New gaming monitor

[archie123]

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?

 

[stew2]

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

 

[archie123]

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

 

[AstaLaVista]

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

 

[stew2]

No problem archie

 

[archie123]

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

 

[roy69]

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.

 

[smarteyeball]

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

It will be fine

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

 

[stew2]

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.

 

[archie123]

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

 

[stew2]

If you've been gaming for twenty years you shouldnt need to ask these questions lol

Try to be helpfull and all i get is abuse but anyway it does look worse when lowering the resolution but then someone on a 1920x1200 resolution would see 1680x1050 as looking worse. Its all perspective.

Id rather lower the res of a game and bump up the texture, shaders etc to max rather than the other way round.

 

[archie123]

yes but never gamed on LCD , they didnt exist when i bought my ZX81

i realise the higher the res the better the overall effect in game

my worry was , because ive never had an lcd , that the effect of lowering the resolution below the native resolution of the monitor would have an overall effect on the image , not because of the effect it would have on the textures but because of the effect i was worried it would have on the image the monitor was reproducing , because i was lower than its "native" resolution

anyhoo it wasnt abuse , just a little friendly banter Im gratefull for all the help

 

[AstaLaVista]

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)

Archie, I don't know what kind of games you like to play, my Genre is FPS (First Person Shooters) and I gotta tell you, the Majority of today games are so poorly coded or ported from consoles to pc that the eye candy effect is hardly noticeable from 1680 x 1050 to 1024 x 768. Hell, some of them don't even support widescreen *cough* most UBIsoft games *cough*

i realise the higher the res the better the overall effect in game

my worry was , because ive never had an lcd , that the effect of lowering the resolution below the native resolution of the monitor would have an overall effect on the image , not because of the effect it would have on the textures but because of the effect i was worried it would have on the image the monitor was reproducing , because i was lower than its "native" resolution

Read my post whining post above

For instance, Crysis was supposed to be the end of all FPS games as we know it and it tanked because it was a bloaded game, after a few patches, the game became playable and this was a game that was made specifically for PCs and by Crytek. Warhead was much easier on resources and it did not have the heavy requiremnts of crysis.

Modern Warfare is a very nice game and it plays well on most PC's.

I usually let the game dictate the optimal settings for me, unless I know who made it and I don't loose Frames per second because of more eye candy.

At any rate, if you have a decent CPU, RAM and Video Card, you will notice the eye candy difference :D

 

[archie123]

FPS all the way mate , MOH series COD series , Red Orchestra (fantastic btw) Darkest hour BF2 , even counter strike source (when i was much younger and faster ) stalker , stalker clear sky our gaming community even has a left 4 dead server!!

Ive played a few console ports , rainbow six vegas , ghost recon advanced warfighter , i stay away from em generally but ghost recon was good gave it another go when nvidia started up with PHYSx just to see how it looked.

plying COD WAW at the moment loving getting back to WW2 but nothing will ever beat the original COD for me

If your bored pop by and say hello Team *MasheD*: News we let any rif raff post

 

[stew2]

yes but never gamed on LCD , they didnt exist when i bought my ZX81

Yup my first console had one button on the joystick, cough atari cough lol

You will notice a slight decrease in picture quality but as AstaLaVista says if its a FPS shooter it isnt hugely noticeable. Games like Empire:Total War on the other hand look horrible on a reduced res due to the amount of text in the game.