16:9 vs. 16:10 monitors for PC gaming

[Napoleonic]

Originally Posted by noko

To accomodate mall theaters, building doesn't need to be too high but allow alot of seats across, more money baby.

is that true? nothing to do with scientific matter like what have been discussed here?

makes perfect sense though....

[TriGGlety]

Originally Posted by Kain

Which type of monitor do you prefer for PC gaming?

10 v 9?
Is there REALLY such a big difference? Love you kids these days. Will talk about anything tedius.

16:9 for movies, yeah fine. Sitting 6-10 feet away.
But here I think movies on DVD and Blue Ray should be moving toward Panavision. And home HD TV's too.

16:10 for games, sounds good because your eyes dont move from a central position much and your closer to the screen.

Your vision is wide anyways, so all of the above makes sence.
Its nice that 4:3 has gone.

I used used to laugh at my mum in the early 90s when we got Sky Movie channel and we had a 4:3 TV, watching movies with the top and bottom blacked out to accomadate widescreen films.

[TriGGlety]

Originally Posted by demowhc

I like standard full HD and I like the wider viewing for games and movies, also it makes life easy using clone mode with a HDTV connected at the same time.

"full HD" What does that mean?
It there empty HD? Medium HD, low HD?
Full HD?

When you talk about PC monitors you talk about Resolutions and nothing else.

I have a 22" (16:10) monitor it runs desktop and games @ 1680 x 1050 Resolution. Its not HD, its not Full HD, its not 720p HD, its not 1080p HD, its not medium HD, its not empty HD, its not medium HD, its not low HD.

I have a 22" Flat Panel PC monitor (16:10) and it runs @ 1680 x 1050 Resolution.

[FiggyG]

I prefer 16:9, so that's what I voted for. 16:10 isn't bad either

[demo]

Originally Posted by TriGGlety

"full HD" What does that mean?
It there empty HD? Medium HD, low HD?
Full HD?

When you talk about PC monitors you talk about Resolutions and nothing else.

I have a 22" (16:10) monitor it runs desktop and games @ 1680 x 1050 Resolution. Its not HD, its not Full HD, its not 720p HD, its not 1080p HD, its not medium HD, its not empty HD, its not medium HD, its not low HD.

I have a 22" Flat Panel PC monitor (16:10) and it runs @ 1680 x 1050 Resolution.

Standard full HD is 16:9 1080p, you know, the standard used for HD displays.

If you buy a 720p HDTV it is not full HD. If you buy a 1080p HDTV it is full HD. I didnt make that up, thats what they are called, dont blame me, blame they guys that come up with video standards.

At the end of the day you will see more on a 16:9 screen in games because 16:9 is simply a wider aspect ratio.

[evil-doer]

i cant believe the number of people simply saying "bigger is better" and "more pixels the better" etc. this thread is about aspect ratio. not size or number of pixels.
btw. you do realize that theres tvs and monitors with 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 (both 16:9) resolutions, right? 1080p is NOT the maximum resolution of a 16:9 display.

i dont have a huge preference between the two because they are so similar. but i suppose that matching hdtv aspect ratios of tvs would be nice and make things less complicated. and since 16:9 is wider i suppose its better for most gaming. as you look around horizontally much more than up and down.

btw, bigger IS better, and 16:9 monitors and tvs come in all sizes. one aspect ratio isnt bigger than another. thats ridiculous as its not a measurement of size. i think people just see 16:9 and 16:10 and assume, hey, 10 is bigger than 9, thats better! well another way to represent that aspect is 8:5. is it now suddenly smaller? come on... 16:9 vs 8:5. thats like. almost 2 times as big people! :P

[gamefoo21]

Evileh,

You fail to learn the lesson.

16:9 or 1.78: is like 16:10 or 1.6:1, it's about what DISPLAYS are currently available.

1.78:1 displays are a scam in the computer space, you lose pixels at every damned screen size. So I can get an 18" 1920x1080 screen, sure... it's longer than a 17" 1920x1200 screen, but which do you get to see more on, before you have to move your viewpoint or scroll?

Which has a larger pixel pitch? Which has a lower density of pixels?

Sure 16:9 screens in theory could be 10" in size with 16,000 x 9,000 pixel count, but theory is theory, in the real world and what is out there right now... I'd rather have a slightly taller display that is just as wide at 1920 or 1280.

Sure I could have a 32" 1080p screen it's larger than the 30" 2560x1600 16:10, but really why would I opt for the 32"?

Give me a 2848x1600 display, and I'll bite...

[Trunks0]

Originally Posted by demowhc

Standard full HD is 16:9 1080p, you know, the standard used for HD displays.

If you buy a 720p HDTV it is not full HD. If you buy a 1080p HDTV it is full HD. I didnt make that up, thats what they are called, dont blame me, blame they guys that come up with video standards.

At the end of the day you will see more on a 16:9 screen in games because 16:9 is simply a wider aspect ratio.

That is a mis-conception. 16:9 is not wider. Its less tall and no wider than 16:10. This mis-conception is not helped by the fact that most games do not tie the FOV to the pixel count(although some 2D games do)

[evil-doer]

Sure I could have a 32" 1080p screen it's larger than the 30" 2560x1600 16:10, but really why would I opt for the 32"?

why are you pulling such weird numbers out of your ass? why not ask would you rather have a 32" 1920x1200 16:10 or a 30" 2560x1440 16:9 display? you keep avoiding the whole point of this thread, the aspect ratio, not size or number of pixels.

16:9 is not wider. Its less tall and no wider than 16:10

say again?

[Trunks0]

I'm talking from the perspective of pixel count. Which is directly tied to the debate because we all use digital displays.

[evil-doer]

pixel counts are variable. ratios are not.

again, this topic is about ratios, not size or number of pixels.

can you people please stay on topic?

[Sweetz]

Originally Posted by gamefoo21

but which do you get to see more on, before you have to move your viewpoint or scroll?

Once again, how do you not understand that the amount of gameworld you see in a 3D game is not dependant on the number of pixels on the display? You don't see anything more on a 1920x1200 monitor than you do on a 1440x900 monitor. Did the screenshots back on post 30 not suitably demonstrate this to you?

For desktop work, which actually is pixel dependant, yes will see more with more pixels; if you're so bent on comparing 1920x1080 to 1920x1200, then yeah you get an extra 120 pixels of workspace. If you think 120 pixels makes such a HUGE difference for desktop work then fine you've made that point.

However, understand that for games that use hor+ FOV behavior (many newer games), 16:9 displays are going to show more of the game world. And for games that use vert- FOV behavior (old games) then you will get to see more than 16:9 displays, but they both see less than 4:3 displays, so that's hardly a win. Saying that 16:10 screens are better for games that don't use proper FOV behavior isn't much of a victory.

Originally Posted by Trunks0

That is a mis-conception. 16:9 is not wider. Its less tall and no wider than 16:10.

What? There's no misconception, seems more like a misunderstanding on your part. If you get screens with the same phsyical width...yes they will be same physical width. And a 16:9 screen would be "shorter" than 16:10 screen then, and they would both be "shorter" 4:3. Even if this is the point you're trying to make, you're statement is still wrong. Comparing displays of the same phsyical width and then saying one isn't wider is a contrived and pointless argument. You could compare displays of the same height, and hey guess what - the 16:9 display is wider then. The same argument applies to resolutions...1600x900 is most certainly "wider" than 1440x900...

Aspect ratio is simply ratio of a displays width to it's hieght. 16:9 is most certainly a wider ratio than 16:10, the relative size between displays has no bearing on that fact. You can compare displays of various sizes to make whatever point you want. But the "wideness" of an aspect is purely a factor of it's width to it's height, not wideness when comparing displays of different physical sizes or resolutions which really has no bearing on the statement you tried to make.

[demo]

Originally Posted by Trunks0

That is a mis-conception. 16:9 is not wider. Its less tall and no wider than 16:10. This mis-conception is not helped by the fact that most games do not tie the FOV to the pixel count(although some 2D games do)

16:9 is wider, this has nothing to do with pixel count or the size of the screen.

For example, a 17" 1280x720 16:9 screen has more viewing area in game than a 30" 16:10 2560x1600 screen, simply because the aspect ratio is wider.

People are confusing resolutions with aspect ratios, they are 2 totally different things.

[Trunks0]

I stand corrected. Mis-interperation of what I read on WSGF. Sorry for the confusion.

[evil-doer]

since everyone seems to be pulling numbers out of their asses i thought id join in. but im gonna do it in a rational way. im going to give the two most common widescreen resolutions in use on steam.



1680x1050 (16:10) and 1920x1080 (16:9)

odds are, if you have a 16:10 display its 1680x1050. its the most common resolution of that ratio. its also trending upwards as getting more popular than any other 16:10 ratio.
the same can be said for 1920x1080 for 16:9.

why dont you compare these two resolutions? they are the most popular.

would you rather have a 1680x1050 display or 1920x1080? this is as fair a comparison as any others that have been put forth. maybe even more fair as they seem to be closer to the most popular choices. and dont give me any crap that theres higher resolutions available out there for 16:10, theres also higher resolutions of 16:9 too. all of this is completely arbitrary. variables are variables. number of pixels, inches, etc.
we are talking about a two different shapes here, not sizes.

[demo]

I know I already posted these pics, but all you need to know as a gamer (concerning aspect ratios) is that this is the image you are going to see. After selecting the image you want to view (aspect ratio) you can then select size and resolution.

Originally Posted by demowhc

Originally Posted by demowhc

16:10

16:9

and Hooligan 16:10 is half way between 4:3 and 16:9. as Sweetz pointed out your comparison uses 5:4

[Faceless Rebel]

None of this would matter if the game developers weren't such lazy SOBs making games which only work correctly at one FOV. The most infamous of these is Bioshock, where you only get to see less with widescreen displays, not more. Realistically, 16:9 vs 16:10 should be a completely moot point if developers weren't so worthless at properly supporting PC versions of games.

16:10 is an inherently superior aspect for doing general PC work and it's just fine for playing games, whereas 16:9 is vastly inferior for doing general PC work. If you build a PC which only plays games and NOTHING ELSE WHATSOEVER, then maybe it would be okay to choose a 16:9 aspect monitor over a 16:10 aspect. Otherwise you're a f|_|cking idiot, plain and simple. Most people at least use their gaming PCs for browsing the web and you have to scroll a lot more on a 16:9 monitor. Plus I dabble with Photoshop and Premiere Pro on my desktop machine and nobody in their right minds would use a TN panel for that. The 16:10 monitor offers superior flexibility, since you can play in letterboxed 16:9 if you are that obsessed about seeing a tiny bit more on your right and left. Realistically the top FPS players in the world often use 4:3 CRTs and can dominate any normal person playing at 16:9 with a wider FOV. You won't magically gain any advantage by playing at 16:9 vs. 16:10 on a game which properly expands the viewport horizontally, but will definitely be at a disadvantage when you're trying to edit images in Photoshop or scroll a web page.

[demo]

Originally Posted by Faceless Rebel

None of this would matter if the game developers weren't such lazy SOBs making games which only work correctly at one FOV. The most infamous of these is Bioshock, where you only get to see less with widescreen displays, not more. Realistically, 16:9 vs 16:10 should be a completely moot point if developers weren't so worthless at properly supporting PC versions of games.

16:10 is an inherently superior aspect for doing general PC work and it's just fine for playing games, whereas 16:9 is vastly inferior for doing general PC work. If you build a PC which only plays games and NOTHING ELSE WHATSOEVER, then maybe it would be okay to choose a 16:9 aspect monitor over a 16:10 aspect. Otherwise you're a f|_|cking idiot, plain and simple. Most people at least use their gaming PCs for browsing the web and you have to scroll a lot more on a 16:9 monitor. Plus I dabble with Photoshop and Premiere Pro on my desktop machine and nobody in their right minds would use a TN panel for that. The 16:10 monitor offers superior flexibility, since you can play in letterboxed 16:9 if you are that obsessed about seeing a tiny bit more on your right and left. Realistically the top FPS players in the world often use 4:3 CRTs and can dominate any normal person playing at 16:9 with a wider FOV. You won't magically gain any advantage by playing at 16:9 vs. 16:10 on a game which properly expands the viewport horizontally, but will definitely be at a disadvantage when you're trying to edit images in Photoshop or scroll a web page.

Really, this post is full of fail. I dont know where to start. You seem to have missed all the points made by Sweetz and evil.

[TriGGlety]

Originally Posted by demowhc

Standard full HD is 16:9 1080p, you know, the standard used for HD displays.

If you buy a 720p HDTV it is not full HD. If you buy a 1080p HDTV it is full HD. I didnt make that up, thats what they are called, dont blame me, blame they guys that come up with video standards.

At the end of the day you will see more on a 16:9 screen in games because 16:9 is simply a wider aspect ratio.

That dont make sence.
But anyways, I dont have Full, medium or small HD.

I have a PC that runs my 22" monitor @ 1680 x1050.

I have a HD TV. I dont know what res that runs at, I dont care.

[TriGGlety]

Originally Posted by demowhc

I know I already posted these pics, but all you need to know as a gamer (concerning aspect ratios) is that this is the image you are going to see. After selecting the image you want to view (aspect ratio) you can then select size and resolution.





and Hooligan 16:10 is half way between 4:3 and 16:9. as Sweetz pointed out your comparison uses 5:4

Hardly any difference there. You dont miss much. 16:10 looks the sweet spot for games.

For movies and films thought I like 16:9 or Panavision.

[Faceless Rebel]

Originally Posted by demowhc

Really, this post is full of fail. I dont know where to start. You seem to have missed all the points made by Sweetz and evil.

Your existence is full of fail but I don't see how that's relevant to this discussion.

Again: the slight increase in horizontal viewport going from 16:10 to 16:9 doesn't even begin to justify all the things you lose using a PC for anything other than gaming.

[demo]

Originally Posted by TriGGlety

That dont make sence.
But anyways, I dont have Full, medium or small HD.

I have a PC that runs my 22" monitor @ 1680 x1050.

I have a HD TV. I dont know what res that runs at, I dont care.

It makes perfect sense. If it's under 1080p its not full HD.

Oh and you havn't heard of SD? thats what most people have been looking at for the last 50+ years..

Originally Posted by Faceless Rebel

Your existence is full of fail but I don't see how that's relevant to this discussion.

Again: the slight increase in horizontal viewport going from 16:10 to 16:9 doesn't even begin to justify all the things you lose using a PC for anything other than gaming.

That is the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard, going by your logic 4:3 and 5:4 are both superior to 16:10.

And what do you lose exactly? If you bothered to read Sweetz & evils posts that explain it much better than I can you would understand that desktop workspace is dictated by pixel count, not aspect ratio.

[evil-doer]

i had never really thought about this question before seeing this thread and the more i think about it the more im solidifying my position that 16:9 is the way to go, even tho i have a 16:10 monitor and love the hell out of it.

hdtv is 16:9. its as simple as that. all tv content (is there or moving to it) and a lot of movies are formatted to that ratio. home video cameras are using this format, youtube etc uses it. like it or not, this is the size of media and its not going to change.

console gaming is absolutely huge now, like it or not. games are being designed with this ratio as default. going from 16:9 to 16:10 does not add more to the viewport height-wise, they almost universally chop the sides off reducing the width.

1920x1080 is not the largest resolution available for 16:9 as many here keep saying. its just the most popular and its the current standard for hdtv. you can buy monitors and even tvs with higher resolution and the content will just upscale to that size keeping the same ratio.

also you arent losing size. a 24 inch 16:9 and a 24 inch 16:10 have virtually the same screen real estate. its just that one is taller and skinnier and the other is shorter and wider. people keep seeing that 16 is the same in both numbers and cant get it out of their mind that somehow the width is the same, but only the height changes. a 4:3 monitor can be represented by the ratio 16:12 too. hey there. look at all that extra size! 12 is much larger than even 10! lets go back to 4:3 since its so BIG. sigh.

[Sweetz]

Originally Posted by Faceless Rebel

Again: the slight increase in horizontal viewport going from 16:10 to 16:9 doesn't even begin to justify all the things you lose using a PC for anything other than gaming.

First, as others have pointed out aspect ratio doesn't mean resolution. However, I recogonize that in practical reality we're dealing with 1920x1080 vs 1920x1200. In that case you are still hyperbolically overvaluing the difference 120 pixels makes.

Saying someone is a "f***ing idiot" if they get a 1920x1080 monitor is preposterous and kind of invalidates whatever points you were trying to make, because it means you've abandonded any sensible analysis of the subject and decided to go with trying to use "strong words" to demonstrate the correctness of your opinion. Sorry to break it to you man, but that never really works...you just come off looking like an irrational enraged fanboy.

[Ristogod]

What I think is funny is all the people defending 1920x1200 (not defending the ratio either, just the resolution) claiming that you don't miss much in gaming at 16:10, yet for all other PC use at 1920x1080 some how you miss enormous parts of the screen and have to be constantly scrolling.

This is absolutely ludicrous. I went from 1920x1200 (16:10) to 1920x1080 (16:9). I would say what you miss in regular PC usage is far less than what you give up in gaming. I do software development for a living and sometimes use my screens here at home and I don't do any excessive scrolling. Not in web browsing or anything else.

Regardless, anyone defending the 1920x1200 thing is completely missing the point of this thread.

Sweetz, evil-doer and demowhc are completely right on the issue.

[Napoleonic]

enjoy your superiority

[TriGGlety]

Originally Posted by Napoleonic

enjoy your superiority

LMAO x 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.

[evil-doer]

again, the two most popular widescreen resolutions:

[Faceless Rebel]

Whatever, at the moment 16:10 is winning over 16:9 in the poll. I'm glad the rational individuals are still winning. We'll let the 16:9 cultists join the Apple cultists and the Wii cultists in their own little worlds, the rest of the world seems to understand the benefits of a slightly vertically wider aspect ratio.

The current score is 16:10 with 28, 16:9 with 21. Now that I've called it out, I look forward to the 16:9 Scientologists bringing in their friends to register just to vote in the poll and inflate the numbers for 16:9.

[demo]

Originally Posted by Faceless Rebel

Whatever, at the moment 16:10 is winning over 16:9 in the poll. I'm glad the rational individuals are still winning. We'll let the 16:9 cultists join the Apple cultists and the Wii cultists in their own little worlds, the rest of the world seems to understand the benefits of a slightly vertically wider aspect ratio.

16:10 isn't "vertically wider" as you would put it.

which part of this diagram dont you understand?




you are yet another person confusing resolution with aspect ratio's