19' LCD WS Monitor vs Games

[RideForRuin]

Bought a new monitor 3 days ago, and games look awful. The best resolution for this WS is 1440x900, but not many games have this option (especially older games, which I love to play). For example, Warcraft 3 looks stretched. AoE3 is fine because it has the option to set it to 1440x900. What can I do to play "well" older games? And what can I do to play newer games which don't have the resolution 1440x900 (otherwise they look stretched and letters can hardly be read)

My computer specs (in case they are needed):
Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 BOX
8800GT 512MB PCI-E
2GB DDR2 667

PD: Higher resolutions bring crappier performances, right? Which resolution would be best for games considering I'd like good performance and good graphics?


Thanks in advance :)

[TBZ]

To find what games that support widescreen, click this link:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/Essential_Games_List

Also, I've had luck with finding threads with the search button when I couldn't find what I was looking for.
If games doesn't support widescreen nativly, sometimes you can edit the gamefiles to get a widescreen resolution, but whether or not the game is stretched/vert-/hor+, depends on what game you're playing.

If any of the senior members see something wrong in this post, please point it out, I dont want to spread incorrect information.

Good Luck :)

[RideForRuin]

If what you say is true, does it mean almost every game can be played at a 1440x900 resolution without the images being stretched?

EDIT: Also, 1280x1024 brings a better performance than 1440x900? or am I wrong?

[TBZ]

It depends on the game whether or not it's going to stretch.

1440x900 has less pixles than 1280x1024, so 1440x900 should be less demanding on the system (better performance), but since it's also wider, more objects are displayed on the screen.

Ibrin made a terrific comparison between different resolutions here:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/Widescreen_and_Surround_Benchmarking_Suite

Anyone else with more knowledge/experience in the field that feels like giving some advice on the subject?

[BlueMak]

If what you say is true, does it mean almost every game can be played at a 1440x900 resolution without the images being stretched?

EDIT: Also, 1280x1024 brings a better performance than 1440x900? or am I wrong?

Should be about the same, the difference is quite small, in favour (performance wise) of the 1440x900.
But, if your monitor can maximum do 1440x900, then it can't display 1280x1024 for obvious reasons. Also, 1280x1024 is a 5:3 resolutions and some games might look squeezed. (spelling?)