21:9 aspect ratio monitor/TV advice

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Gabrion

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Shopping for monitors I came across these:

AOC 29-inch IPS Q2963PM
Dell UltraSharp U2913WM 29-Inch Ultra-Wide LED-Lit Monitor
Original LG 29EA93 29" IPS Panel Panorama Monitor 21:9 2560x1080 High-Resolution

All are 21:9 aspect ratio "ultrawide" monitors. The concept immediately appealed to me as 1) I don't actually need full eyefinity, just want somewhat wider view and more screen real estate and 2) The bezels in multi-monitor setups bother me, no matter how small.

Never having heard of 21:9 ratio before today though, I'm looking for opinions from the experts. Good idea for gaming, or bad? Do they tend to have support problems?

Related, my biggest problem with the options above is the small (relative to my taste) vertical size. Researching 21:9 though, I came across the VIZIO XVT Series 21:9 Cinemawide 58-inch Class LED Smart TV with Theater 3D. Much more to my liking size wise, but I don't know if using a TV in place of a computer monitor when gaming is a good idea. Is there any reason people here can give why using such a TV in place of a monitor would be a problem?

Thanks for any help!
__________

In case it matters
-Not worried about price, planned to spend a couple thousand on displays anyway.
-Not worried about displays being to big as I can easily get some stand off from the display with my setup
-I'll be playing all sorts of games, but especially MMOs if that matters.
 
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hizodge

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If the monitor is 2560x1080 resolution then that means it has more pixels than standard 1080p or even 1200p, which in turn means that it'll need more graphical processing power to run games smoothly, although not as much as 2560x1440 / 2560x1600. Just good to keep that in mind.

These type of monitors are a new breed so it'll be hard to say how much support they will get from game developers. I'd say your biggest concern would be the aspect ratio in games with either 1st or 3rd person fixed camera. In games, the FOV (Field of vision) is usually designed with 16:9 aspect ratio screens in mind and that might end up looking just a little bit off on an ultrawide screen. Many games nowadays feature FOV sliders, but they usually go only up to 90 degrees and frankly I'm not quite sure if that's enough for 21:9

Eyefinity and surround guys usually hack their games to go 110 FOV and beyond depending on the game, because of the poor support those techs receive so you might want to ask around here: http://www.wsgf.org/
 
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ubercake

ubercake

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I don't like the bezels either.

The 21:9 IPS monitors offer slower response times than most 16:9 monitors and the input lag that goes along with IPS monitors in general.

IPS monitors offer the best color accuracy and viewing angles, but don't necessarily offer the best gaming performance.

If you're playing primarily MMOs, it might be fine, but you may encounter motion blur when turning quickly, otherwise these monitors would probably be just fine for MMOs. Multi-player first-person shooters are a different story though. The input lag would be a problem.

You get input lag problems with televisions as well because of the post-processing most TV sets perform before the image is displayed on the screen.

Either option would be OK for MMOs. If I played MMOs or single-player games primarily, I'd consider the 21:9 for sure.

Since I play, primarily, multi-player shooters, I need the best response possible with as little input lag as possible, otherwise I'd seriously consider picking up on of the 21:9s. Of the brands you listed, I'd go with the Dell or the LG.
 
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Gabrion

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@hizodge - Thanks, I'll check out that site. As for the hardware required, I have two 7870s in crossfire, so I should be able to support not only a 2560x1080, but a fully eyefinity if I choose to go that way.

@ubercake - So in terms of input lag/response times, TN>normal IPS>21:9 IPS>TV? How extreme are the differences?

 
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4745454b

4745454b

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I think it will depend on the games you play. If you play a lot of FPS then you will probably hate IPS monitors. Or at least need a good break in period. If these new monitors are even "laggery" then normal IPS screens then I'd avoid it.

If you play a lot of MMO, RPG, RTS it shouldn't bother you that bad. Split microseconds don't matter as much.
 
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hizodge

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I personally wouldn't go for 1080p Eyefinity with 2GB VRAM, but that's for another thread.

If you have 2x 7870, you might consider a 2560x1440 monitor instead. You'll have even more room on your desktop than you would have on a 21:9 1080p screen, the price isn't that much higher and you'd have a normal aspect ratio for gaming.

I just don't think those ultrawide displays are meant for gaming purposes at all. They're either for productivity or just that 'cinema feel' when watching movies and stuff.
 
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Gabrion

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I don't want to turn this into a "what can my video card do" question either, but what you said did concern me a bit, because you said "with 2GB VRAM." Each 7870 has 2GB VRAM, or is that what you meant. If it matters, these are the cards I'm using. Like I said, I don't want to derail my own thread, but if you want to speak to what I can and cannot do with two of those cards in crossfire, I'm all ears.

Back to the monitors. Well to be honest, I do game a lot, and did ask my question in that framework, but I have other considerations as well. Extra productivity by having different windows open side by side is a huge draw, as is having extended view of things that have a lot of horizontal scrolling. Less important, but also interesting, is being able to watch HD movies in extended widescreen or whatever they call 21:9.

Of course the productivity can be solved with multiple monitors, the way I've always done it, though it would be nice to have things on the same screen.

 
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ubercake

ubercake

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A mere 2GB of RAM per GPU on two 680s in SLI have proven among the best performance out there with 3x1080p monitors:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-680-sli-overclock-surround,3162-5.html

There are other reviews to support the fact that 2GB per GPU is fantastic with multi-monitor resolutions, but like Gabrion said... for another thread.

I do like a single screen as well. I wish they made a 3840x1080 120Hz 3D TN 1 or 2 ms Response monitor in a 32" format. I'd be on top of that in no time.
 
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hizodge

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Every processing unit has its own memory, so two linked GPUs cannot share memory. While you technically have 4GB of VRAM in total, it's divided by the amount of processors involved (presuming the processors would always have the same amount of memory - which in this case they always do.) So you're still limited to the amount of memory a single GPU can use, that is 2GB. Not sure if this is what you meant by that, but there it is.

I think I had a hunch of what you wanted; productivity/multitasking (whatever you want to call it), gaming and videos, because that's exactly what I want from a monitor as well. I've used Eyefinity for gaming and dual monitors for productivity, but I was honestly a little bit surprised myself when I got 2560x1440 at how much stuff you can have on one screen. Now I'm back to single screen although I do miss dual screens from time to time; There are some situations where 2 monitors will always be better than one, such as when you're watching video or gaming in fullscreen for instance...

Now I don't want to entirely dismiss 21:9 screens because they're quite new and I've never tried one, or even heard/read next to nothing about them, but I just still think they are not intended for gaming purposes and therefore, not quite what you want. I also don't see any benefit of having one over a 2560x1440 monitor other than that they're a little bit cheaper.
 
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Gabrion

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Well I found a thread on another forum, about 10 pages long, all by people using the Vizio XVT Cinemawide. Several people there were using it specifically as a computer monitor and all of them had terrible experiences. Some games worked ok, but for the most part even the normal screen output from windows wouldn't display properly on the screen. They tried a lot to make it work, but in the end it looked like that TV only shined when playing movies with cinemawide aspect ratio. So that eliminates that option.

And the monitors in question are unfortunately smaller vertically than I'd like, so I doubt I'll go that route either. I'll look more into 2560x1440 monitors as I don't think I'd like a triple screen set up with bezels breaking up the screen (and from some of the comments here, my 7870s may not be able to run that anyway). Thanks for the help and any other advice is still welcome.
 
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jaguarskx

jaguarskx

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Eyefinity generally means three monitors max of 1920x1080 for each monitor. You'll just be running the HDTV as a single widescreen monitor.

Input lag varies from monitor model to monitor model. While TN panels generally have lower input lag than IPS panels in general, it varies from monitor to monitor. For example, my 25.5" H-IPS NEC LCD2690WUXi has been reviewed to have 30ms input lag, however my 25.5" Planar PX2611w has been reviewed to have less than 4ms which rivals the large majority of TN panel monitors.

Both the NEC and Planar uses the exact same model number H-IPS panel. However, the NEC has a lot more electronics in it who's purpose is reproduce accurate colors as best as possible at the cost of more input lag because of additional video signal processing.
 
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