Ultrawide monitors advice

Mathew Schau · July 31, 2016

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on what sort of ultrawide I should get. Honestly, this is the first time that I will be picking out a new monitor for my rig and I was wondering what sort of features are the most important for gaming. I normally don't play competitive titles so I'm looking for the best image quality for exploring games like Fallout 4 or Skyrim. My computer should be able to handle 3440 x 1440 so that shouldn't be a problem, but I also know that programs running in 1080 will appear fuzzy and less detailed even at the highest setting so I'd like to hear the experiences of people who actually had these issues. Bottom line, I'd like to hear the parts of a monitor that give the best gaming experience ranging from a curve, resolution, refresh rate, or freesync/ G-sync.

aisle9 · July 31, 2016

Curves are a gimmick, not worth the (massive) premium. My ultrawide is an LG 29UM58. 2560x1080, but it looks beautiful and is far cheaper than any 1440p ultrawide I've come across. Refresh rate is more important for competitive shooters, like CS:GO. As long as I'm at or above 60, it looks fine to me. My monitor can pull 75Hz, and I won't lie, I can tell a slight difference, but 60 FPS looks just fine.

FreeSync/G-Sync, eh, that's for you to decide based upon the graphics card you have/want. G-Sync comes at a premium and only works with pricier NVIDIA cards. FreeSync is cheaper, but AMD has thus far shown nothing particularly inspiring in this generation of cards, and it's hard to buy a monitor specifically for a card that exists only on paper and, frankly, might suck.

Mathew Schau · July 31, 2016

1 minute ago, huilun02 said:

What's your GPU?

Care to explain? Any examples of this happening?

Curve is subjective. You want it or you don't

Resolution, the higher the better, as long as you can run it at good framerate

Refresh rate, the higher the better. But those new 180+Hz coming our are silly and not worth the ludicrous price tag.

Freesync or Gsync would depend on your GPU. It isn't nearly as essential if your monitor has a high refresh rate.

My GPU is/are dual RX480. As for the resolution, I am talking about running a program or game on a non-native resolution which will usually lead to a decrease in image quality.

ClobberXD · July 31, 2016

9 minutes ago, Mathew Schau said:

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on what sort of ultrawide I should get. Honestly, this is the first time that I will be picking out a new monitor for my rig and I was wondering what sort of features are the most important for gaming. I normally don't play competitive titles so I'm looking for the best image quality for exploring games like Fallout 4 or Skyrim. My computer should be able to handle 3440 x 1440 so that shouldn't be a problem, but I also know that programs running in 1080 will appear fuzzy and less detailed even at the highest setting so I'd like to hear the experiences of people who actually had these issues. Bottom line, I'd like to hear the parts of a monitor that give the best gaming experience ranging from a curve, resolution, refresh rate, or freesync/ G-sync.

Curves don't make a big difference at all, and if you're not at the exact spot, curves will even worsen the experience. Get an un-curved one. If your content is 16:9 and not 21:9, the monitor functions as a normal 27" monitor, other than the black bars on the side (quite negligible)... Depending on your GPU brand, you can either get Free-Sync (AMD) or G-SYNC (NVIDIA), but mind you, G-SYNC specifically pushes the price-tag much higher than a Free-sync or a normal display. Now, refresh rate - there are 144Hz. Ultrawides like the ROG Swift PG348Q and the Predator X34, but they are too damn expensive, decide for yourself...

Mathew Schau · July 31, 2016

3 minutes ago, Anand_Geforce said:

Curves don't make a big difference at all, and if you're not at the exact spot, curves will even worsen the experience. Get an un-curved one. If your content is 16:9 and not 21:9, the monitor functions as a normal 27" monitor, other than the black bars on the side (quite negligible)... Depending on your GPU brand, you can either get Free-Sync (AMD) or G-SYNC (NVIDIA), but mind you, G-SYNC specifically pushes the price-tag much higher than a Free-sync or a normal display. Now, refresh rate - there are 144Hz. Ultrawides like the ROG Swift PG348Q and the Predator X34, but they are too damn expensive, decide for yourself...

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind when searching