Guys, there is one thing that really bugs me about 20" widescreen gaming. I'm hesitating between two new IPS panel monitors - one is a 20" widescreen, the other one is a 20" 4:3 "standard aspect" display. Before I finally take the LCD plunge, I need to know something.
There are tons of games (just see the master game list on widescreengamingforum.com) that do not support ws at all or only feature a crappy ws implementation (top and bottom chopped off or image stretched) - natively or "forced", doesn't matter. Now, on a 23-24" widescreen (1920*1200 native), this is not a problem. Pretty much all games support 1600*1200 so you can just go down to this resolution and play with black vertical bars, without sacrificing vertical image size.
Now, the situation in case of 20-21" widescreens is different. If a game doesn't support ws properly, what do you do? You can go down to 1280*1024 and play with thin horizontal black bars, right? The image loses just 26 pixels vertically (top + bottom), i.e. approximately 7 mm. No big deal, it's still an OK image size, albeit not too impressive (like 1 cm less vertically than on a 19" CRT).
However, if the game doesn't support this resolution because of its 5:4 aspect ratio (such games do exist, I can provide examples), what do you do? Play in 1280*960 (4:3 ratio), correct? Well then, in this case you have black horizontal bars that are already 45 pixels wide (each). This means ca. 12 mm shorter screen both top and bottom. Almost one inch of total vertical image size reduction.
At this point, the vertical image size is just 248 mm, compared to around 274 mm on a 19" CRT. This is small in my book.
In its native resolution (1680*1050), a 20" widescreen is far from being small, of course. 1400*1050 (the largest possible 4:3 resolution) is totally non-standard though, so most games will reject it. 1280*1024 is squarish and with slightly reduced vertical size, 1280*960 = just pretty small. How do you cope with that?
Currently, I'm still on a 19" CRT, and I don't want anything smaller...
EDIT: using the "aspect" scaling isn't an option, I guess. If you expand e.g. 1280*960 to 1400*1050, you retain the ratio but it's still interpolated so a visible deterioration of image quality will undoubtedly occur, from my understanding.
There are tons of games (just see the master game list on widescreengamingforum.com) that do not support ws at all or only feature a crappy ws implementation (top and bottom chopped off or image stretched) - natively or "forced", doesn't matter. Now, on a 23-24" widescreen (1920*1200 native), this is not a problem. Pretty much all games support 1600*1200 so you can just go down to this resolution and play with black vertical bars, without sacrificing vertical image size.
Now, the situation in case of 20-21" widescreens is different. If a game doesn't support ws properly, what do you do? You can go down to 1280*1024 and play with thin horizontal black bars, right? The image loses just 26 pixels vertically (top + bottom), i.e. approximately 7 mm. No big deal, it's still an OK image size, albeit not too impressive (like 1 cm less vertically than on a 19" CRT).
However, if the game doesn't support this resolution because of its 5:4 aspect ratio (such games do exist, I can provide examples), what do you do? Play in 1280*960 (4:3 ratio), correct? Well then, in this case you have black horizontal bars that are already 45 pixels wide (each). This means ca. 12 mm shorter screen both top and bottom. Almost one inch of total vertical image size reduction.
At this point, the vertical image size is just 248 mm, compared to around 274 mm on a 19" CRT. This is small in my book.
In its native resolution (1680*1050), a 20" widescreen is far from being small, of course. 1400*1050 (the largest possible 4:3 resolution) is totally non-standard though, so most games will reject it. 1280*1024 is squarish and with slightly reduced vertical size, 1280*960 = just pretty small. How do you cope with that?
Currently, I'm still on a 19" CRT, and I don't want anything smaller...
EDIT: using the "aspect" scaling isn't an option, I guess. If you expand e.g. 1280*960 to 1400*1050, you retain the ratio but it's still interpolated so a visible deterioration of image quality will undoubtedly occur, from my understanding.
Facebook
Twitter