New monitor - ultra wide? free sync?

Aethaeryn

I thought one of my fans was going (intermittent hissing). . it turns out it is my second monitor (1680X1050 - I know right) - now the display goes off and on (it is unplugged now)

I am considering a new monitor and looking at this one:

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824025882

LG 29WK600


I had a few questions.  I do a lot of things with two monitors for work but I think it might work better (or at least the same) on an ultra wide.

I only plan on gaming at 1080 for the foreseeable future.  
I have a 1060 6Gig

Am I right unassuming my card will be okay with the extra pixels of the wider display?
Am I really missing out on gsych / free sych.  For the cost of monitors that have gsych I am not sure it is worth it.  I don't play a tonne of FPS games etc.   I might play Odyssey next year.

Has anyone experienced ultra wide and have thoughts?  I often find that i feel like I am blinded on the sides while playing games.  I should likely look at FOV settings.

The CON is that sometimes I will play a "second screen" game or have something up for work while playing some crappy timer/ browser game.  I suppose I could keep using my primary monitor as well (not so hot ACER 1080 (says IPS . .but.. . )

Thoughts on two 9:6 vs one ultra wide?   or go ultra wide and keep the second monitor.  It is more about screen real estate.  Current primary is 23"

I know it is a tonne of questions but if someone else has looked at this recently I would appreciate any insights.  It is going to put a crimp in my productivity until I get a new monitor (I mean display. . I am aging myself)

TLDR.   Ultra wide good for games / productivity?   Is the monitor horrible for any reason I am missing?

Thanks for any advice.

ChildoftheShadows

I have an older model of this that’s not free sync but I can say that I think for the price I would go with 2-3 of https://www.amazon.com/Philips-276E9QDSB-Frameless-1920x1080-FreeSync/dp/B07CK4W58Y?tag=hardwar0d-20
depending in the size you get.

I like ultra wide, but the 29inch is like a teaser. It’s not quite big enough/ wrong resolution to truly take advantage of it. If I get another ultra wide it will be the higher resolution 34” or bigger. 

ultimateduck

I use a 30" curved ultrawide and have for almost two years. I love it.  For work, I have have two full documents open and still have room to see emails.  For gaming, it's like the blinders have been removed.  You can't imagine how open games are when things that used to get in the way are suddenly so far off to the side they are a non-factor.

And there is zero distortion from the curve. I don't know where DMK got that.  It's not like the pixels are getting stretched or bent... it's just curved.

Ridelynn

Personal preference on ultrawides.

nVidia supports Freesync on your card so I would at least look for that.

Aethaeryn

Torval said:

If you use a lot of windowed applications then a single ultrawide is great. If you do RDP work then I think a second monitor is better. It's at least worth investigating.

Try just working single monitor for a couple of days at work/home/school (wherever you're going to make the change). If you're only issue is that you're cramped for space then a single ultrawide will probably be good. If you find that two apps don't work together on a single monitor (e.g.: rdp full screen) then you might want a second monitor anyway.

Was thinking of this.   I don't often use the second but when I do it is an incredible difference.

I am realizing that the ultra wide I would want us likely a lot more that a really good regular display.

Now thinking this is a good deal https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_1195_700_1104&item_id=129339

But wondering if that's too large for 1080.   It will be sitting right at my desk.

Grunty

Aethaeryn said:

Was thinking of this.   I don't often use the second but when I do it is an incredible difference.

I am realizing that the ultra wide I would want us likely a lot more that a really good regular display.

Now thinking this is a good deal https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_1195_700_1104&item_id=129339

But wondering if that's too large for 1080.   It will be sitting right at my desk.

When talking about 'too large' in relation to a monitor and GPU then you would be talking about screen resolution, refresh rate, and megahertz rating.

Physical size of the monitor is not a factor in a monitor's ability to keep up.

Vrika

Personally I prefer to have two monitors size by side for work - or sometimes even three monitors but I try to avoid those situations. But it's a matter of personal preference.

If you replace two monitors with one ultrawide monitor, keep in mind that 29 inch ultrawide monitor has less screen area than one 27 inch 16:9 monitor. If you need area, not just width, then ultrawide doesn't work very well.

Aethaeryn

Grunty said:

Aethaeryn said:

Was thinking of this.   I don't often use the second but when I do it is an incredible difference.

I am realizing that the ultra wide I would want us likely a lot more that a really good regular display.

Now thinking this is a good deal https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_1195_700_1104&item_id=129339

But wondering if that's too large for 1080.   It will be sitting right at my desk.

When talking about 'too large' in relation to a monitor and GPU then you would be talking about screen resolution, refresh rate, and megahertz rating.

Physical size of the monitor is not a factor in a monitor's ability to keep up.

I meant more would it seem more pixelated or would I be just too close and have to look around like sitting in the front row of a theatre.  I have heard people complain about large 1080 screens . . the PPI thing.

Ozmodan

If you are just going to play at 1080p, you can get a 40+ UHD TV for that kind of price.   That is what I did and it works great.  

Aethaeryn

Vrika said:

Personally I prefer to have two monitors size by side for work - or sometimes even three monitors but I try to avoid those situations. But it's a matter of personal preference.

If you replace two monitors with one ultrawide monitor, keep in mind that 29 inch ultrawide monitor has less screen area than one 27 inch 16:9 monitor. If you need area, not just width, then ultrawide doesn't work very well.

True. . I really just need two pages beside each other and occasionally 3.  Calendar, email and a document typically.  I am pretty much sold on the 2 monitor thing since I already have a 2nd.  Although. . I could do the ultrawide with a 2nd.  

I am guessing a 29 ultrawide would give me the same physical screen height as my current 23 inch.

Quizzical

As others have said, it's a matter of personal preference.  My preference would be a strong "no" on short monitors.  For nearly everything you do on a computer, you run out of vertical space before horizontal even at 1920x1080.  Adding extra width adds more space where it isn't useful, not where it is.  For displaying more things at once, I'd prefer more monitors over a single, wider monitor.

A 29", 2560x1080 monitor would be almost exactly the same height (11.27") as a 23", 1920x1080 monitor.  For comparison, that's shorter than a 19", 1280x1024 monitor (11.87").  Which is to say, not very big at all.

I'm convinced that at least part of the reason why monitor vendors are pushing short "ultrawide" monitors is to make you think that they're bigger than they are.  The number of inches measures the diagonal, but the cost of production is more proportional to the area.  If you ignore whether the space is in a useful place or not, a 29", 2560x1080 monitor gives you significantly less area (301.2 in^2) than a 27", 2560x1440 (or 1920x1080) monitor would (311.5 in^2).  Which is to say that the former monitor is meaningfully smaller than the latter, even though the inches measurement would lead you to think that a 29" monitor should be larger than a 27" one.

As for curved screens, that means that games are going to be rendered assuming the wrong perspective in yet another way.  Pretty much every game that exists renders the game assuming that your monitor is flat.  That's not as big of a deal as you might think, though, as they tend to also assume that your eyes are much closer to the screen than you're likely to actually put them.  And people with multiple monitors tend to tilt the side ones in a bit rather than putting them all in the same plane.

If you're hoping for an upgrade over an older monitor, I'd prefer to add some height while you're at it and look at a 2560x1440 monitor.  But it all depends on what you're going to do with it.

ultimateduck

One is a simulation and the other is a TV you're sitting 5 feet away from.  There is absolutely zero distortion with a curve screen and I never sit at an angle of my computer monitor making the second irrelevant.

For work, there is no way you will find a monitor tall enough for a 100 page Word document or a large spreadsheet or database.  Scrolling will always be necessary.  The difference is how many concurrent applications you can comfortably have over at once.  The answer is more on an ultra wide.

For gaming, there is simply no comparison to an ultra wide.  It will spoil you. That said, I would go with a 30" to 32".

Quizzical

ultimateduck said:

One is a simulation and the other is a TV you're sitting 5 feet away from.  There is absolutely zero distortion with a curve screen and I never sit at an angle of my computer monitor making the second irrelevant.

If you think there is zero distortion, then you know nothing about how 3D graphics work.  Every image is rendered assuming that it will be viewed from a particular point in space, and will be perspective correct from that point.  It is also assumed that the monitor is completely flat.  The point is typically centered on the monitor both horizontally and vertically, though it doesn't intrinsically have to be.  And the point is also some fixed distance from the monitor.

At minimum, there is some distortion because you have two eyes and they aren't both at exactly the same point.  People also tend to sit with their eyes above the center of a monitor.  The viewing point assumed tends to be much closer to the monitor than people sit, in order to get a wide enough field of view to give you a good perspective on what is happening.  True isometric games (as opposed to mere overhead view that is sometimes mistakenly called "isometric") are an exception to this, as they essentially assume a viewing point infinitely far away.

Curved monitors add additional distortion to this because the image is rendered assuming that the monitor is flat.  It pretty much has to be because that's how the fixed function rasterization hardware in a GPU works.  If you want to render to make things perspective correct on a curved monitor, then you've left linear algebra entirely and the complicated stuff you're going to have to do will be an enormous performance hit.  And that's even if you assume that GPU vendors would optimize their silicon for it, which they won't, because it would be such a huge performance hit.

That said, even without a curved monitor, you've already got several sources of distortion, as explained above.  A curved monitor adds one more, but that isn't really a problem unless it is larger than the others, which it probably won't be.  To avoid distortion, you'd need a separate image for each eye, as well as having the monitor mounted a fixed distance from your eyes.  So basically, you'd need a VR headset.

Quizzical

ultimateduck said:

For work, there is no way you will find a monitor tall enough for a 100 page Word document or a large spreadsheet or database.  Scrolling will always be necessary.  The difference is how many concurrent applications you can comfortably have over at once.  The answer is more on an ultra wide.

For gaming, there is simply no comparison to an ultra wide.  It will spoil you. That said, I would go with a 30" to 32".

In many cases, the question isn't whether you will have to scroll, but how much.  The more vertical pixels you have, the less you'll have to scroll.  Being able to see more on the screen at once sometimes prevents having to scroll back and forth between two particular areas of a file.  If you only have 1080 vertical pixels, some of which are eaten up by a title bar, taskbar, and potentially other things, then you're going to have to scroll a whole lot.  If you have 2000 vertical pixels, you'll have to scroll a lot less.  Adding more vertical pixels than that doesn't really help you so much, as physically looking up and down too far can be annoying.

If you want more width for work purposes so that you can display more programs at once, then more monitors is the way to do it.  I'm fond of saying that the amount of good computer work that your employer expects you to do is proportional to the number of monitors that he gives you.

Most games that I play run out of vertical space before horizontal even at a resolution of 1920x1080.  For anything with an overhead view, what is ideal is a rectangle that is kind of close to square, so maybe a 5:4 or 4:3 aspect ratio.  The monitor linked early on is worse than 7:3, which is completely stupid.  For games with a third person view where you scroll out quite a bit, you want something a little less square, but even 16:9 is typically already too far from square to be optimal.

For side-scrolling games, something closer to that 7:3 may be optimal if the game doesn't rely that much on vertical movement.  Of course, most of the side-scrolling games in existence use a fixed resolution dictated by the old game console that they were built for, and those tend to be much closer to square than that.

I've been told that ultrawide is good for first person shooters.  I find that plausible, but I don't play first person shooters.

Also, for games, the performance hit on the video card is dictated by the space that it actually has to render.  If you do full screen on an ultrawide, that adds a lot of performance hit for not much gaming benefit.  If you have a second monitor that isn't displaying the game, the performance hit of that second monitor is a rounding error unless it's doing something that uses the GPU a lot, such as playing another game.

Vrika

ultimateduck said:

For work, there is no way you will find a monitor tall enough for a 100 page Word document or a large spreadsheet or database.  Scrolling will always be necessary.  The difference is how many concurrent applications you can comfortably have over at once.  The answer is more on an ultra wide.

The less high the document on monitor is, the more time it takes to scroll back and forth within that document.

Also for some purposes you'll need to see one full A4 page on the screen at once at comfortable zooming level.

But it's a lot about what kind of work you do and what kind of programs you use.

Aethaeryn

Great input from everyone.  It seems like a lot of people find that ultra-wides more immersive.  Since I have not experienced that I think I am not going to temp myself until I can get a larger one and upgrade some other components.  Time to start saving.    Also. . my desk. . that wide wide stand and my desk.

Thanks!

ChildoftheShadows

Good call on waiting. I wish I had.

Alders

I've had a 34" curved ultrawide for a few years now and i couldn't even imagine going back to 16:9 for a main display. I still use a 16:9 1080p 24" as my side monitor which i really should replace with a 27" to keep their heights similar but i'm super happy with my ultrawide. I don't think i'd go below 34" though as i like the extra height that provides.

Ozmodan

ultimateduck said:

One is a simulation and the other is a TV you're sitting 5 feet away from.  There is absolutely zero distortion with a curve screen and I never sit at an angle of my computer monitor making the second irrelevant.

For work, there is no way you will find a monitor tall enough for a 100 page Word document or a large spreadsheet or database.  Scrolling will always be necessary.  The difference is how many concurrent applications you can comfortably have over at once.  The answer is more on an ultra wide.

For gaming, there is simply no comparison to an ultra wide.  It will spoil you. That said, I would go with a 30" to 32".

Wel I beg to disagree with you.  I had a 34" ultra wide and I ditched it after two months.  It was horrible for gaming as many games don't handle a wide monitor well and there most definitely was distortion.  Yes, you like yours, but I think most people after using one will dislike it immensely.

I use a 43" uhd tv and I love it.  Games look great on it, I run it at 2k and when browsing the internet my scrolling is a lot less than previously.

Ridelynn

I wouldn’t presume to say what “most” people would, or would not like.

I prefer distinct 16x9 (or even better 16x10 but they are hard to find now) monitors, as I can run a game in borderless window mode on one screen and it looks full screen, and I have the second screen for web browser, media player, voip, etc. or open two documents side by side.

I’m ok with the current 16x9 ratio, the height/width thing that bothers Quiz doesn’t bother me as much. I can understand his point of view and it makes sense for what he does say in and day out, I just don’t happen to share it. Probably because I don’t do the same things on a computer that he does.

I already struggle with older titles not handling 4K scaling well, I can imagine it’s just as bad or worse with ultra wide. It isn’t pleasant.

With an ultra wide I would have to go plain windowed mode on the game, it would likely have a title bar then, to get the same effect, and I would have to set an arbitrary line down the side of the monitor (I guess Win10 does docking?). If I have to go full screen the alt-tab effect that DX9 and some DX11 titles would drive me insane.

Hefaistos

bought this 1 week ago:

Alienware 25 Gaming Monitor: AW2518HF

240 hz, dell screen, pfff, i cant highly recommend it.

Quizzical

Hefaistos said:

bought this 1 week ago:

Alienware 25 Gaming Monitor: AW2518HF

240 hz, dell screen, pfff, i cant highly recommend it.

$300 for a 1920x1080 TN panel?  I'll pass.  Those are the sacrifices you make to get 240 Hz, but I'm happy with 144 Hz.