Which is best, 16:9 or 16:10 monitor for gaming?

I just tried Half Life 2, a game which I would have assumed to have proper widescreen support but by default you see more in 16:9 again, perhaps this is fixable by manually changing the FOV though?

16:9
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16:10
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it is yes, there's an FOV option in the options screen. try changing it to 90

I didn't put it on 90, I moved it five notches from the left which is about 40% of the way towards 90 - it doesn't give a numerical value that I can see. (I suppose you can do it from the console though.)
 
Tried this in HL2 EP2, weirdly the only thing that changes is the size/position of your gun. Your world view is completely unchanged regardless of FOV setting. Whether it's on 75 or 90.
 
16:9 looks more panoramic than 16:10, so you think you are seeing more, but it's an illusion.

Here is a pic showing two monitors of the exactly the same size, with the two ratios, overlaid on top of each other. A 16:9 monitor is significantly shorter than a 16:10 monitor, but not significantly wider - it only seems that way because of its reduced height.
(click for bigger version)


The 16:9 view shows a tiny bit more at each side, but loses a lot more from the top and bottom. In games, it doesn't matter a great deal, but for everything else you do on your computer, you are much better off with the extra height, especially with the space taken up by horizontal menus and toolbars in programs as well as the windows taskbar. Vertical space is more important. As you can see from the pic above, the actual horizontal width lost by a 16:10 monitor is very little.
 
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16:9 looks more panoramic than 16:10, so you think you are seeing more, but it's an illusion.

Here is a pic showing two monitors of the exactly the same size, with the two ratios, overlaid on top of each other. A 16:9 monitor is significantly shorter than a 16:10 monitor, but not significantly wider - it only seems that way because of its reduced height.
(click for bigger version)


The 16:9 view shows a tiny bit more at each side, but loses a lot more from the top and bottom. In games, it doesn't matter a great deal, but for everything else you do on your computer, you are much better off with the extra height, especially with the space taken up by horizontal menus and toolbars in programs as well as the windows taskbar. Vertical space is more important. As you can see from the pic above, the actual horizontal width lost by a 16:10 monitor is very little.

As I was saying before, to talk about ratios without considering current manufacturing reality is meaningless.

The present-day reality is that a 16:9 monitor is cheaper and smaller than a 16:10 monitor because the both share a common horizontal pixel count.

The means that games using horiz+ are doing it wrong.

If manufacturers would make 16:9 monitors bigger than 16:10, by using the same vertical pixel count, then horiz+ would be correct.

In short, it is pointless to debate this ratio vs that ratio, when you can only buy either according to what is being manufactured.

I would love to buy a 2133x1200 TFT but none are being made. The current reality is that 16:9 monitors are smaller than 16:10, and no amount of debate about which ratio is better will change this.

Lastly, the diagram above is nice and all, but again it doesn't match with monitors actually being produced. All this arguing and ignoring what the panel makers actually want to produce is getting us nowhere.
 
Lastly, the diagram above is nice and all, but again it doesn't match with monitors actually being produced. All this arguing and ignoring what the panel makers actually want to produce is getting us nowhere.
Unless manufacturers are lying about the diagonal monitor dimensions, the above diagram is correct. With 2 monitors each of (say) 24" size, with the ratios discussed here, the above is exactly what you get.

If the monitors are not the same size, it will be different. You get a lot of 16:10 monitors at 24", and 16:9 monitors at 23" (which has about the same width as a 24" 16:10, but even more reduced height).
 
yeah but that has no bearing in what you see in game, which is the topic of this thread. as you can see from the images provided, some are displayed correctly, but the majority are not unless you use a fix.
 
16:10 2560x1600 here :). Can't say I've ever really noticed a difference going from a 16:9 screen however judging from the pics above 16:10 looks better (zoomed in) while 16:9 shows slightly more (zoomed out).
 
Dell ips panels look great not sure how they compare to the led back lit monitors now avaliable but a lot better than the older tn panels
 
Dell ips panels look great not sure how they compare to the led back lit monitors now avaliable but a lot better than the older tn panels

Not sure how relevant that is to the thread though which is about screen ratios :p

Also for gaming 120Hz is better and those are all TN panels I believe.
 
I think the panel type makes more difference. I've got a Dell 2209WA with an IPS panel. I couldn't go back to a TN panel, because the colour representation and viewing angles are so poor by comparison.

Colour can be better on TA than IPS, viewing angle is the main downfall with them.

For example, my alienware 120hz 23.6" colour is far better than PVA or IPS i had before (dgm 24" PVA and Dell 2209 IPS)
 
On the main point, ive recently just changed from 1920x1200 to 1920x1080, i cant really say I notice that much of a difference in modern games, where it is a negative, is in older games which dont have any kind of widescreen support, or stretched widescreen (like COD games), the stretch is far more apparent on the 1080p one.
 
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