Why Widescreen?

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To SirCrono
Im in the same boat as you i hate wide screens and want to get a new 19 inch but they are dissapearing from the shops at a rate of knota here in the UK sure you can still get them at the min but i need to wait 3 ish months before i can get the whole build shipped together, just hope they still have them where im getting it from by then.
Mactronix
PS TV as well, Dont know what its like in the states but nobody seems to screen tv in one size in uk its either heads getting cut off or short fat dumpy people on screen. Does this happen on a widescreen monitor or are they all 1:1 or do they scew the image to fit.
 
I read recently that the widescreen format is being "pushed" for PC monitors because it simplifies turning out a larger number of LCD's. The ratio is thus the same for PC's and TV's.

I can't wait to get a widescreen 20" Viewsonic within a month. I watch movies on my PC (even have one DVD-ROM drive set for region 2 for Japanese DVD's). It will be much nicer with a 16:9 aspect and a ratio of 1650 x 1200.

Still have an old Viewsonic A71f 17" CRT!
 
I , as a web dev , cannot see a reason why you should build webpages for a certain resolution , you can either build liquid layouts , or just pixel fixed layouts (like this forum)...

The look of the website shouldn't really change with resolution.
 


You shouldn worry for a timeframe of 3 months, I know they'll be around for at least a couple of years, but still, widescreen is slowly replacing the 4:3 standard.

I guess we'll just have to get used to it, still I plan to get as much life as I can from my old CRT.
 
I agree that our peripheral vision should not be excluded. It's our peripheral that also gives us a more submersive, more realistic experience. Also games that support wide screen resolutions may even give us an advantage over standard aspect ratios. Just as you said, our peripheral vision is used "catch preditors," the higher concentration of motion sensitive Rods used for our peripheral vision helps us to stay alert, so when that bastard is trying to sneak up on you in Call of Duty, you can kill his ass.

But also in everyday applications I think widescreen definitely has its place. After using Exel on a widescreen monitor, I never want to go back to 4:3. Its so nice being able to go from A-AC without having to scroll horizontally. I specially love the extra work space that I get with my 24" monitor and have my windows evenly spaced out without to much clutter.

Also just a note, our eyes will naturally scan across the screen. Even people with scotomas (small blind spots due to small lesions in the occipital lobe) may never notice these blind spots because our eyes are always making tiny involuntary movements, therefore filling these blind spots. So although the outer rims may immediately be a part of our peripheral vision, at some point it will come in contact with our center field of vision.
 


... PC monitors do NOT have the same ratio as TVs. PCs use 16:10, TVs use 16:9, and for a good reason too - at least from my perspective - as while 16:9 would be even better for media, it's just way too wasteful for work (see pro-4:3 posts above). Thus 16:10 is used as a compromise for most monitors, I personally do find it more comfortable to work on those than 16:9.

4:3 vs 16:10 though, I'm not exactly biased towards either, even at work; I think 16:10 already offers decent vertical space, and while 4:3 does give you a single bigger workspace, it's harder to line up windows side-by-side, and hence imo worse off for multitasking purposes.

There is one definitive advantage for widescreen in general, though. If you do the math, you'll notice that widescreen panels of the same diagonal size will ALWAYS have less actual area than a similarly "sized" 4:3 panel. Hence the cost is lowered, and the manufacturers get to brag about the "widescreen advantage". Bleh.

 
To rgeist554
You can get a 20" 1650x1200 but its 16:10 not 16:9.

SirCrono
Guess your right what do you recon shall i get 2 or three and store them incase one goes bad and i cant get a replacement. :lol:
Mactronix
 
I'll toss in my 2 cents worth. I have three computers, one using a 22" Sony CRT, another a standard screen Viewsonic LCD and a third with a 22" Samsung widescreen. The widescreen took a bit of getting used to, but now I don't like having the standard screen Viewsonic. So I'm planning on a 24" widescreen to replace it. The only thing that I don't like with the LCDs are that they don't provide the clarity of color which the Sony CRT gives. But the LCDs are a lot lighter when moving them and take less desk space, so I'll be satified with that.
 


Okay, thanks. I was remembering the following article from the Inquirer, which kvetched about resolutions, but got the 16:9 TV and 16:10 monitor ratios correctly.

There still seems to be a convergence based on how many panels can be had.

Or, will they? This CES show seems to point to something different - yet another format change, this time leaving us, the users, worse off.

Basically, some beancounter must have come up with a "bright idea" to somehow cut the LCD panel mother glass the same way for both those el cheapo TVs and computer monitors. Screw the game or software compatibility, or pixel-matched earlier resolutions - everyone goes 16:9 !
Click to expand...

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/01/11/lcd-format-oddity-widening

It seems that some convergence TV's/monitors were shown at CES that had a 16:9 ratio.

Can't wait to get a 20" 1650 x 1200 LCD for our two major PC's. We don't have a separate HDTV yet, so we watch HDTV with a TV Wonder HD card on the PC and leave the old Magnavox for the legacy PS, PS2, Dreamcast, N64 and Gamecube.


 
When one of my CRT's finally dies, I'll be getting a 24" widescreen LCD.

One of the most fun things I've done is hook my computer up to my 60" HD TV. That was a blast. Almost too big for most things, although racing games were fantastic.
 
😉

Just wait until people buy the TH2Go and try the featured game Crysis. Then they will start anti crysis threads since it's not playable at 3840x1024 very high details. But I'm sure an 8600GT owner will join the discussion to tell how his is smooth as silk at those settings. :lol:
 


:pt1cable: Good luck with waiting for the crt to die. I still have an ancient 14 or so inch GAteway 2000 crt from before 1998 that STILL RUNS. Somehow, I use to game on that beast! Luckily, i don't use that computer much anymore. My parents use that computer, so I hope that someday soon the monitor will finally kick the bucket and they will have to buy a new lcd. Otherwise, that thing will still be running until the day I die!
Hehehe, I even debated a while ago taking a magnet to the screen and screwing it up so we'd have to get a new monitor! lol

consider the magnet 😉 😗

And yes, surround is the way to go! When I got my 5.1 setup on my custom pc, I was blown away! I'll never go without having a 5.1 setup for my pc!
 


Yeah Crysis at 38x12/10 on high, I doubt even your SLi rig would push those kinda pixels fast enough.

Just remember for the GF8600GT owner, it's on 'Very High' with a bunch of 'mods'. :lol:
 
0.02 cents... just received a th2g de on christmas... yeah, 4 megapixels (30" lcd) is too much for games like crysis currently, but you can always run it at lower supported DX9 resolutions of triple 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768 instead... like, the first dungeon siege for example, isnt capable of running at much wider than 1920x480, without it crashing due to the game engines limitations... but 1920x480 with bezel management is certainly better than a 'keyhole view', as someone had said before in another forum, it certainly does seem that way after you get used to it though

as far as resolution limitations though, DX10 i believe expanded upon DX9s 4 megapixel limitation, to 8 megapixels or so... allowing that much more viewability with something as simple as a downloadable firmware or driver upgrade, or it might not even be that involved

so, imagine having 3*24" lcds @ 5760x1200 res... or higher
 
So you want 20" that is 4x3?

Get a 22" 16:10 and just simple don't use
the 1 inch on the right and you are getting 4x3 around 20inch.

Better yet, put that 1 inch to some use with some sticky window
that displays what you like to have at a glance.
 
:) sorry forgot to add the mods.

And yeah, I doubt my rig would handle medium at that res, but will try it someday for fun. Kinda cracked me up that crysis was the features game. Anyway, still Just wish I could have bought two EP-716 projectors when the closed em out at $499 at CC. (My wife would have freaked though). They would have been perfect upscaled to 12x10 for (fairly) cheap side screens. AH, 12 foot wide, 90 degree wrapped, triple screens with near-zero bezel is still my TH2go dream.
 
so, imagine having 3*24" lcds @ 5760x1200 res... or higher
Click to expand...
That would be nice, but I still dream about 3 projectors set up for just about bezelless surround gaming. I'll take that 57x12 res you mention but blown up about life size. :) Oh man I would have to buy a better wheel than my MOMO even for that.

 
I think DX11 brings support for 27 megapixels for direct visual cortex input. [:thegreatgrapeape]

J/K

BTW, I forget the limits for DX10 too, may look them up when I get home, I rememeber the texture size change, to 8k x 8k, but there's so many spec changes it's had to keep track.

Yeah it would be nice to have more projectors, I think Oblivion is still the game that would benefit most since you have alot of things happening around you, but driving would also be awesome if you had the corner setup as it increases that 'tunnel vision' you get when driving really fast.

I'm not sure Crysis would be a game I would get more out of with surround gaming, as I don't find it one that I used my peripheral vision alot on, only in the alien water situation and maybe the flying or tank level would I probably appreciate it more.

I think I would want it more on COD4 than Crysis as I'd be more concerned about my flanks and action happening to the sides that either I would want to support and go towards or else reposition away from.
 


I too had problems with color reproduction on my first lcd's, but after my 22" unit a few years back, I got a calibration dvd and squared it away. My last several lcd's ( Dell, gateway, now HannsG) all needed a good bit of adjustment on the color temps and brightness side.

Night and day differences.

And YES, 2 FULL size word docs side by side is nirvana to a paper pusher......
 
I agree on Oblivion. I may still try and build a couple cheap projectors someday. But my eyes and ears are always open for some cheap quiet Optoma's.

I did try a projector and two 21" CRT's. Worked OK, as I could hide the bezel. Problem was matching brightness, positioning the projector as it had to be front projected which pushed me a bit back, and the fact I needed a bit larger size (22" diag) in order to focus. It wasn't great, but did work and was fun to test out. Surely not the corner setup we talked about in the past.

 
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