Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi, I'm long time PC gamer and now building my own rig for the first time. I currently use a 27" 1440p 60hz monitor I'm thinking about whether to get a 1440p ultra wide display or instead go for a 27" with a higher refresh rate and Gsync. I love the idea of wide screen gaming and I'm not afraid of tinkering with games to get them working. I love Bethesda games which seem to have issues in ultra wide (but they always have issues anyway much as i love them). I also love RPGs like Pillars of Eternity and Dragon Age, FPS games like Bioshock and the Metro series and grand strategy games like Civ and Crusader Kings 2. As well as new games I also have plans to play older games like the Stalker and Thief series and I have quite a lot of old games on GOG.com as well. So I'm as likely to be playing something new like The Long Dark, Elite or (hopefully soon) No Man's Sky where the appeal of ultra wide really appeals but I also wanna be able to still run older games like Stalker SOC. I also do a lot of modding with Bethesda games and worry about things like SkyUi not working well in ultra wide. As well as games, I'm also a big cinefile so the ultra wide appeals to that side of me as well. Based on these ideas. Do you guys think going ultra wide would be a good move for ,e or do you think I would be better off sticking with a 27' display? The wide screen community seems really nice so I thought I'd go here to help me decide. For the record I'm looking at two ASUS monitors, the 27" PG279Q and the 34" PG348Q and will be installing a GTX 1080. I've spent hours looking through the fantastic database you have here and still torn as it's a lot of cash. Your guys learned wisdom after having made the jump would be welcome! (and nice to meet y'all;)

Hi mate and welcome!

It's always a tough call. It is frustrating to be trying to play a new release that needs a manual fix only to have the game update and the fix no longer work. Our modders do a great job of trying to stay on top of it, but it can be frustrating. Sometimes I just have to game at 16:9 because a game I really want to play is so broken. 16:9 is certainly easier.

But playing in ultrawidescreen or multimon is just magnificent when it's working. Many RPGs are truly cinematic at wider resolutions than 16:9 and are just glorious. And some like The Witcher 3 that I am playing now work straight out of the box which is just great.

If you're willing to tinker and you love cinematics, I think you'll enjoy the ultrawide. Either way though, it sounds like you'll be in for an awesome gaming experience.

_________________
i5-2500K @ 4Ghz ° Asus P8Z68 ° GTX670 Windforce OC ° 8GB DDR3 RipjawsX ° 4x Viewsonic VA2703 ° Logitech G15 / G5 / G27 ° Razer Vespula ° TrackIR 5 ° Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS

Thanks AussieTimmeh for some good advice! When you play unsupported games in ultra wide do they otherwise look fine play in 16:9 with black bars on the left and right? I imagine this is similar to watching a really old movie shot in 4:3 on a wide screen TV. Main being, are they playable in 1440p if you don't mind the bars? (Obviously games that don't support 1440p aren't gonna change that for the ultra wide).

It really depends on the game. Some stretch to fill the fullscreen which is not ideal, whereas others are fine.

If you go to the Games Database, you can search for games you might be playing already and see if anyone with an ultrawide monitor has recorded how the game behaves with 21:9 to get a feel for what you might be in for: http://www.wsgf.org/mgl

That way you can probably decide if it looks like something you'd be happy living with. They should also give you comparison shots between the normal 16:9 and ultrawide.

Hope that helps!

_________________
i5-2500K @ 4Ghz ° Asus P8Z68 ° GTX670 Windforce OC ° 8GB DDR3 RipjawsX ° 4x Viewsonic VA2703 ° Logitech G15 / G5 / G27 ° Razer Vespula ° TrackIR 5 ° Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS

Thanks!

Multi-monitor is awesome when it works, though not every game supported it and sometimes you'll have to use mods to get it working (and sometimes it just won't work at all). Some big games have native multi-monitor support like Rise of the Tomb Raider and GTA V, though others do not. It really is amazing though, and takes gaming to another level. DOOM was unbelievable with triple 1440p screens. That said, the driver situation (at least with Nvidia) is a little wonky and some stuff is just broken (alt-tab menu showing on wrong monitor, random glitches with start menu, some games crashing, etc.). I actually have Surround disabled right now and my machine is way more solid. I'll enable it when I want to play a Surround game.

I also run 144Hz G-Sync screens, and that's cool as well. The advantage is that 144Hz G-Sync works in just about every game and you don't really get too many bugs (except there was a flickering thing when using G-Sync and SLI but Nvidia fixed it). If you play competitive online games, high refresh g-sync will help your game and give a slight advantage. But it's not fundamentally different. Same experience, just smoother.

_________________
check my blog: cybereality.com

Thanks for the advice! I live in Japan and actually have situation where the 27" 144hz I was looking at is back ordered till September and the 34" 100hz ultrawide is in stock. So it looks like I'm going wide (and broke;). Both monitors are IPS and have Gsync so pretty excited (mainly loving The Long Dark at the moment which supports Ultrawide so can't wait to see the difference in this game). I picked up Doom on sale so looking forward to playing that to see what my new rig can do with that game.

Nice!

_________________
check my blog: cybereality.com