19" or 20", widescreen or normal?

[MrP]

sorry if this has been asked thousands of times before, but i could do with some direction and some reccomendations?

i have an overclocked XP2200@2600 with a radeon 9800 pro, and the wife has a xp2800 with a nvidia 6800np both with 1gb ram

we both play WOW, and i play the odd racing game, so i'm guessing that the quickest refresh rate isnt really needed.

is there any advantage in having widescreen over a 4:3 screen??

would i be correct in saying that for our rather middle\low end systems a 19" screen with its lower native res would be give us a better gaming experience?

upper limit would be around £300 inc vat

thanks in advance for any help/reccomendations

[grizzla]

widescreen gaming is the way forward, not all games support it however most games coming out do, 19" widescreen has a resolution of 1440x900, with a budget of £300 you could easily get a 20". Amazon have a 19" Acer widescreen for £140, they are good monitors, my mate has just bought one for his new system, if you need more advice jus shout

[MSIC]

Completely agree with Grizzla.
The 20" widescreen monitors are great (1680 x 1050 resolution seems so natural for me now) but for bang for buck (punch for pound??) the 19" widescreens are amazing.
See the Hanns-G here (half-way down, £131.59 inc vat) (my brother has one, they really are good i promise) or alternatives here and here.
Also check out www.widescreengamingforum.com
Both of your graphics cards should be good enough for basic 1440 x 900 res gaming, although some options would have to be set lower perhaps.

World of warcraft supports widescreen properly, so no worries there. In terms of any advantage - hell yes, you get extra view on the sides!!

Edit: Dabs are selling the Hanns-G for £124. It comes with both analogue VGA and also DVI connectors, which is quite silly for the price. A year ago this would have sold at over £200.
Buy one each for you and the wife (PS lucky b'stard, i can't get my fiance to play any other games apart from Brain Training!)

[MrP]

so assuming i go for a 20" widescreen and our systems cant keep up

so whats the image going to look like if we drop a couple of resoltions??

i know windows looks shocking, but willl games like wow be ok, or am i going to notice the banding that you get??

[MSIC]

It slightly depends on what you are using for scaling (ie the monitor, or the graphics card) and how good that is.
My Dell scales brilliantly so running at eg 1440 x 900 looks good. I can't promise that all other monitors can do this so well, although your graphics cards certainly can do it anyway.
I used to use a 6800 (vanilla) with my monitor before i upgraded and it did work on some games at full resolution (Star Wars Battlefront I & II) but others (eg Battlefield 2) had to be scaled down. World of warcraft is not really that modern a game so you might be fine at 1680 x 1050.
The best place to ask about all this really is widescreen gaming forum.

For 20" widescreens, in terms of value, this Belinea is a good start at £252.
9 months ago my Dell 2005FPW cost me £335.
As I said, the 19" monitors are really much better value for money.

[MrP]

(PS lucky b'stard, i can't get my fiance to play any other games apart from Brain Training!)

Shes was the one who took it up, i'm the reluctant WOW player in the house

[shaithis]

Once you play WoW on a widescreen monitor, there is no going back

[MrP]

ok, looks like the price of a 20" is a bit too much, so the best widescreen 19"?

[MSIC]

Just seen this 20" at Amazon:
Acer AL2016WS
£236.50 inc vat & free delivery (if that changes your mind).

For a 19" i really would go for the Hanns-G. Honestly.

[MrFawlty]

I'll add my voice - widescreen is just brilliant for gaming! As far as scaling goes, if you get a decent model, they scale really well. My NEC looks great even at lower resolutions. Don't worry about Windows tho - you can still run that at the native res without slowdown.

[luke284]

i would deff go for a widescreen monitor. i have a dell 2405fpw and its great, know you were looking at smaller sizes but 20" widcreen is almost as good. great for games and movies. also good for normal desktop applications as i have firefox down the left, then msn etc down the right.

[MrP]

is this any good?

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/produ...oductID=463203

cheers