[Ultra Wide] How do they handle mixed refreshrates?

[MysticWizard]

Hi Everyone,

 

I've recently been looking at Ultrawide monitors as an upgrade of my 2x1080p 24" 60Hz monitors with 2xHDMI cable. I like to play games and when I see the flight/racing simulators but also the extra view area for games like CS go I am convinced this makes sense. Also having 1 large monitor looks a lot nicer, has less cables etc. I also like to have a live stream on or discord while gaming sometimes so having the option to game on the right and browse on the left is also a scenario I'd want my monitor to cover.

 

However, since a decent ultrawide is not cheap I did some more researching and stumbled upon what I would say is interesting. What I figured was like, hey, 144Hz monitor, a flicker and blur free image for whatever content I am using. Not sure if there is a difference in eye strain between 144Hz and 60 Hz, but back in the CRT days, 100Hz was all the rage because supposedly 100Hz was much smoother to the eyes than 50 (I am in EU). Now perhaps LCD works differently in that it does not refresh the whole screen or something? Enlighten me if you know more At any rate, I'd say it would be nice to mention that you might not get 144 in all situations you might expect them (framerate of games aside).

 

My investigation lead me to this monitor that felt like it was most suited to what I was looking for: Lenovo ThinkVision P44w-10, but I expect when it comes to refresh rates, different monitors have a similar layout (or not?)

 

First surprise was that 144Hz was only supported via Displayport 1.4 according to the table in the manual. HDMI goes up to 100Hz, with HDR OFF, if you put it on it goes back to 60Hz max. I'd have to buy at least 1 new cable.

 

 

My second surprize was that 144Hz was only available if you put the monitor in 3840x1200 mode, but what if you want to use 2 inputs side by side. I woudn't know if it is even possible to tell windows 10 to have a game at 1920x1200 on the right side of your monitor and use the left side for e.g. chrome? The way I figured things worked was that you have 2 outputs of your video card (Mine is a MSI GeForce RTX 2070 armor 8G) run to your monitor as a dual screen setup. Perhaps you all know more about this then me and can explain how that works.

 

 

So now I was thinking, how does my video card handle 144Hz when it has 2 seperate displays, and sure enough when I google for it, I found people having issues at the Nvidia side (Did not check AMD), but, as far as I can tell they might have been resolved? (Anyone here with 2 144Hz (or higher) monitors that can try some stuff out and report back?)

 

So let me know what you think and if I misunderstood anything here!

[LIGISTX]

14 minutes ago, MysticWizard said:

Hi Everyone,

 

I've recently been looking at Ultrawide monitors as an upgrade of my 2x1080p 24" 60Hz monitors with 2xHDMI cable. I like to play games and when I see the flight/racing simulators but also the extra view area for games like CS go I am convinced this makes sense. Also having 1 large monitor looks a lot nicer, has less cables etc. I also like to have a live stream on or discord while gaming sometimes so having the option to game on the right and browse on the left is also a scenario I'd want my monitor to cover.

 

However, since a decent ultrawide is not cheap I did some more researching and stumbled upon what I would say is interesting. What I figured was like, hey, 144Hz monitor, a flicker and blur free image for whatever content I am using. Not sure if there is a difference in eye strain between 144Hz and 60 Hz, but back in the CRT days, 100Hz was all the rage because supposedly 100Hz was much smoother to the eyes than 50 (I am in EU). Now perhaps LCD works differently in that it does not refresh the whole screen or something? Enlighten me if you know more At any rate, I'd say it would be nice to mention that you might not get 144 in all situations you might expect them (framerate of games aside).

 

My investigation lead me to this monitor that felt like it was most suited to what I was looking for: Lenovo ThinkVision P44w-10, but I expect when it comes to refresh rates, different monitors have a similar layout (or not?)

 

First surprise was that 144Hz was only supported via Displayport 1.4 according to the table in the manual. HDMI goes up to 100Hz, with HDR OFF, if you put it on it goes back to 60Hz max. I'd have to buy at least 1 new cable.

 

 

My second surprize was that 144Hz was only available if you put the monitor in 3840x1200 mode, but what if you want to use 2 inputs side by side. I woudn't know if it is even possible to tell windows 10 to have a game at 1920x1200 on the right side of your monitor and use the left side for e.g. chrome? The way I figured things worked was that you have 2 outputs of your video card (Mine is a MSI GeForce RTX 2070 armor 8G) run to your monitor as a dual screen setup. Perhaps you all know more about this then me and can explain how that works.

 

 

So now I was thinking, how does my video card handle 144Hz when it has 2 seperate displays, and sure enough when I google for it, I found people having issues at the Nvidia side (Did not check AMD), but, as far as I can tell they might have been resolved? (Anyone here with 2 144Hz (or higher) monitors that can try some stuff out and report back?)

 

So let me know what you think and if I misunderstood anything here!

I would run one of your 24” monitors vertically next to the ultra wide as a second monitor. That’s what I do, and it’s fantastic. As far as different refresh rates, that’s fine. Set each monitor to their max and Windows doesn’t care. I have a 3440x1440 @ 100hz and a 1920x1200 @ 60hz vertically next to it. Both using display port (much better than hdmi). 
 

I wouldn’t run the monitor as two separate inputs, that sort of ruins the emersion for me... you want games ultra wide to get more peripheral view. And I am not sure how freesync/Gsync would work if you run separate inputs... and adaptive refresh if a must. That’s about as game changing as anything else has been in the last 10 years. 

[paddy-stone]

No, IIRC you don't run 2 cables from the same device. I have an ultrawide, but only 60Hz model, but how it works is you set your display to how you want it. For example, for windows I normally have 1:1, which means it has 2 "panels" view side by side, and on the one panel I have say one application running chrome, and the other showing an output from putty, or some other application. You can have lots of other views, using one input you can have eg

 

 

You can also have 2 inputs simultaneously... but I think they have to be 2 different devices, not sure how that'd work from 1 device. I use 2 inputs sometimes, if it's a device I can't or don't want to remotely login from, but it's rare, as most devices I can remotely login, and just use half my desktop screen to monitor.

I also make use of task view (windows) or workspaces (linux), for even more desktop "space" for multi-tasking. I really LOVE my ultrawide, I don't miss multi-monitor setups at all TBH.

[MysticWizard]

Interesting feedback @LIGISTX @paddy-stone. Does freesync/gsync work if you have a game on the right side of your ultrawide and on the left e.g. a twitch stream (what refresh rate does your left side of the screen have? Does it follow the freesync/gsync?  That would be interesting.

[LIGISTX]

5 hours ago, MysticWizard said:

Interesting feedback @LIGISTX @paddy-stone. Does freesync/gsync work if you have a game on the right side of your ultrawide and on the left e.g. a twitch stream (what refresh rate does your left side of the screen have? Does it follow the freesync/gsync?  That would be interesting.

Adaptive refresh will not work correctly in that situation. It will, I assume, refresh at the games refresh rate as it will detect the game, and I’m not fully sure how the output from the video would look. But again, can you not just run a second monitor..? 

[MysticWizard]

I was hoping to only need the widescreen but it looks like that might not be optimal. I guess it sort of makes sense that if you have a variable refreshrate it would not stick to a fixed one on your other output.

 

Thanks for the feedback so far though, very helpfull!