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WS monitors and gaming

#1
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12/7/07 at 10:50am
  • Joined: July 2002
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My old CRT just went dark, so I'll be purchasing an LCD as a monitor for the first time. I play a lot of PC games so I'm curious, how do games display on widescreens? I don't really need a widescreen (I never play movies on my PC), but they seem to be ubiquitous now. Should I hunt around for a screen with the old-style dimensions or will games display okay on the widescreen?
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#2
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12/7/07 at 11:17am
  • Joined: October 2003
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Re: WS monitors and gaming

most new games are designed with widescreen users in mind, so I would not worry, unless you like going older school with games from 4 or more years ago
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#3
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12/7/07 at 1:25pm
  • Joined: July 2002
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Re: WS monitors and gaming

Thanks Dennis. And yes, I'm firmly locked in the past and almost all my gaming is from 4 years or so back. (Occasionally my son sneaks on; but we can leave that out of the equation.)
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#4
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12/7/07 at 4:34pm
  • Joined: April 1999
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Re: WS monitors and gaming

The LCD monitor will display the old-school 4:3 resolution either by stretching it to fill the screen; filling vertically, leaving black bars on the sides; or doing pixel-for-pixel mapping, leaving black all around. There is usually a setting -- commonly buried in a menu -- to switch between these three modes. Some monitors might do only two of those. The third one is probably not suitable for gaming. (For me, neither is the first.)

If your desktop resolution matches the native resolution of the monitor, then either setting will have the same effect on the desktop; i.e. it will fill the screen, no distortion. Then when you play the game, it will do whichever you prefer.

Then the only other thing you need to check is whether your video card supports the native widescreen resolution of the monitor. They're 16:10. 24" range is 1920x1200; 20" is 1680x1050.
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#5
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12/8/07 at 6:59am
  • Joined: July 2002
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Re: WS monitors and gaming

Thanks Ken, good info. Unfortunately, it works out that my wife kicked the cable out and the old monitor is just fine. (I was doing the troubleshooting from the office, and a detached cable never entered my mind.) But I still want a new monitor soon, so your info will come in handy.
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