ultrawide monitor for gaming

wildman · 10 Aug 2013 at 20:06

I am looking to get a new monitor to complement my newly refreshed rig and upgrade from the current 24inch AOC I have.

Whilst looking at the selection on OCUK i saw these ultra wide 21:9 monitors like the dell and the asus. I am really tempted to get one of them but I am not sure how they would fare in games like BF3, EvE, Skyrim.

I do a lot of phhotshop work so I think I would certainly benefit from the increase in desktop real estate.

However do games today support the super wide screen resolutions ? or will they end up with vertical black bars either side because the game doesn't support those resolutions ?

Mei · 10 Aug 2013 at 20:15

some games do some dont, i think most the newer ones do
how about another aoc, their 29inch is the one i would get
the philips one looks interesting too, not seen a good review of imput lag on them yet tho

Andrew_McP · 10 Aug 2013 at 20:17

Direct x is pretty good at supporting whatever res is available. The only issue will be whether in-game FOV can be tweaked to avoid the kind of fish-eye effect on triple screen set-ups.

One thing to consider though is that 27" hi-res ips panels like the affordable DGM offer an awful lot of horizontal pixels to play with, usually with more vertical pixels (important in a general purpose workspace for me) without risking that ultra-wide wierdness. I'm curious about them as well, but after picking up a DGM in a sale a year or so ago I'm extremely happy with it as both a workspace and gaming screen... Though obviously those pixels take a bit of shifting!

wildman · 10 Aug 2013 at 20:21

Andrew_McP said:
Direct x is pretty good at supporting whatever res is available. The only issue will be whether in-game FOV can be tweaked to avoid the kind of fish-eye effect on triple screen set-ups.

One thing to consider though is that 27" hi-res ips panels like the affordable DGM offer an awful lot of horizontal pixels to play with, usually with more vertical pixels (important in a general purpose workspace for me) without risking that ultra-wide wierdness. I'm curious about them as well, but after picking up a DGM in a sale a year or so ago I'm extremely happy with it as both a workspace and gaming screen... Though obviously those pixels take a bit of shifting!

thats this one right ?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-003-DG&groupid=17&catid=1120

the resolution sounds pretty sweet. I would assume that a 7950 crossfire setup could handle those resolutions in games like BF3 ? I guess would have to crank it down from ultra settings though ?

Would still be interested to hear from gamers running the ultrawide setups though as I like the idea of a lot of horizonatl withou having to go eyefinity

whyscotty · 10 Aug 2013 at 21:08

7950 crossfire would handle BF3 at Ultra @ 2560x1440 no problem

Have a read of this if you haven't already

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18478094

Your 2500k would bottleneck your cards though on BF3

wildman · 10 Aug 2013 at 22:14

whyscotty said:
7950 crossfire would handle BF3 at Ultra @ 2560x1440 no problem

Have a read of this if you haven't already

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18478094

Your 2500k would bottleneck your cards though on BF3

even at 4.8 ghz ? how bad is the bottleneck and would it cause micro stuttering ?

Andrew_McP · 11 Aug 2013 at 06:46

wildman said:
thats this one right ?

Yes, that's it. I have a 3 x 19" setup at one end of my desk for sim racing, and the DGM attached to this PC, my main desktop machine, which is only an E8400@3GHz with an ATI 5870. I do most of my gaming and almost all my general computing on this PC, because even when I have to drop the resolution to 1080p for games, and cut down the flashy effects, this is a great way to experience games. And of course it's a very useful screen size for multiple window desktop work.

When I edit movies I prefer the ultra-wide three screen setup, and to be fair if I had more expensive, larger screens on that PC I might spend more time on it. But the DGM -- while far from perfect, as the thread for it will show -- is a very nice screen indeed, especially when on offer for £329, like it was last week. The closer it gets to £400, the more tempted I'd be to save more and buy one of the better brands.

Anyway, those ultra-wide screens seem very nice, but I know one person on iRacign who bought one to see if it was a viable alternative to his existing three screen sim racing machine, but he wasn;t impressed by the reduction in horizontal FOV.

Sim racing (and flight sims) are fairly niche activities though, and in most cases I'd expect the ultra wide format to be more acceptable in every way (physical desk space and reduced GPU workload). I'd just struggle to lose the vertical workspace now I've got used to 2560x1440.

Ultimately with screens there's absolutely no substitute for finding somewhere which stocks them and can show you what they're really like. I don't think I've seen an ultra-wide in the wild though, and very few people have them so far to get advice from.

Boozebeard · 13 Aug 2013 at 01:11

I'm pretty interested in these too. I have a dell 2560x1440 at the moment but am thinking of replacing it with a cintiq for my graphic work and getting a monitor dedicated to gaming. Does anyone know if there are any plans for 120hz ultra wide monitors? That would be so perfect for FPS gaming!

wildman · 21 Aug 2013 at 11:25

now I am in a bind because this on the this week special

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-012-HO

that Hazro looks pretty sweet and its 10bit so for phot work this would probably be really good from a colour perspective. Only thing is not sure how it woul dbe for gaming, but I assume it would still be good, although maybe not as great as a 120hz panel ?

skuko · 21 Aug 2013 at 12:22

my single 680 plays all of those games you mentioned in the OP in 2560x1080 maxed out at 60 fps without any problems

on the dell u2913wm, that is.

wildman · 24 Aug 2013 at 00:26

curse Gibbo and his today only deals

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-066-DE

just came home from a night out, saw this and the next thing you know I was in credit card central ordering one !!!!!!!!!

wildman · 28 Aug 2013 at 11:29

my dell arrived yesterday.

Got it back, hooked it all up.

All I can say is wow.

Currently playing skyrim with lots of mods at 2560 x 1080 is really imersive. I had to download an app called flawless widescreen though as at that res there was some display issues with the HUD, namely the invetory and the perks screens.

I am using the moniotr out of the box using game mode, I haven't done any callibration or adjusted anything. Only installed the dell drivers and the software that lets you control the monitor settigns through windows rather than using the OSD

Rroff · 28 Aug 2013 at 13:38

If you switch to gaming mode and a few other tweaks the panel drops to fairly decent latency and becomes very responsive but at a bit of a cost to image quality. The aspect ratio is really nice for immersion in games like skyrim but I've found the odd game where it distorts the shadow map projection.

andicole0 · 28 Aug 2013 at 13:43

wildman said:
my dell arrived yesterday.

Got it back, hooked it all up.

All I can say is wow.

Currently playing skyrim with lots of mods at 2560 x 1080 is really imersive. I had to download an app called flawless widescreen though as at that res there was some display issues with the HUD, namely the invetory and the perks screens.

I am using the moniotr out of the box using game mode, I haven't done any callibration or adjusted anything. Only installed the dell drivers and the software that lets you control the monitor settigns through windows rather than using the OSD

I was going to say that 2560*1440 is not 'ultra widescreen' it's still 16:9 however the Dell looks superb, any chance of some pics and screenshots. Especially of Skyrim in wide as I've just restarted it.

Andi.

skuko · 28 Aug 2013 at 13:57

will post some pics from my phone and screenshots later when i'm home...

300+ hours in skyrim

wildman · 29 Aug 2013 at 01:00

andicole0 said:
I was going to say that 2560*1440 is not 'ultra widescreen' it's still 16:9 however the Dell looks superb, any chance of some pics and screenshots. Especially of Skyrim in wide as I've just restarted it.

Andi.

didn;t really play tonight, but here is a quick screenshot. I have started a new game so its really early in act 1

Spolier because its the full res screen

skuko · 29 Aug 2013 at 18:04

right....so yesterday i forgot to get some pics, i remembered today though

next to a DELL U2412M

some game screenshots, diablo 3, skyrim, EVE online

Rroff · 29 Aug 2013 at 18:09

There are so many better shots you could have taken of Eve Online

skuko · 29 Aug 2013 at 18:27

Rroff said:
There are so many better shots you could have taken of Eve Online

i know right? wasn't rly playing though at that time, so i just undocked and screenshotted