta said:
Widescreen to future proof yourself in the futer. I think you should have posted this in the Display forum to get more answers.
Click to expand...

ya may be better in the display forum i just posted here cuz im mostly worried that my graphics card cant handle widescreen res.. i'll move it if i dont get many responses
 
DooLocsta said:
Widescreen to future proof yourself in the futer. I think you should have posted this in the Display forum to get more answers.
Click to expand...

aft... i love my widescreen, and more and more games support ws resolutions
 
I say go widescreen. Games are shifting to supporting widescreen. It also looks amazing. Movies look more natural and you miss less on the sides. :D I went 20 inch widescreen not long ago and have not regretted it.
 
i dont think bf2 supports ws resolutions but oh well

i bought a nice 19" monitor for gaming b/c of its awesome 2ms response time, which no other monitor offers so give me a 20+ inch widescreen with this good response time and the next LCD ill buy will be widescreen but yeah i guess get WS if you can and want to. not saying i regret getting my 19" :) i came from a 19" crt so getting a NON-ws LCD was just as thrilling hehe.
 
ya widesceen is nice and dvd movies will look sweet .. just worried about fps might need to upgrade the gfx card first im not sure
 
1680x1050 is fewer pixels than 1600x1200 (156,000 fewer, to be precise). Putting an image on a 20" widescreen monitor would theoretically be ~8% less demanding on a graphics card than a 20" 4:3 monitor. Of course, 1680x1050 is still ~25% more pixels than 1280x1024 (19")...

I suggest looking up benchmarks for your card, for the games you play. Compare the framerates of 20" resolutions (widescreen and 4:3 are close enough so that it doesn't matter all that much, a 1600x1200 score will be a good-enough approximation of 20" widescreen performance) to 1280x1024. That will give you hard numbers to go by.
 
WS, easy choice. If you notice, all things are going wide, and its for a reason.

In a true WS game, you get more game on the sides, where it matters the most.

For pics to compare, check these out; http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/screenshots.php

They are not all perfect, and just from people sending them in. The difference is pretty noticable to me.

DanK said:
1680x1050 is fewer pixels than 1600x1200 (156,000 fewer, to be precise). Putting an image on a 20" widescreen monitor would theoretically be ~8% less demanding on a graphics card than a 20" 4:3 monitor. Of course, 1680x1050 is still ~25% fewer pixels than 1280x1024 (19")...
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My tests have shown that 1680x1050 is harder on frames than 1600x1200, in HL2.
 
ok i just had a brilliant idea i will hook my old 19" crt and test 1600x1200 res

1600x1200 on a crt should be about the same as a ws lcd fps wise
 
Another vote for Widescreen. Since I got my first WS (2005fpw) I've picked up 6 since.
 
Widescreen (used) to have limited support in games. But that should be changing as more people get them. Go wide to be future-proof (not that anyone can really future proof when new products come out every six months, sigh)
 
DanK said:
Of course, 1680x1050 is still ~25% fewer pixels than 1280x1024 (19")...
Click to expand...

Umm, don't you mean 1680x1050 is about 34.5% MORE pixels than 1280x1024?
 
I just got my Scpetre X20 Naga III 20" widescreen LCD today ($299 after rebate from Newegg). I have to say, I'm impressed. It is a bit of an upgrade from my 19" Viewsonic CRT. I was a little leary of if because it's a....Sceptre.....but I haven't seen any ghosting in SiN: Emergence, COD 2, or Oblivion. I also think Oblivion looks better becuase it's not as bright as my CRT was - the HDR doesn't get as super bright.

But yeah, games look much better in widescreen. Go widescreen!
 
Oh, I also had a relevant question. If you had to step down to the next lowest widescreen resolution on a 20" widescreen, does it scale the image well, or no?
It should, because if you fullscreen a DVD it's not at 1680x1050, right?
 
whatever choices are made, widescreen is way different than the normal varients of today. Take alot of getting used to and may cause your games to run and different than their native resoultions if they're not modern enough to support WS.

I loved it because I had the supporting HW to make it do what I wanted. At times though, I yearned for what I felt was better text from a regular 19/20inch monitor.

Also, the WS dell 20 felt smaller than some regular monitors. Just throwind that out there---i ended with the 2405 until i got fedup with my other hardware not making the cut.

GL

excuse the lack of structure and grammar. Im tired but i wanted to get that out there. gn all./
 
brighton said:
ok i just had a brilliant idea i will hook my old 19" crt and test 1600x1200 res

1680x1050 on a crt should be about the same as a ws lcd fps wise
Click to expand...

so i tried this and i took a pretty big fps hit, but games were still playable.

i did the Source VST
1280x1024 = 91fps 2xaa,, 2xaf
1680x1050 = 52fps 2xaa, 2xaf

thats 39FPS difference !!! ouch, but like i said the game still ran fine and what im thinking is at that high res i can turn AA off so that may help a bit.

i also tested oblivion and that seemed to give about the same fps
 
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