Widescreens and video cards

[archcommus]

I'll be getting some type of flat panel by the summer and I'll most likely want a widescreen, because 1) I'd like to game in widescreen, and 2) I may be watching a lot of HDTV, most of which will be widescreen.

First question, what good widescreens are out there besides the 2005FPW? Do any of them rival the 2005FPW?

Secondly, what types of resolutions do you all use on your widescreens? For the 2005FPW, do you just stick with the default max res of 1680x1050?

Thirdly, how powerful of a video card is needed to run your games at that res? Is something at the level of a 6800GT or higher required?

Fourthly, what types of prices would you expect to see on these (around 20") by summer? Will Dell's bigger widescreen be out by then? Or would you expect the 2005FPW to STILL be priced at $749 in six months?

 

[JetBlack69]

I can only answer your second question. For most LCDs, you should run at the default resolution, 1680x1050. I'm not sure how the 2005fpw does at other resolutions, but hopefully it displays them well. 🙂

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: archcommus87
I'll be getting some type of flat panel by the summer and I'll most likely want a widescreen, because 1) I'd like to game in widescreen, and 2) I may be watching a lot of HDTV, most of which will be widescreen.

First question, what good widescreens are out there besides the 2005FPW? Do any of them rival the 2005FPW?

The 2005FPW seems to be the newest (and best) one out there. A lot of people are holding out for ones that are true HDTV "1080p" resolution (1920x1080), but there do not seem to be any coming out in the real near future.

Secondly, what types of resolutions do you all use on your widescreens? For the 2005FPW, do you just stick with the default max res of 1680x1050?

As with all fixed-pixel displays, running at anything less than the native resolution decreases image quality. If you have to run something in a 4:3 or 5:4 resolution (or anything other than native), you should set your drivers and/or the monitor to not stretch the image (unless you don't care about it being distorted).

Thirdly, how powerful of a video card is needed to run your games at that res? Is something at the level of a 6800GT or higher required?

Depends on the game? It would be slightly less stressful than running at 1600x1200. Benchmarks at that setting are widely available.

Fourthly, what types of prices would you expect to see on these (around 20") by summer? Will Dell's bigger widescreen be out by then? Or would you expect the 2005FPW to STILL be priced at $749 in six months?

They *just* released the 2005FPW; I really doubt they'll have another model out by summer. I also doubt you would see a big price drop on them over the next few months, since overall LCD demand is still pretty high.

 

[archcommus]

Thanks. Guess I should've tried harder to get in on the recent 25% off deal then. I just didn't quite have $600 at the time, and I figured they'd be cheaper by summer anyway, or there'd be more options to consider by summer.

So I may be stuck paying almost $800 for the thing even half a year from now! Sigh...

 

[Jeffyboy]

The 2005FPW is a great monitor... I have it myself. It works great on a 5200FX, 9550, 9600, and I just got a 6600GT in the mail today, i'm sure it will work with it also. Even a cheapo 5200FX "works"... just depends on how much power you need tho for your certain games. If the box for doom3 says it needs a minimum of "......" then get at least that... but the 2005FPW will work with about anything.

Better yet... does anyone know what vdieo card the 2005FPW will NOT work with? Like the older Rage2C video cards? lol... or something... who knows.

Jeff

 

[Matthias99]

Better yet... does anyone know what vdieo card the 2005FPW will NOT work with? Like the older Rage2C video cards? lol... or something... who knows.

Well... it should work with any RADEON or GeForce card (since they all use the same drivers), and it should work with just about any Matrox board (their support for multiple monitors and odd aspect ratios has been around for quite a while).

I can't imagine there are any video cards it wouldn't work at *all* with; it's just like any other monitor, after all, and if you feed it a proper signal it will display it. But I could see some older cards possibly not supporting the special widescreen resolutions.

 

[Peter]

As long as you're on DVI, the monitor will report all the details of its native resolution back to the graphics card's driver. Through this mechanism, the driver can auto-adopt any odd resolution as an additional choice.

I've seen the NVidia driver get this feature added with release 50 and have it removed again in 52. I don't know whether it's back in. ATi has been much later in adding it, and (again as far as I know) hasn't taken it back out.

 

[archcommus]

So really, there's no competition the 2005FPW currently.

And I'd just use native res with it I suppose, and the video card I'd like to get in the summer would possibly be an X800XL.

I just hope it goes down in price some by summer. If not I may just get a 4:3 19" LCD.

 

[nitromullet]

Depends on the game? It would be slightly less stressful than running at 1600x1200. Benchmarks at that setting are widely available.

Strangely enough, I have heard talk that running at 1680x1050 is actually a bit more taxing than 1600x1200 (have not tested this myself) due the fact that the FOV is larger when playing true widescreen because there is more to render. I believe that Ackmed posted somthing about this a while back when he first got his 2005FPW. To play any recent games (HL2/Doom3) at 1680x1050 I would recommend at least a 6800GT or X800 Pro. There is not really any point in purchasing such a nice screen if you can't play games on it smoothly.

Thanks. Guess I should've tried harder to get in on the recent 25% off deal then. I just didn't quite have $600 at the time, and I figured they'd be cheaper by summer anyway, or there'd be more options to consider by summer.

So I may be stuck paying almost $800 for the thing even half a year from now! Sigh...

DO NOT pay ~$800 for this monitor... Dell is really good about running deals pretty often. Just google "dell coupons" when you think you will be ready to buy soon, you should turn up something. It might take a week or two to find a 20-30% off deal, but they will be back. Plus, if you are patient, you might be able to find another $ coupon that you can stack on top of the % off coupon. I got a 25% coupon plus a $40 coupon and grabbed this monitor for $554 shipped.