Games & Widescreen LCD Monitors?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tyler Cobb
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Tyler Cobb

I'm considering buying a widescreen monitor. There seems to be only two
resolutions available for the size of monitor that I'm after. These
resolutions, while I understand are simply naitive, are also obnoxiously
high and some of my games that I play run in lower, non-widescreen
resolutions.

Who here plays games that are older and run in SVGA resolutions on one of
these newer 1400x900+ (or whatever) resolution LCD monitors? I know many of
the newer games will work just fine on it, but I'm curious as to what will
happen to games that I play like the Silent Hill series (non-widescreen),
Warlords Battlecry 3 (2D, non-widescreen), Ghost Master (non-widescreen),
Unreal Tournament 2003, etc.

Anyone have any comments or suggestions to make? Thanks for the help!!

Tyler Cobb, MCP
 
I haven't had a problem. They can run under non-native resolutions just
fine. They do look a little stretched out at times, but otherwise look fine.
The higher the resolution, the less you will notice (but it is still there).
 
I'm running a 19" wide lcd screen.
I'am playing the old might&magic 7 for blood and honor,Baldur's,final
fanasty 7&8
and they all work just fine.
I have a Nvidia 7600gs card 512mb
Try it you will like it
LarryM
 
You are correct about the LCD monitors, they typically look good only at
their highest resolution, everything else is fuzzy. For Windows this isn't
that bad of a thing, even if its too small for you at the high res, you can
use the "Adjust Font Size" in your display options to make everything a bit
bigger (but still sharp).

As for games, full-screen games will stretch if they don't have a
wide-screen option. Its not that bad, though people tend to look a little
fat. Think of the widescreen TV's at the store, when a normal signal is sent
it stretches everything out. If you watch football, you won't even notice,
but if you are watching a soap-opera everyone will need to lose a little
weight.

For game resolutions, just like on the desktop, things get a little fuzzy.
In games this is not normally an issue as you are not trying to read email or
other small details. If you are going to play a stat-based game you may have
trouble but any graphic game such as UT or Titan Quest works just fine at any
of the supported resolutions.

Hope that helps, BTW - one of the requirements to be labeled "Games For
Windows" is widescreen support, so expect to see it in virtually all games in
the future. I recommend getting the monitor, you will love it!

Mark
 
Tyler Cobb said:
I'm considering buying a widescreen monitor. There seems to be only two
resolutions available for the size of monitor that I'm after. These
resolutions, while I understand are simply naitive, are also obnoxiously
high and some of my games that I play run in lower, non-widescreen
resolutions.

Who here plays games that are older and run in SVGA resolutions on one of
these newer 1400x900+ (or whatever) resolution LCD monitors? I know many of
the newer games will work just fine on it, but I'm curious as to what will
happen to games that I play like the Silent Hill series (non-widescreen),
Warlords Battlecry 3 (2D, non-widescreen), Ghost Master (non-widescreen),
Unreal Tournament 2003, etc.

Anyone have any comments or suggestions to make? Thanks for the help!!

Tyler Cobb, MCP
Click to expand...

The best idea, if you have your heart set on getting this new display, is to
also update your video card, if you haven't already. Most displays and cards
can also handle running things under a lower display mode, and that should
take care of the issues you might have. If for some reason, either the
display or the card cannot adjust the resolution, then the system will try to
do it's best, and you might see some stretching or compressing of the images.
 
Hi,

i got an 22" Widescreen. In Vista you can can run your games in a smaller resolution.
Just change the zoom options in the video driver and set ub the wanted resolution in the
game. It will play in a smaller windows with black field to the left an the right. In XP
it should also work but there is an bug in the driver for the 8800 series under xp so it
maybe will not work if you got a card from the 8800 series.

Greets

Captain
 
My screen is a acer al2623w widescreen 26 inch, with a maximum resolution of
1920x1200. Running under a xfx8800gtx nvidia 768mb.
I can play most games with out any problem. Even games which aren't made for
widescreen.
 
1400 x 900 is not high by todays standards.
Also considering the games you are playing and the (implied) lower
resolution suggest that your graphics card and /or subsystem are not
optimal.
Having said that you shouldn't have any problem running any of the games
with a widescreen monitor.
Even at 4:3 ratio video card settings (native or otherwise) the monitor will
almost certainly stretch the image to fit the physical screen width.
You might even be able to set correct aspect (with black side bars) but that
defeats the object.
Bottom line is that you will get a wider desktop (good news) but that games
will be streched wider (fatter) but no genuine extra gameworld width.
If you can run a modern (ish) game with true widescreen settings you do
actually get genuine extra width of view.
A widescreen monitor certainly looks nicer (especially when displaying true
widescreen content) but you have to decide if the cost is worth the
aesthetics as you probably won't be seeing it used to proper effect.
As far as the desktop goes, as long as your video card can handle it you
will see a difference.

Phypps
 
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