***21.9 Ultrawide Thread***

[Smurfin]

I only have good things to say about it. Every game looks absolutely stunning - so much so that it's makes you want to go back and play through all your old games again on it. Games like Borderlands 2, Darksiders 2, Rage, Wolfenstien the New Order, Metro Redux, Shadow of Mordor look absolutely gorgeous! And as for Rise of the Tomb Raider - I often just stop playing when coming out of cave and approaching a cliff and just stare at the screen - breath taking visuals.

You would never notice any of the aforementioned issues whilst gaming or general use - the only time I've noticed it is when I've ended up with a black screen when pushing an overclock too far. It's completely insignificant to the experience you get owning this monitor.

I pretty much agree with this. My monitor does suffer from BLB, and I've seen better examples out there. But it's such a lottery; I took a chance and ordered another, and the second one had better BLB but would only overclock to 95hz.

I sent that one back as 100hz is important to me and in reality, I don't notice the BLB aside from the very odd occasion. That said, this is just for gaming, I couldn't use this monitor for watching movies, as the IPS glow makes it a poor experience - being superwide exacerbates this.

 

[heartburnron]

I pretty much agree with this. My monitor does suffer from BLB, and I've seen better examples out there. But it's such a lottery; I took a chance and ordered another, and the second one had better BLB but would only overclock to 95hz.

I sent that one back as 100hz is important to me and in reality, I don't notice the BLB aside from the very odd occasion. That said, this is just for gaming, I couldn't use this monitor for watching movies, as the IPS glow makes it a poor experience - being superwide exacerbates this.

Picking up on your point for watching movies - I was a bit disappointed with quality of the picture at 21:9 resolution; it seems to stretch the image so even when watch a 1080p recording it doesn't look that sharp. Is that just the way it is or is there something you can do to improve it?

 

[Phixsator]

Well i certainly would not dismiss a panel for not being 144hz. If you are using variable refresh rate tech aka freesync/gsync and your fps usually are stuck below 80-100 then why on earth pay for that extra 44hz+? However if your using a static refresh rate i would certainly pay for a higher HZ monitor and then it becomes much more important to me.

Ive been through a ton of monitors the last 2 years, LG 34um65, AOC q2963pm, ROG swift, Dell U3415w, LG 29UM57, Acer XB27H0 and my current Dell S2716DG. My conclussion: I miss IPS but i dont miss the blur, I enjoy TN at 144hz but i hate the overshot and lackluster colors/blacks and the acer ips screen is overrated. So if i can somehow manage to scrape together enough for the LG 34uc88 i might end up getting that in the future as got a feeling OLED ultrawides are just to fare away in the future at this point, sadly.

Its funny that i regret selling my 29um57. I would rather be using that right now than my current Dell(because tn 16:9)

 

[Nexus18]

Personally I wouldn't touch that model phix, crap freesync range of 55-75, better of with the cheaper and better acer x34.

I don't agree. A monitor purchase like this should last you for several years and through multiple GPU cycles. I wouldn't buy a monitor based purely on what my GPU can do today, and what frames I get today.

Ultimately, the ultra-wide gsync experience is awesome, even at lower frame rates. If you find games are that demanding to be a problem, just run the monitor in 2560 x 1440 for those games. Job done.

If you intend on keeping the monitor for several years then fair enough.

And yes, no doubt a GPU in 2-3 years will be more than capable of running today's current games with ease on max settings @ 3440x1440 but I suspect that no one will be playing these games again in 2-3 years time and the new lot of games will probably run about the same as what todays games on max settings at 3440x1440 run at with the current top end GPUs, maybe slightly better but I still can't see them getting over 75FPS consistently.

No doubt that g/free sync is superb for lower frames but that is my point, you would be getting more or less the same experience on a 60HZ g/free sync display as you would on a 75+HZ free/g sync display if.... you are getting <60FPS.

And yeah you could do but then you lose out on the 21.9 aspect ratio

If you meant 2560x1080, yeah you could do that as the difference doesn't look to be too big compared to 3440x1440 but that is the problem, the price for 3440x1440 is substantially more than 2560x1080.

Picking up on your point for watching movies - I was a bit disappointed with quality of the picture at 21:9 resolution; it seems to stretch the image so even when watch a 1080p recording it doesn't look that sharp. Is that just the way it is or is there something you can do to improve it?

Check my OP/first post of this thread, I included a bit about madvr + MPC HC, it helps with the upscaling of films.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228

Lots of help in that thread regarding what settings if you want to fine tune a bit more.

 

[heartburnron]

Check my OP/first post of this thread, I included a bit about madvr + MPC HC, it helps with the upscaling of films.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228

Lots of help in that thread regarding what settings if you want to fine tune a bit more.

Cool, thanks.

 

[Smurfin]

Picking up on your point for watching movies - I was a bit disappointed with quality of the picture at 21:9 resolution; it seems to stretch the image so even when watch a 1080p recording it doesn't look that sharp. Is that just the way it is or is there something you can do to improve it?

Remember you're more than likely watching a 1080p source, so it's never going to look as sharp as a desktop (assuming you're talking about a 3440 x 1440 panel).

When you say "stretched" though, I assume you're not stretching a 16:9 image to fit the whole width? If so that would look terrible.

 

[Phixsator]

Personally I wouldn't touch that model phix, crap freesync range of 55-75, better of with the cheaper and better acer x34.

The x34 is good deal more expensive here in Denmark at around 900+ pounds where the uc88 is 830 pounds roughly. Besides i dont like going under 50-55 fps anyway so i usually tune my settings accordingly not to mention that if i do get it it will most likely be powered by my 980ti so freesync is not doing anything for me until my next GPU update.

 

[Nexus18]

Ah fair enough.

 

[Jasonst888]

I am having a strange issue with my aoc 34 monitor. The display port cable (tried multiple cables) no longer works in Windows, can see Windows logo at startup can do BIOS stuff and everything but as soo n as Windows fully boots the screen stays black. Windows and nvidia control panel detects the monitor and acts as if it is there but no picture though the monitor does not turn itself off due to lack of signal. HDMI works fine but is of course at 30hz. Tried it on a friends amd GPU PC and same issue. I assume I will need to warranty it but just checking if anyone has any ideas what this might be first?

 

[heartburnron]

Remember you're more than likely watching a 1080p source, so it's never going to look as sharp as a desktop (assuming you're talking about a 3440 x 1440 panel).

When you say "stretched" though, I assume you're not stretching a 16:9 image to fit the whole width? If so that would look terrible.

Yes and yes. But there aren't any movies shot in 21:9 are there?

 

[Phixsator]

Yes and yes. But there aren't any movies shot in 21:9 are there?

Ive seen plenty of movies that would fill a 21:9 screen and they looked gorgeous. Otherwise i would get black bars but the aspect ratio of the movie was always intact.

 

[Nexus18]

There are a lot of films shot in 21.9 (technically it is 2:35x1), I would say that there are more shot in that than 16.9.

I believe it also depends on the source i.e. if watching straight from DVD, you have to do various work arounds for 21.9 and likewise for films from google play store.

My OP has info. on how to get films to properly adjust with MPC + madvr for certain aspect ratios.

 

[heartburnron]

There are a lot of films shot in 21.9 (technically it is 2:35x1), I would say that there are more shot in that than 16.9.

I believe it also depends on the source i.e. if watching straight from DVD, you have to do various work arounds for 21.9 and likewise for films from google play store.

My OP has info. on how to get films to properly adjust with MPC + madvr for certain aspect ratios.

Thanks, sounds like I'm missing a trick although I did only try a couple of 1080p starwars movies. I think they might have been 16:9 and had I it stretched to fill the screen...

 

[Reality|Bites]

Grrrr my Philips now has £100 off a week a later Grrrrr

 

[Nexus18]

Could always use CCR 14 day return policy

Thanks, sounds like I'm missing a trick although I did only try a couple of 1080p starwars movies. I think they might have been 16:9 and had I it stretched to fill the screen...

Haven't got any of the old star wars films so can't check.

But if you follow my brief guide and links in op, films shot in 16.9 format should not stretch nor zoom in.

 

[Reality|Bites]

I could....but would they see it as cheeky and tell me to do one? haha knowing full well I'm just going to buy it back again at the cheaper price.

 

[Nexus18]

It is the law, you can return it for whatever reason you want as long as it hasn't been damaged and is within 14 days.

You will have to cover the shipping costs though.

Could always contact ocuk and just explain to them that it will cost more for both you and them and be more faff required, they might agree just to refund you the difference, a certain rainforest jungle does this.

 

[Pinky Floyd]

Hey chaps, would love your thoughts on this. TBH I'm not doing much more about it except returning - but I still need a monitor so need to know if it's worth bothering with going down the 21:9 freesync 3440 res route? I know that these large panels have been having issues with disconnections when gaming using freesync (the Acer springs to mind). I had hoped to avoid that by getting a newer LG but I've seen that exact issue.

I'm wondering if even though displayport 1.2 is rated to handle this res and hz, it really just struggles to cope if there are any weak links in the chain at all. In essence, it's a bit of a lottery whether it works as designed.

So to start with, my specs:

3770k @ 4.3ghz
16gb RAM
Powercolor r9 390 GPU (previously powering 2 x 24" 1080p monitors via DVI, one of which is a 120hz panel).

So I got an LG 34UC88. Both the Witcher 3 and Rise of the tomb raider are the only games I have tried, but the sound and picture keep cutting out for a few seconds at a time during gameplay when freesync is enabled.

I've tried 3 different branded displayport cables and the issue is exactly the same.

I tried it briefly with freesync off @ 60hz and interestingly did not see the issues. I'm almost certain I would have seen them in even a short space of time as with freesync on, they happen every 10 seconds or so (or more).

I am on crimson drivers 16.4.1

Have re-installed Crimson drivers after using DDU. Have re-installed monitor drivers several times. I have reset the monitor several times. Nothing I have tried has been met with any success when using this monitor with freesync on.

Here is some links to the issue:

https://youtu.be/xuA28lD0oWU

https://youtu.be/hsZ-FPcS6hg

I also get this flashing up after each disconnect (you won't see it in the videos as I had disabled the pop up message by that point):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42027960/Ebay/ebay2/20160414_211525.jpg

Do you think I've just been unlucky with my panel and I should get another and try again? Do you think the monitor is most likely to be at fault and not the GPU or 3 different displayport cables I tried?

Thanks, really value your opinions as these sorts of purchases are very expensive and mistakes/faults take up so much time to get sorted!

 

[JediFragger]

Tried a pre-Crimson driver? I know their's been some random problems with them...

 

[Pinky Floyd]

No, I must admit I didn't do that :/