It's easier to look up and down with scrollbars than it is to look left and right. It's already baked into our brains.
Also, it's more important in games to view things horizontally rather than vertically. As an example, people in FPS games don't judge how fast they can look up and down, they judge how quickly they can look around themselves, which a WIDESCREEN monitor allows you to do easier.
Plus, I can move an LCD around much easier than I can move an old CRT, so it's cheaper and more efficient in terms of space for the user.
Yawn, there are so many things I could say to make you look as though you were equivalent to an unborn fetus in terms of actual human function, buuut it's a waste of time. What I said above is enough to give me a good laugh and feel as though I've accomplished something throughout my day, even though I didn't.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
My narrowscreen monitor sucks, I hate having such narrow desktop space to work with because I can't lay windows side by side. I'd trade it for a shortscreen one any day. The shortscreen ones are also a lot nicer to watch movies and play games on.
To me, vertical space is relatively 'wasted' compared to horizontal space because you can't perceive as much vertically as horizontally anyway. I scroll down in my browser to keep text in the middle so I don't have to look up and down as much avoiding eye strain, so what's the point of that area at the bottom I never look at. I can feel my peripheral vision constricted in games where I already have to look up and down just to take in everything from the HUD - why can't I see more off to my left and right when I'm already overexposed vertically.
What I can't understand is why very many people would want such a monitor. Maybe people look at it and think 19" is 19", not realizing that a 19" "widescreen" is shorter than a 15" normal monitor at 5:4 aspect ratio would be. That's not "wide". That's tiny.
Umm.. NOt to burst your bubble or anything, But i bought a 19" Widescreen LCD monitor, and its height is exactly the same as my normal 19" LCD screen. Its only the width thats bigger.
Now i don't know monitors. I know computers, but monitors i don't really care about. One thing i do know is that i have 2 19" monitors, one is widescreen as as far as height goes, they are both the same. Im not saying your wrong or anything, only that i havent found that particular problem.
Umm.. NOt to burst your bubble or anything, But i bought a 19" Widescreen LCD monitor, and its height is exactly the same as my normal 19" LCD screen. Its only the width thats bigger.
eh? not possible. A 19" widescreen monitor should about the about the same height as a 15" 4:3 monitor
Originally posted by xiirot /sarcasm enabled lol... tell me about it... there's only, like, 2 or 3 people that actually edit all of the movies in the world. ... they should just give it up already.... not to mention that one guy that edits all of the television stuff. why does he need a widescreen monitor anyway? it's not like anyone uses those "shortscreen" TVs /sarcasm disabled
Because everyone and his neighbor's dog edits movies extensively on his home computer? Something that only a small fraction of the population does can't explain why everyone would prefer some particular approach.
i work with mainly cad and spreadsheets, along with some 3d work for well and system design, and having a 22in ws at home, vs a 19in 4:3 at work.....i bang my head every time i use the non widescreen. It's horrible to look at, i cant have spreadsheets side by side, and the work space feels so cramped. while at home...i feel like i have a huge amount of space.
Human eyes are panoramic...why shouldn't my workspace as well?
The whole purpose of widescreen is so that the user sees more of everything. Have you seen a side by side comparison of a movie or anything? For 4:3 they cut the right and left edges off to make it fit. 16:9 is the ratio it is filmed in. The same concept applies to both games and video. More things happen on the horizontal plane than vertically. Having more vertical space is only good for reading and/or web browsing. If you need that, simply rotate your widescreen monitor and you have a better layout than a 4:3 monitor for that purpose as well.
It might help if you tried reading the thread before replying so that you don't just rehash things that have already been addressed.
Watching movies is a great justification for giving TVs that aspect ratio. That's not the issue here, though. Computer monitors ought to be designed for things that are done on computers, and not blindly follow what makes sense for some other electronics.
As far as games go, let's suppose that the area you need to see to have a good view of the gameplay is round on the map. This is usually a pretty good approximation for most games, with the above cited sports and racing games that use peculiarly shaped game fields the main exceptions. For games that use an overhead view or something vaguely like it, closer to square is better. If one restricts to games I've played quite a bit in the last decade, Red Alert, Age of Empires, Civilization 2, Chain of Command, Infantry, Europa Universalis 2, and Civilization 4 firmly fit this description.
For 3D games, the typical view is from above and behind your character. This means that what would be a circle on the map appear to be an ellipse as drawn on the ground from your camera angle. The ratio of the axes might be greater than 4:3, but it's less than 2:1, which is about what you'd get from a shortscreen monitor once you chop off the bottom toolbars in a typical game. I guess you could get a higher ratio if you set the camera lower to the ground, but that doesn't give you as good of a view of the action, for about the same reasons that if you try to read this while looking at your monitor from an extreme angle, it's harder to read. If there are any hills in the game or you have to look ahead toward where you're going while running, those stretch what you need to see in the vertical direction, and thus skew the ideal back in the direction of being closer to square.
For first person games, much wider makes more sense, as what's behind you (which is in the vertical direction on the screen) is cut off entirely. But first person games don't give you a good enough view of what's going on to make a decent game.
The whole purpose of widescreen is so that the user sees more of everything. Have you seen a side by side comparison of a movie or anything? For 4:3 they cut the right and left edges off to make it fit. 16:9 is the ratio it is filmed in. The same concept applies to both games and video. More things happen on the horizontal plane than vertically. Having more vertical space is only good for reading and/or web browsing. If you need that, simply rotate your widescreen monitor and you have a better layout than a 4:3 monitor for that purpose as well.
It might help if you tried reading the thread before replying so that you don't just rehash things that have already been addressed.
Watching movies is a great justification for giving TVs that aspect ratio. That's not the issue here, though. Computer monitors ought to be designed for things that are done on computers, and not blindly follow what makes sense for some other electronics.
As far as games go, let's suppose that the area you need to see to have a good view of the gameplay is round on the map. This is usually a pretty good approximation for most games, with the above cited sports and racing games that use peculiarly shaped game fields the main exceptions. For games that use an overhead view or something vaguely like it, closer to square is better. If one restricts to games I've played quite a bit in the last decade, Red Alert, Age of Empires, Civilization 2, Chain of Command, Infantry, Europa Universalis 2, and Civilization 4 firmly fit this description.
For 3D games, the typical view is from above and behind your character. This means that what would be a circle on the map appear to be an ellipse as drawn on the ground from your camera angle. The ratio of the axes might be greater than 4:3, but it's less than 2:1, which is about what you'd get from a shortscreen monitor once you chop off the bottom toolbars in a typical game. I guess you could get a higher ratio if you set the camera lower to the ground, but that doesn't give you as good of a view of the action, for about the same reasons that if you try to read this while looking at your monitor from an extreme angle, it's harder to read. If there are any hills in the game or you have to look ahead toward where you're going while running, those stretch what you need to see in the vertical direction, and thus skew the ideal back in the direction of being closer to square.
For first person games, much wider makes more sense, as what's behind you (which is in the vertical direction on the screen) is cut off entirely. But first person games don't give you a good enough view of what's going on to make a decent game.
Good points except for the "stretch" effect. A good game is programmed to use the aspect ratio, not just stretch it out.
The whole purpose of widescreen is so that the user sees more of everything. Have you seen a side by side comparison of a movie or anything? For 4:3 they cut the right and left edges off to make it fit. 16:9 is the ratio it is filmed in. The same concept applies to both games and video. More things happen on the horizontal plane than vertically. Having more vertical space is only good for reading and/or web browsing. If you need that, simply rotate your widescreen monitor and you have a better layout than a 4:3 monitor for that purpose as well.
It might help if you tried reading the thread before replying so that you don't just rehash things that have already been addressed.
Watching movies is a great justification for giving TVs that aspect ratio. That's not the issue here, though. Computer monitors ought to be designed for things that are done on computers, and not blindly follow what makes sense for some other electronics.
As far as games go, let's suppose that the area you need to see to have a good view of the gameplay is round on the map. This is usually a pretty good approximation for most games, with the above cited sports and racing games that use peculiarly shaped game fields the main exceptions. For games that use an overhead view or something vaguely like it, closer to square is better. If one restricts to games I've played quite a bit in the last decade, Red Alert, Age of Empires, Civilization 2, Chain of Command, Infantry, Europa Universalis 2, and Civilization 4 firmly fit this description.
For 3D games, the typical view is from above and behind your character. This means that what would be a circle on the map appear to be an ellipse as drawn on the ground from your camera angle. The ratio of the axes might be greater than 4:3, but it's less than 2:1, which is about what you'd get from a shortscreen monitor once you chop off the bottom toolbars in a typical game. I guess you could get a higher ratio if you set the camera lower to the ground, but that doesn't give you as good of a view of the action, for about the same reasons that if you try to read this while looking at your monitor from an extreme angle, it's harder to read. If there are any hills in the game or you have to look ahead toward where you're going while running, those stretch what you need to see in the vertical direction, and thus skew the ideal back in the direction of being closer to square.
For first person games, much wider makes more sense, as what's behind you (which is in the vertical direction on the screen) is cut off entirely. But first person games don't give you a good enough view of what's going on to make a decent game.
Good points except for the "stretch" effect. A good game is programmed to use the aspect ratio, not just stretch it out.
agreed, almost all good game companies use the aspectg ration to their advantage, and dont stretch out the graphics....theres only 2 reasons to have graphics stretched a) game was made before ws or b) devs did a shitty job developing it.
so far theres been nothing but pros of widescreen....so i dont see why the op would make an issue. Unless he has a game he really likes which does not have an aspect ration for ws. It's ok....i love diablo 2, but i know i will never be able to play it at 1680x1050. Adapt :P
I also like the widescreen format..I dont like that we're getting less area compared to the same diagonal length but the ofmrat matches better with movies, and etc. Maybe with my designing things. As long as they arent more priced than the more conventional square 4:3 format.
For 3D games, the typical view is from above and behind your character. This means that what would be a circle on the map appear to be an ellipse as drawn on the ground from your camera angle. The ratio of the axes might be greater than 4:3, but it's less than 2:1, which is about what you'd get from a shortscreen monitor once you chop off the bottom toolbars in a typical game. I guess you could get a higher ratio if you set the camera lower to the ground, but that doesn't give you as good of a view of the action, for about the same reasons that if you try to read this while looking at your monitor from an extreme angle, it's harder to read. If there are any hills in the game or you have to look ahead toward where you're going while running, those stretch what you need to see in the vertical direction, and thus skew the ideal back in the direction of being closer to square. For first person games, much wider makes more sense, as what's behind you (which is in the vertical direction on the screen) is cut off entirely. But first person games don't give you a good enough view of what's going on to make a decent game.
Every game I've played recently has been better in widescreen.
WoW; I got more room for my UI mods on the sides where I need it.
Empire: Total War; I get a perfect panoramic view of the battlefield.
CoD4 and Dead Space: Better Horizontal View, let's me see more enemies to left and right of me.
plus a dozen others... the hasn't been a single one that wasn't been better in widescreen.
Remember Outside of games lots of people use as their computers for watching Movies... I know I do.
Umm.. NOt to burst your bubble or anything, But i bought a 19" Widescreen LCD monitor, and its height is exactly the same as my normal 19" LCD screen. Its only the width thats bigger.
eh? not possible. A 19" widescreen monitor should about the about the same height as a 15" 4:3 monitor
Well like i said, i don't know monitors. When i ordered it online it said it was a 19" Asus Widescreen monitor and i measured it today to make sure, and its the same height.
There's a reason why monitors are generally bigger now. Used to be ~15" to ~19" for consumer-range monitors. Now you generally see 17" to 24" since widescreen is the standard.
Face it: widescreen is nothing but a good thing. You're not being shortchanged screen real-estate, and despite whatever imbecilic ranting you do, you're basically complaining because monitors have transitioned to a new format.
Widescreen is superior because it offers a more natural viewspace and it offers more screen real-estate (read: resolution).
P.S. when I play older games that don't support widescreen, my monitor just displays black space on the sides rather than stretching the picture.
Originally posted by skeaser Good points except for the "stretch" effect. A good game is programmed to use the aspect ratio, not just stretch it out.
It's not a game programming issue. It's simple mathematics. If the ground is flat and level and you draw a circle on the grouind, as viewed from directly above, it looks just as wide as it is tall. As viewed from low to the ground, it looks much wider than it is tall. As viewed from the optimal angle in a typical 3D game, it will appear somewhat wider than it is tall, perhaps by enough to justify making the ideal monitor shape a little wider than it is tall, but not by a huge margin.
Umm.. NOt to burst your bubble or anything, But i bought a 19" Widescreen LCD monitor, and its height is exactly the same as my normal 19" LCD screen. Its only the width thats bigger.
eh? not possible. A 19" widescreen monitor should about the about the same height as a 15" 4:3 monitor
Well like i said, i don't know monitors. When i ordered it online it said it was a 19" Asus Widescreen monitor and i measured it today to make sure, and its the same height.
Either you're measuring wrong or at least one of the monitors lied about its size. You're measuring the actual screen space, and not the frame or the stand, I hope.
Suppose that one monitor is a inches tall and b inches wide. The other monitor is c inches tall and d inches wide. If both have a 19 inch diagonal, then by the Pythagorean theorem, a^2 + b^2 = 19^2 = c^2 + d^2. If a = c, then we can subtract to get b^2 = d^2, and hence b = d.
Hey, wow I clicked on one of these random Youtube links and it was actually funny - good job there.
This has to be the most retarded threads ever.
There's nothing new about widescreen displays (at least here in Europe). In a few years you can re-read your post and laugh at how dumb it is, and all your justification is pure comedy.
Unless of course you have one eye directly over the other.
BTW. When I read a book I read one word at the time so clearly widescreen does not help.
There's a reason why monitors are generally bigger now. Used to be ~15" to ~19" for consumer-range monitors. Now you generally see 17" to 24" since widescreen is the standard. Face it: widescreen is nothing but a good thing. You're not being shortchanged screen real-estate, and despite whatever imbecilic ranting you do, you're basically complaining because monitors have transitioned to a new format.
There are two reasons for the larger numbers. One is that monitor sizes have simply been increasing for a long time. This is kind of analgous to other computer components: processors get faster, hard drives get bigger, etc. Improvements in monitors have been far slower than those, of course, but moving from monochrome to color and more recently from CRT to LCD were also improvements.
The other reason for larger diagonal measurements is that being less square means that a screen of the same area has a longer diagonal. A 19" monitor at a 5:4 aspect ratio is about 11.87" tall and 14.84" wide, for a total of 176.1 square inches. A 19" monitor at a 16:9 aspect ratio is about 9.31" tall and 16.56" wide, for a total of 154.3 square inches. If the shape didn't matter at all, but only the total area, then the former monitor is more than 14% bigger than the latter, even if they have the same 19" diagonal measurement.
But even that is assuming that shape doesn't matter. Shape most certainly does matter. If it didn't, would you be perfectly happy using a monitor 200" wide and 1" tall? That's undeniably larger in terms of area than a 19" monitor of any aspect ratio. But the awkward shape makes nearly all of that area unuseable for most purposes.
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Perhaps eventually programs will adjust for the new shape, moving all bars and various other displays to the sides, instead of putting a lot at the top and bottom of the screen as most programs do now. That could manage to preserve the same shape of useable space if, for example, the text on the screen when you're browsing goes from the very top to the very bottom of the monitor. The only net effect of having shorter but wider screens would be to have to move the mouse further whenever you want to click on anything, since you'd have to go off the side of the main area rather than off the top or bottom. That wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, but I hardly view it as being some great improvement.
It basically boils down to monitors and TVs are moving to how the eye naturally sees, in panoramic view.
I always thought measuring TVs and Monitor diagonally was stupid. What wrong giving the actually dimensions? I know why they did.
19" tv/monitor @ 4:3 should about 16" wide and 12" tall. 19 is a bigger number then 16 or 12... thus you make people think you are more... hence why the measure it that way. Plus it easier to say it's a 19 inch TV vs it's a 16 by 12 inch TV.
They still use this measurement system on new monitors/TVs with the new 16:9 aspect whcih causes confusion... because a 19" widescreen tv/monitor as small or smaller in height then 15" 4:3 tv/monitor.
Once 4:3 TVs/monitors are gone and all that is left but 16:9s people will forget the disparity of the ratios.
OK so there lost of some screen area between the 2, because of diagonally measurement, which is stupid, but it's marginal best, and won't matter is a few years anyway.
4:3 is a dieing standard, one that needs to die. I see nothing but benefits in the 16:9/16:10 ratio.
It basically boils down to monitors and TVs are moving to how the eye naturally sees, in panoramic view.
How the eye naturally sees entails peripheral vision to a 180 degree angle on the sides, which isn't possible with a flat monitor. You'd have to wrap around to do that, and I don't see this as movement in that direction. Well, I guess you could argue that a monitor being flat is movement away from how the old CRTs would be curved in the opposite direction, but the movement away from that ended before the transition to LCD monitors, even.
And yes, I understand why monitor manufacturers measure them they way they do. It's about the same reason that if you take the size of a hard drive as the manufacturer tells you, you have to multiply by about .93 to get what Windows will tell you the hard drive size is, because hard drive manufacturers use a different definition of gigabyte. For a 1 TB or larger, it's a smaller mutiple yet.
Comments
Dumbest thread ever.
It's easier to look up and down with scrollbars than it is to look left and right. It's already baked into our brains.
Also, it's more important in games to view things horizontally rather than vertically. As an example, people in FPS games don't judge how fast they can look up and down, they judge how quickly they can look around themselves, which a WIDESCREEN monitor allows you to do easier.
Plus, I can move an LCD around much easier than I can move an old CRT, so it's cheaper and more efficient in terms of space for the user.
Yawn, there are so many things I could say to make you look as though you were equivalent to an unborn fetus in terms of actual human function, buuut it's a waste of time. What I said above is enough to give me a good laugh and feel as though I've accomplished something throughout my day, even though I didn't.
This says everything:
www.youtube.com/watch
My narrowscreen monitor sucks, I hate having such narrow desktop space to work with because I can't lay windows side by side. I'd trade it for a shortscreen one any day. The shortscreen ones are also a lot nicer to watch movies and play games on.
To me, vertical space is relatively 'wasted' compared to horizontal space because you can't perceive as much vertically as horizontally anyway. I scroll down in my browser to keep text in the middle so I don't have to look up and down as much avoiding eye strain, so what's the point of that area at the bottom I never look at. I can feel my peripheral vision constricted in games where I already have to look up and down just to take in everything from the HUD - why can't I see more off to my left and right when I'm already overexposed vertically.
You could always where a pair of blinders with your "shortscreen" monitor. It would look more like a standard monitor.
Umm.. NOt to burst your bubble or anything, But i bought a 19" Widescreen LCD monitor, and its height is exactly the same as my normal 19" LCD screen. Its only the width thats bigger.
Now i don't know monitors. I know computers, but monitors i don't really care about. One thing i do know is that i have 2 19" monitors, one is widescreen as as far as height goes, they are both the same. Im not saying your wrong or anything, only that i havent found that particular problem.
eh? not possible. A 19" widescreen monitor should about the about the same height as a 15" 4:3 monitor
Because everyone and his neighbor's dog edits movies extensively on his home computer? Something that only a small fraction of the population does can't explain why everyone would prefer some particular approach.
i work with mainly cad and spreadsheets, along with some 3d work for well and system design, and having a 22in ws at home, vs a 19in 4:3 at work.....i bang my head every time i use the non widescreen. It's horrible to look at, i cant have spreadsheets side by side, and the work space feels so cramped. while at home...i feel like i have a huge amount of space.
Human eyes are panoramic...why shouldn't my workspace as well?
It might help if you tried reading the thread before replying so that you don't just rehash things that have already been addressed.
Watching movies is a great justification for giving TVs that aspect ratio. That's not the issue here, though. Computer monitors ought to be designed for things that are done on computers, and not blindly follow what makes sense for some other electronics.
As far as games go, let's suppose that the area you need to see to have a good view of the gameplay is round on the map. This is usually a pretty good approximation for most games, with the above cited sports and racing games that use peculiarly shaped game fields the main exceptions. For games that use an overhead view or something vaguely like it, closer to square is better. If one restricts to games I've played quite a bit in the last decade, Red Alert, Age of Empires, Civilization 2, Chain of Command, Infantry, Europa Universalis 2, and Civilization 4 firmly fit this description.
For 3D games, the typical view is from above and behind your character. This means that what would be a circle on the map appear to be an ellipse as drawn on the ground from your camera angle. The ratio of the axes might be greater than 4:3, but it's less than 2:1, which is about what you'd get from a shortscreen monitor once you chop off the bottom toolbars in a typical game. I guess you could get a higher ratio if you set the camera lower to the ground, but that doesn't give you as good of a view of the action, for about the same reasons that if you try to read this while looking at your monitor from an extreme angle, it's harder to read. If there are any hills in the game or you have to look ahead toward where you're going while running, those stretch what you need to see in the vertical direction, and thus skew the ideal back in the direction of being closer to square.
For first person games, much wider makes more sense, as what's behind you (which is in the vertical direction on the screen) is cut off entirely. But first person games don't give you a good enough view of what's going on to make a decent game.
It might help if you tried reading the thread before replying so that you don't just rehash things that have already been addressed.
Watching movies is a great justification for giving TVs that aspect ratio. That's not the issue here, though. Computer monitors ought to be designed for things that are done on computers, and not blindly follow what makes sense for some other electronics.
As far as games go, let's suppose that the area you need to see to have a good view of the gameplay is round on the map. This is usually a pretty good approximation for most games, with the above cited sports and racing games that use peculiarly shaped game fields the main exceptions. For games that use an overhead view or something vaguely like it, closer to square is better. If one restricts to games I've played quite a bit in the last decade, Red Alert, Age of Empires, Civilization 2, Chain of Command, Infantry, Europa Universalis 2, and Civilization 4 firmly fit this description.
For 3D games, the typical view is from above and behind your character. This means that what would be a circle on the map appear to be an ellipse as drawn on the ground from your camera angle. The ratio of the axes might be greater than 4:3, but it's less than 2:1, which is about what you'd get from a shortscreen monitor once you chop off the bottom toolbars in a typical game. I guess you could get a higher ratio if you set the camera lower to the ground, but that doesn't give you as good of a view of the action, for about the same reasons that if you try to read this while looking at your monitor from an extreme angle, it's harder to read. If there are any hills in the game or you have to look ahead toward where you're going while running, those stretch what you need to see in the vertical direction, and thus skew the ideal back in the direction of being closer to square.
For first person games, much wider makes more sense, as what's behind you (which is in the vertical direction on the screen) is cut off entirely. But first person games don't give you a good enough view of what's going on to make a decent game.
Good points except for the "stretch" effect. A good game is programmed to use the aspect ratio, not just stretch it out.
It might help if you tried reading the thread before replying so that you don't just rehash things that have already been addressed.
Watching movies is a great justification for giving TVs that aspect ratio. That's not the issue here, though. Computer monitors ought to be designed for things that are done on computers, and not blindly follow what makes sense for some other electronics.
As far as games go, let's suppose that the area you need to see to have a good view of the gameplay is round on the map. This is usually a pretty good approximation for most games, with the above cited sports and racing games that use peculiarly shaped game fields the main exceptions. For games that use an overhead view or something vaguely like it, closer to square is better. If one restricts to games I've played quite a bit in the last decade, Red Alert, Age of Empires, Civilization 2, Chain of Command, Infantry, Europa Universalis 2, and Civilization 4 firmly fit this description.
For 3D games, the typical view is from above and behind your character. This means that what would be a circle on the map appear to be an ellipse as drawn on the ground from your camera angle. The ratio of the axes might be greater than 4:3, but it's less than 2:1, which is about what you'd get from a shortscreen monitor once you chop off the bottom toolbars in a typical game. I guess you could get a higher ratio if you set the camera lower to the ground, but that doesn't give you as good of a view of the action, for about the same reasons that if you try to read this while looking at your monitor from an extreme angle, it's harder to read. If there are any hills in the game or you have to look ahead toward where you're going while running, those stretch what you need to see in the vertical direction, and thus skew the ideal back in the direction of being closer to square.
For first person games, much wider makes more sense, as what's behind you (which is in the vertical direction on the screen) is cut off entirely. But first person games don't give you a good enough view of what's going on to make a decent game.
Good points except for the "stretch" effect. A good game is programmed to use the aspect ratio, not just stretch it out.
agreed, almost all good game companies use the aspectg ration to their advantage, and dont stretch out the graphics....theres only 2 reasons to have graphics stretched a) game was made before ws or b) devs did a shitty job developing it.
so far theres been nothing but pros of widescreen....so i dont see why the op would make an issue. Unless he has a game he really likes which does not have an aspect ration for ws. It's ok....i love diablo 2, but i know i will never be able to play it at 1680x1050. Adapt :P
I also like the widescreen format..I dont like that we're getting less area compared to the same diagonal length but the ofmrat matches better with movies, and etc. Maybe with my designing things. As long as they arent more priced than the more conventional square 4:3 format.
Every game I've played recently has been better in widescreen.
WoW; I got more room for my UI mods on the sides where I need it.
Empire: Total War; I get a perfect panoramic view of the battlefield.
CoD4 and Dead Space: Better Horizontal View, let's me see more enemies to left and right of me.
plus a dozen others... the hasn't been a single one that wasn't been better in widescreen.
Remember Outside of games lots of people use as their computers for watching Movies... I know I do.
eh? not possible. A 19" widescreen monitor should about the about the same height as a 15" 4:3 monitor
Well like i said, i don't know monitors. When i ordered it online it said it was a 19" Asus Widescreen monitor and i measured it today to make sure, and its the same height.
I have a shortscreen monitor...
It lets me run games in windowed mode. Resolution can be 1280x1024 or 1440x900.
That leaves me room on the side of the game window to have different other things accessible.
If making a lousy php script I can have a reference library open on the left of the editor window.
Alot better solution then having a old monitor running a resolution that one hardly could see the written text.
I'm so broke. I can't even pay attention.
"You have the right not to be killed"
There's a reason why monitors are generally bigger now. Used to be ~15" to ~19" for consumer-range monitors. Now you generally see 17" to 24" since widescreen is the standard.
Face it: widescreen is nothing but a good thing. You're not being shortchanged screen real-estate, and despite whatever imbecilic ranting you do, you're basically complaining because monitors have transitioned to a new format.
Widescreen is superior because it offers a more natural viewspace and it offers more screen real-estate (read: resolution).
P.S. when I play older games that don't support widescreen, my monitor just displays black space on the sides rather than stretching the picture.
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It's not a game programming issue. It's simple mathematics. If the ground is flat and level and you draw a circle on the grouind, as viewed from directly above, it looks just as wide as it is tall. As viewed from low to the ground, it looks much wider than it is tall. As viewed from the optimal angle in a typical 3D game, it will appear somewhat wider than it is tall, perhaps by enough to justify making the ideal monitor shape a little wider than it is tall, but not by a huge margin.
eh? not possible. A 19" widescreen monitor should about the about the same height as a 15" 4:3 monitor
Well like i said, i don't know monitors. When i ordered it online it said it was a 19" Asus Widescreen monitor and i measured it today to make sure, and its the same height.
Either you're measuring wrong or at least one of the monitors lied about its size. You're measuring the actual screen space, and not the frame or the stand, I hope.
Suppose that one monitor is a inches tall and b inches wide. The other monitor is c inches tall and d inches wide. If both have a 19 inch diagonal, then by the Pythagorean theorem, a^2 + b^2 = 19^2 = c^2 + d^2. If a = c, then we can subtract to get b^2 = d^2, and hence b = d.
Hey, wow I clicked on one of these random Youtube links and it was actually funny - good job there.
This has to be the most retarded threads ever.
There's nothing new about widescreen displays (at least here in Europe). In a few years you can re-read your post and laugh at how dumb it is, and all your justification is pure comedy.
Unless of course you have one eye directly over the other.
BTW. When I read a book I read one word at the time so clearly widescreen does not help.
if you've ever played an MMO where you need room for UI space you know why most MMOers would never go back to a 4:3.
my wife and i play EQII and we have it set to be widescreen even when we are on a square monitor....
so in the end this whole conversation is about preferences...
both manufacturing and consumer
"We aren't going to ... Period. End of statement."
ya. ok. whatever.
but what do i know, i'm only a vanbois i'm told.
There are two reasons for the larger numbers. One is that monitor sizes have simply been increasing for a long time. This is kind of analgous to other computer components: processors get faster, hard drives get bigger, etc. Improvements in monitors have been far slower than those, of course, but moving from monochrome to color and more recently from CRT to LCD were also improvements.
The other reason for larger diagonal measurements is that being less square means that a screen of the same area has a longer diagonal. A 19" monitor at a 5:4 aspect ratio is about 11.87" tall and 14.84" wide, for a total of 176.1 square inches. A 19" monitor at a 16:9 aspect ratio is about 9.31" tall and 16.56" wide, for a total of 154.3 square inches. If the shape didn't matter at all, but only the total area, then the former monitor is more than 14% bigger than the latter, even if they have the same 19" diagonal measurement.
But even that is assuming that shape doesn't matter. Shape most certainly does matter. If it didn't, would you be perfectly happy using a monitor 200" wide and 1" tall? That's undeniably larger in terms of area than a 19" monitor of any aspect ratio. But the awkward shape makes nearly all of that area unuseable for most purposes.
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Perhaps eventually programs will adjust for the new shape, moving all bars and various other displays to the sides, instead of putting a lot at the top and bottom of the screen as most programs do now. That could manage to preserve the same shape of useable space if, for example, the text on the screen when you're browsing goes from the very top to the very bottom of the monitor. The only net effect of having shorter but wider screens would be to have to move the mouse further whenever you want to click on anything, since you'd have to go off the side of the main area rather than off the top or bottom. That wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, but I hardly view it as being some great improvement.
It basically boils down to monitors and TVs are moving to how the eye naturally sees, in panoramic view.
I always thought measuring TVs and Monitor diagonally was stupid. What wrong giving the actually dimensions? I know why they did.
19" tv/monitor @ 4:3 should about 16" wide and 12" tall. 19 is a bigger number then 16 or 12... thus you make people think you are more... hence why the measure it that way. Plus it easier to say it's a 19 inch TV vs it's a 16 by 12 inch TV.
They still use this measurement system on new monitors/TVs with the new 16:9 aspect whcih causes confusion... because a 19" widescreen tv/monitor as small or smaller in height then 15" 4:3 tv/monitor.
Once 4:3 TVs/monitors are gone and all that is left but 16:9s people will forget the disparity of the ratios.
OK so there lost of some screen area between the 2, because of diagonally measurement, which is stupid, but it's marginal best, and won't matter is a few years anyway.
4:3 is a dieing standard, one that needs to die. I see nothing but benefits in the 16:9/16:10 ratio.
How the eye naturally sees entails peripheral vision to a 180 degree angle on the sides, which isn't possible with a flat monitor. You'd have to wrap around to do that, and I don't see this as movement in that direction. Well, I guess you could argue that a monitor being flat is movement away from how the old CRTs would be curved in the opposite direction, but the movement away from that ended before the transition to LCD monitors, even.
And yes, I understand why monitor manufacturers measure them they way they do. It's about the same reason that if you take the size of a hard drive as the manufacturer tells you, you have to multiply by about .93 to get what Windows will tell you the hard drive size is, because hard drive manufacturers use a different definition of gigabyte. For a 1 TB or larger, it's a smaller mutiple yet.