Am I the only one completely annoyed at my widescreen LCD?

[Ceromus]

I've been on this 20.1 inch widescreen LCD for about a year now and before getting rid of my CRT I read all the basic LCD information I could find. However I did not realize how terrible lower resolutions looked on a widescreen LCD...its even worse if your monitor doesn't have 1:1 scaling options and you're using an ATI video card (terrible scaling options in comparison to nvidia).

What do you guys do? Being forced into high resolutions is killing my wallet as I am constantly upgrading to try to handle the newest games at decent graphic settings and high resolutions. I just picked up a ATI x1900xtx video card and then I realized the lack of scaling options. I am pretty much forced to go the full resolution of 1680x1050 or 1400x1050 as anything else looks like garbage.

Should I just have not gone with a widescreen monitor? Should I buy a smaller LCD so I can play the newest games without constantly having to upgrade?

 

[Ceromus]

Have you tried using the monitor's scaling instead of the video card scaling? Also, how about if you turn off scaling altogether, and perhaps go to a non-widescreen format?

Thx for responding. I do not think that my monitor has a way to do anything but stretch the image to fit the screen...I see no options for it at least.

How do I turn off scaling? Before I upgraded to my ATI video card I was using an Nvidia card and it allowed me to set it to no scale, or fixed aspect ratio and a bunch of great options like that....ATI seems to lack that option...but if you know like some other way to do it like an application or something please share =)

 

[Warghost]

I dont understand why you would want to go to a lower than native resolution with such a good video card ???? is the rest of your comp that crappy?

 

[Ceromus]

Thats why I bought the card hehe the rest of the comp is decent, I still havent upgraded the CPU to dual core. I can run pretty much every game right now fine aside from company of heroes...it can get pretty ugly. The problem is I have to keep upgrading to play the latest games...video cards are extremely expensive these days. I been considering purchasing a smaller LCD like a 17 or 19 inch to be able to go lower resolutions.

I got the x1900xtx on a 150 dollar rebate special from MSI incase you were wondering why I purchased such a ridiculously overpriced card when worried about money

I just kind of wish I was back on my CRT sometimes....do they even sell quality CRT's anymore? I could use an additional heater for the winter =)

 

[Warghost]

Well yes new games always require you to upgrade your comp but I wouldnt let that make you go away from a 20 inch wide screen.

Most new game support wide and 20" is a pretty good size I think.

Personnally im on the opposite of the fence, I just changed my computer and now I kinda want to replace my 19" lcd(non wide) but I cant justify paying for a new lcd(when mine is like 4 month old) just for 1 more inch and wide.

So ill just wait and eventually get a 22 or 24 !

 

[taotoon]

Have you try powerstrip ?
http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm

 

[Ceromus]

I just downloaded powerstrip but I didnt see anything..i tried to mess with the advance display timings but that just made my screen go black =X