Widescreen vs 4:3

ins0mn1ac · 10 Nov 2006 at 01:12

HighlandeR said:
Does the newer games like BF2142 have that widescreen support?

dont think so, EA say its an unfair advantage :eek:

Quixote · 10 Nov 2006 at 01:26

PinkFloyd said:
Using 3dsmax on a 15" would just be plain stupid

Agreed - I used it on 17" CRT's at uni & it was no fun.
For animation , you really can't underestimate the advantage of a second monitor even if it's gash (ie blagged from a skip 17" CRT). Ever since I put the whole timeline on a second monitor (in Cinema 4D at this point), I'll never go back.
However, I watch a lot of films on my PC too, so when finances allow, I'll add a 19" widescreen instead of the old CRT as a second monitor.

v0n · 10 Nov 2006 at 02:03

I enjoy the idea of widescreen, but the 19" 1280x900 actually offers less space than 4:3 and going higer means graphics card would have to be kept on bleeding edge otherwise games would run slow on 1680x1050.... A lot of dosh for a couple of inches on the edges...

Quixote · 10 Nov 2006 at 02:33

v0n said:
I enjoy the idea of widescreen, but the 19" 1280x900 actually offers less space than 4:3 and going higer means graphics card would have to be kept on bleeding edge otherwise games would run slow on 1680x1050.... A lot of dosh for a couple of inches on the edges...

So long as Widescreen support remains the exception rather than the rule... sooner or later though, I see a forced upgrade coming the way of all 3:4 gamers.
Again, it depends on your uses for the PC though, if you watch a lot of movies, Widescreen wins, hands down.

SiriusB · 10 Nov 2006 at 02:51

jegz said:
I have a 20" widescreen and i think its much better than my old 19" 4:3 crt.

+ you get a better FoV in CSS

Same here

Was a little worried about gaming with my Dell 2007WFP thinking it would either look crap or would entail a certain amount of aggro to make games look good.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I loaded up FarCry on it for the first time! FOV is brilliant! Same for HL2 and CS2... RTSs such as C&C Generals is also great, you can see half the map

I probably could go back to 19" for games, but for desktop tasks, esp Photoshop, it would take a certain number of undomesticated equines to pry my 20" beauty from me

SiriusB

PinkFloyd · 10 Nov 2006 at 03:25

SiriusB said:
RTSs such as C&C Generals is also great, you can see half the map

Should try that on my Dell at some point.....
Does it support the res?

btw, You should see Red Alert 2 in 1920x1200. Its quite funny

Rebelius · 10 Nov 2006 at 07:13

Widescreen for me, I bought a Viewsonic 20.1 Vx2025 in March and I love it. I've hardly found any games that wont run widescreen with a bit of tinkering, but I tend to play the big name games, not 100s of games. That said, Rome:TW, San Andreas, Far Cry, Half-Life2, Oblivion, Fear, Doom3, Quake4, AoE3, Hitman Blood Money, CoD2, NWN2, SC: CT, SC: DA, Rome Total War have all been played on this and I've not had bother getting any of them into 1680x1050. Doesn't really seem like Widescreen support is the exception rather than the rule to me.

Also, when I went to my parents' house and played Guild Wars on my old 17" VP171s, I really did miss that extra inch either side.

It's great for movies too, and If you have an older game (like Max Payne), you can just stick black bars down the sides and run it in 1280*1024 in the middle of the screen and it's just like playing on a 4:3 monitor but the bit an inch either side of your screen looks like black screen instead of wall.

Darkwave · 10 Nov 2006 at 10:11

HighlandeR said:
Does the newer games like BF2142 have that widescreen support?

Newer games do have widescreen support, not BF2142 though. Why? According to EA it gives widescreen players an unfair advantage (which is bullcrap, as when you tweak it to run in 16:9 or 16:10 you lose the top and bottom.)

Ozzie Dave · 10 Nov 2006 at 10:18

I moved from 4:3 to wide several months ago and haven't looked back. Wouldn't swap my 20.1" WS for the world (unless I had the cash spare for a 24" WS that is)

Gaming is loads more enjoyable with WS, and more natural to the eyes imo. Yes, some games still don't support WS but gradually most games houses are waking up to it. All the recent games I've bought have plenty of WS options.

hardc0re_tid · 10 Nov 2006 at 10:20

Rebelius said:
If you have an older game (like Max Payne), you can just stick black bars down the sides and run it in 1280*1024 in the middle of the screen and it's just like playing on a 4:3.

how do i go about doing that?

jas72 · 10 Nov 2006 at 11:59

Ulfhedjinn said:
I used to dislike the idea of widescreen, and LCD in general, until I decided that I needed more desk space and ditched my 21" CRT (1600x1200) for a 19" LCD (1440x900.) People would say that I'm mad for doing that but, aside from it being stupidly cheap when I bought it, the actual size of the screen isn't all that different in my opinion and games look great even at the lower res (which is win-win as it also means I won't need to upgrade my graphics so often.)

I have the Hanns G 19" WS and i simply love it. I moved up from 17" CRT and it's much better.

It's physically cooler, uses less energy, doesn't take 15 secs to (heat up) like my old screen and films are now watchable on the PC. Also I play COD2 and WoW and they both support that resolution and look great.

My next monitor (4-5 years time) will probably be the same size as I don't really need any bigger.

nands · 10 Nov 2006 at 12:00

v0n said:
I enjoy the idea of widescreen, but the 19" 1280x900 actually offers less space than 4:3 and going higer means graphics card would have to be kept on bleeding edge otherwise games would run slow on 1680x1050.... A lot of dosh for a couple of inches on the edges...

That exactly sums up my fear of W/S, I feel that I wouldn't gain much by moving from my 17"CRT to a 19" widescreen, but then the thought of having to run games at high res on a 20+" screen would grind things to a halt.

I have a fairly decent set up at the moment 4800X2 and a 1900XT 512 and 2GB but I feel that this would start to lag with newer games sooner rather than later on a 20" screen.

What do you think?

Echo toxin · 10 Nov 2006 at 12:17

I can get Max Payne and Max Payne 2 to run in widescreen.
When you first play the game, it pops up the configuration screen and I can certainly select 1920x1200.

I hate it when games for the consoles are now widescreen and yet the PC versions are not. (EA's Need for Speed Carbon is one example.)

Rebelius · 12 Nov 2006 at 05:04

hardc0re_tid said:
how do i go about doing that?

not sure about on a TNT2 mate, but I can go into CATALYST control centre, Displays Manager, and select Desktop Area at the bottom.

Being completely honest, the only resolution i can choose here is 1400x1050 (4:3) as my Viewsonic Vx2025 just stretches anything that's not 1050 high I think, and that looks pretty bad. but 1400x1050 works fine.

SiD the Turtle · 12 Nov 2006 at 09:26

Having upgrades to a Sammy R73 for my Xbox 360 (boo hiss etc) I found it an odd process trying to get games to work in widescreen. A lot of newer titles support it, Half Life 2 et al does apparently (haven't got round to installing it again) with no penalty but BF2 is a little distorted, and its like playing inside a letter box, as they cut off the top and bottom.

Oddly GTA3 and Vice City support my screen res (though its a little distorted for some reason) while San Andreas does not. I have to play in a 4:3 res with widescreen turned on and the monitor stretches the screen.

I've found that a lot of old games without realising it support widescreen, as they get their in-game resolutions by enumerating the windows options. I-War 2 looks fantastic in widescreen, despite being quite old.

For games that simply don't support it- luckily I have an option on the menu of the TV which will force the screen into 4:3.