Vista Tutorial - New gaming monitor

Im buying this Dell UltraSharp 2209WA 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor

Its my first lcd , my lovely superbright diamondtron mitsubishi has finally bitten the dust

Ive done a bit of research and this is the monitor for me

problem is i know lcd's display best at their native resolution and for most things ill be running at at 1680x1050 , however with my current rig (and my upgrade being pushed back due to needing a new monitor) ill struggle to game at this res

so will it look/perform ok at 1280x1024 ingame? until i upgrade?

Hi archie

I use the Samsung 226BW which is a 1680x1050 monitor. Any game i play that my graphics card cant handle at 1680x1050 i lower the res of that game to 1280x800 in the games menu.

As 1280 is pretty close to 75% of 1680 and 800 is pretty close to 75% of 1050 its the settings i use for games like Crysis Warhead etc. You'll see when you get the monitor what is best but a setting of 1280x1024 will give you 76% and 97% of your native resulution and will make the image appear distorted

yeah of course im forgetting its widescreen now , nice one cheers

I have the Acer 2216w. which I also have at 1680 x 1050 for normal wear and tear. What I did since I am not a PC guru, I found a 16:10 widescreen chart and paste it on my monitor, this way, if I need to lower the res, because of any game, I can always use the correct setting and avoid exactly what Stew2 just warned you about.

Here are some charts that may help you

16:10 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Screen Size and Resolution Comparisons

No problem archie

nice one asta ta

I totally forgot as of today ill be widescreen ha ha what a muppet

so the image quality is still good? I was worried as everywhere i read the with LCD you need to set at its native res for best quality

You are correct in saying that the monitors work best at there native resolution, however by lowering the resolution the quality will not be to bad, it is only if you are trying to raise the resolution you may get problems.

It will be fine

It certainly won't look awful. Just a little 'fuzzy' compared to the native res.

Yeah any resolution will look fine as long as you keep the percentages the same. When you get your monitor install the drivers and set its resolution to 1680x1050 then sit back and go WOW lol.

Then open a game and set its game menu resolution to 1680x1050 and see if it plays well. If it doesnt then use the closest settings it has to one of the ones iv listed below:

85% resolution - 1428x892
75% resolution - 1260x787
50% resolution - 840x525

Remember as well in the games menu to tick the fullscreen box so it uses the resolution you choose to fill the whole the screen.

cheers for that Stew , ive only been gaming on the pc for twenty years , i didnt realise there was a fullscreen option (jk mate )

I was mainly worried about the eye candy effect of lowering the res for gaming , i am upgrading to lcd for the first time but im coming from a very good CRT , that said im expecting to be blown away (everyone tells me i will be ha ha im not convinced yet)


Thanks all for your advice , ive just got home from home from work...........and my monitor isnt here Gutted , i think the wife might have hidden it