16:9 screens and 4:3 resolutions

Thirith on 6/11/2008 at 08:20

I'm thinking of getting a new screen, since the contrast on my 2-year old 20" 4:3 screen isn't very good, added to which small changes of viewing angle have way too much of an impact.

I'm mainly thinking of getting a 20.1" 16:9 screen, so I can move from 1400x1050 to 1650x1050. However, I was wondering: how do such screens generally deal with resolutions that are stuck at 4:3? Do they stretch the image horizontally or do you get black bars on both sides of the screen? Or is it different from screen to screen and there's no standard?

I asked a guy in my local shop yesterday and he said that it's the video card that determines how this is dealt with, but based on things I've read online I'm not sure I trust his competence in this respect.

EvaUnit02 on 6/11/2008 at 08:49

Pillarboxing is the answer. The more expensive screens use 1:1 pixel mapping. Else you use fixed aspect ratio scaling via your GPU; both Nvidia and ATI drivers support this feature, although I have no idea what ATI call it.

16:10 is the standard ratio for widescreen LCD computer monitors, Lord knows why. Would've made a lot more sense to have used 16:9. "Fullscreen" LCD monitors use 5:4, which is narrower than 4:3. There must be some reason why they chose to adopt ratios with narrower FOVs.

Thirith on 6/11/2008 at 09:19

Thanks for that. You're right and I should've known, 1650x1050 is not 16:9. As far as the narrower FOV is concerned, I think that's probably because most computer screens aren't used exclusively for gaming and especially not exclusively for first-person gaming. Much of the work done on computers is likely to be wordprocessing, and the standard document will be higher than it is wide. Displaying an A4 document on a 16:9 screen, for instance, means that you'll only see a small sliver of the actual document or you'll have wide expanses of emptiness on both sides of the page.

If pillarboxing is automatically an option, that's good.

bikerdude on 6/11/2008 at 17:02

I have had a my 20" screen for over 6 months now and will never go back to a non-widescreen screen.

For ages I played T1/2 @ 1280*1024 stretched to fit the screen and it never bothered me. Now we have the WS patch and all new games now support WS so....

16:10 which most 20" screens use will allow you to view 2x A4 documents side by side at 85%. which is what i do.

biker

sh0ck3r on 15/11/2008 at 02:14

I am debating between these two monitors:

24" VGA, HDMI With HDCP Input (which I can get for $299 and not $499):

(http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10097960&catid=25616&logon=&langid=EN)

and

19" DVI (HDCP) ($149)
(http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10100116&catid=)

Prices are in Canadian dollars. Which should I go with? Will the HDMI on the 24" make much of a difference?

EvaUnit02 on 17/11/2008 at 03:29

Please supply your current/future PC specs.