What is the Advantages/Disadvantages for Widescreen LCD's?

[fastfood15]

im planning on gettin this, 17 inch LCD

And i just want to know what are the advantages for having a 1280x1024 screen? Are games affected by this? Ive spent my whole live on 1024x768 so i dont know any thing else. I plan on playing games with it. I know the screen's cheap but i dont have that much to spen and 150 bucks sound really great for a lcd to me.

 

[doublehelix]

You'll notice that the display says the response time is 16ms. This, I think from what I've researched, is on the very edge of being blurred. So any motion you might make while gaming could possibly cause some ghosting.

Newegg 17" LCD w/ 8ms Response Times

I don't know if this will work or not for ya', but if you go back to newegg.com look for a 17" LCD w/ a response time ~8ms. You'll be spending a bit more for the faster response time, but at least you'll be happy knowing there won't be any ghosting.

The cheapest 17" w/ 8ms was $190 by a company called Hyvision. Never heard of 'em so I can't vouch for performace...

 

[fastfood15]

alright thanks for the link man, but what are the benefits from having such a big screen? Are games designed for widescreen? Is you probably can guess i dont know much about computer gaming, im more of a console guy. But now im trying to get into the computer scene becasue the games are always cooloer and better looking.

 

[stealth_blade]

1280x1024 is not widescreen, it's simply a different aspect ratio. If anything its more square than 1024x768.

1280x1024 (5:4)
1280x960 (4:3)
1024 x 768 (4:3)
widescreen (16:9)

But to answer your question, yes, the vast majority of games from the last 10 years will support 1280x1024. The few that don't will usually include an option for 1280x960 which despite the difference in resolution actually looks fine.

 

[doublehelix]

alright thanks for the link man, but what are the benefits from having such a big screen? Are games designed for widescreen? Is you probably can guess i dont know much about computer gaming, im more of a console guy. But now im trying to get into the computer scene becasue the games are always cooloer and better looking.

17" isn't really that big, in fact after getting my 19" 17s look tiny lol. Some games are designed to run in widescreen like Half Life 2, but a majority of the games out there can run easily in 1280x1024 and 1024x768 - even 800x600.

The benifits of a high resolution (if this is what you mean by "big screen")? There's more "visible" area and most games appear "cleaner" at a higher resolution.

All the monitors I listed are still 17" but the response time is twice as fast as the original one you were looking at. Faster response times means less, or no ghosting. At 16ms there might be small amounts, but as you increase the response time more ghosting will be visible. 24ms looks horrible...