Widescreen Gaming Forum

Well I took some pics but the only digital camera type thing I have is a Logitech web cam and the resolution was SO bad it wasn't worth the hassle of trying to host them somewhere.

The screen is awesome. No ghosting that I can see even in fast paced FPS like Painkiller and FarCry. The latter was very jerky on my 9800pro but today I found an X800XT on Tottenham Court Road of all places! A lil more *cough* ok a lot more expensive than the one I have had on pre-order forever but it's in my machine and running FarCry with all setting on max and ultra high water with x16 performance AF at 1920x1200 and looks amazing. Just watched the Ruby demo which was impressive too.

Just running everything at stock speeds on a 3.0GHz P4 with 800MHz FSB and 1GB ram in dual thingy mode. Certainly there is nothing on the market currently that cannot be run silky smooth at 1920x1200. I'm sure Doom3, HL2 and EQ2 will tax the system but I'm all set up and ready for them *rawr!*

Heh. You're right about Doom 3. One of the .plan's says that for max settings, it'll need a 512MB graphics card! Ouch! (Not to mention all the other attendant stuff like a 3.4EE P4/Athlon FX-53...)

Glad you found the card, though, even if it was more expensive. ;) Gonna cancel the pre order, or keep it and sell when it arrives? :D 'Cause the XT's are arriving in such small quantities that most places only get one or two in before they have to order more. And then that takes ages... etc etc... :(

Got mine today also, Fantastic screen, I did however have issues with my x800XTPE, seems to be shimmering alot also red static in some areas.

Ended up putting in my 9700pro and all seems well, I think it's possible that the DVI is knackered on the x800 so will be sending it back for a replacement :( , but very impressed with the screen, superb bit of kit :)

Go into Display Properties, Settings, Advanced, Options and uncheck the "Alternative DVI Operational Mode" and your freaky shimmering will be gone.
Same happened to me when I first booted up with it but it's just a simple setting in the options.

As far as Doom3 is concerned, Hard|OCP has very comprehensive benchmarks up for combinations of cards and systems. My 3.0GHz P3 and the X800XT-PE will happily run it at 53 fps with High Quality settings, all options on and 1600x1200 resolution with 8AF. That will only get better with driver optimizations too.

Go into Display Properties, Settings, Advanced, Options and uncheck the "Alternative DVI Operational Mode" and your freaky shimmering will be gone.
Same happened to me when I first booted up with it but it's just a simple setting in the options.

wow you have fixed my problem, the amount of people who I've asked for advice on that and did'nt have a clue including some top guru's from apple, I owe you a pint :)


Cheers

Hey guys ...
I am about to buy an 30" Apple Cinema Display ... primarily for gaming ... so I wonder if you could answer a question for me ...

On games that do not support widescreen resolutions what happens ?
Do they not play at all or do they play but in the centre of the screen ?


Thanks in advance .... :D

They either play centred, or stetched to fit the screen, dependent on the settings you have selected on you graphics card. :) Remember, the best monitor in the world doesn't help if the graphics card isn't up to it. Equally, the greatest graphics card in the world is little use if it's hooked up to some 640x480 passive matrix LCD. :lol: :D

Thank you ... :D

I was worried that some games that didn't support widescreen may not play on a widescreen at all ... :shock:

Look in the Software forum for a topic on the Widescreen/non-widescreen issue...

Actually, here it is: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32

I was just looking for something like that .... :D

I like this bit by Ibrin ...

I think this is what you are looking for. robN8R (who I think is on here as well) posted it on the zd7000 forums

Quote:
If you want the system to stretch your game to fit the widescreen "Use Display Adapter Scaling" under DisplayProperties/Settings/Advanced/GeForceFXGo5600/FlatPanelDisplay. If you don't want the system to stretch the game select "Use Centered Output". If you want the aspect ratio to remain fixed and have the system scale up to fit as much as possible on the screen, chose "Use Fixed Aspect Ratio Scaling".

I have seen a few complaints about the widescreen stretching. This should help resolve this. Although I like the widescreen stretch, I'm afraid it might ruin my game when I switch back to a normal monitor. Not that I had such a great game to begin with. hehe


Even if we don't come up with the solutions ourselves, we scour the net looking for them.

Hopefully you have a GeForce-based chipset, so this will work for you. If not, you might now be able to contact ATI asking about "Fixed Aspect Ratio Scaling" and have them know what you're talking about.

As I think I'm going to go for a GeForce 6800 Ultra ... hopefully ... it will have similar display properties settings.... :D
... Thanks again ... :D

I am about to buy an 30" Apple Cinema Display

As far as I know the 30" model is Mac only and needs a particular Mac only edition of the 6800 Ultra card with dual channel DVI output (or something). Apparently high end graphics workstation cards for the PC such as the FireGL *might* work as they have a similar dual channel thingy.

I'd check into this if you're up for PC gaming. Also the native resolution is incredibly high. I think that even 1920x1200 on the 23" model is pushing it a bit for todays hardware at reasonable framerates.

Just some things to think about. Sorry if you know all this already.

Hi DrAnubis,
Thanks for the warnings ... worth a look into ...

From the apple display pdf ... under the heading PC compatibility
"... the 30-inch apple display requires a dual-link DVI connection"

I understand the PC version of the GeForce 6800 Ultra does have dual-link DVI.... I will double check !

Do games look bad when you don't run them at there native resolution ?
Currently I have 3x19" TFT's running as one large widescreen using the Matrox Parhelia and any games that I play that aren't at the native resolution look just fine.

Thanks again.

CRT's can do 'non native' resolutions without a problem. While they have a certain pixel pitch, the pixels themselves are not individuals. On a TFT display, the reason why some of them do 'non native' resolutions so badly is because the pixels are a fixed size, and cannot be changed. Do a google search on the subject for more info. :)

Hi DrAnubis,
Do games look bad when you don't run them at there native resolution ?
Currently I have 3x19" TFT's running as one large widescreen using the Matrox Parhelia and any games that I play that aren't at the native resolution look just fine.

Thanks again.

IMO, not really. The picture is softer when in non-native res, but games already have blurry textures because of the small texture sizes (when viewed up close), so it's not a big deal.

I'm waiting impatiently for my BenQ FP231W (same panel as the Apple, also very similar design, but much cheaper in Europe, only €1750).

L.

Go into Display Properties, Settings, Advanced, Options and uncheck the "Alternative DVI Operational Mode" and your freaky shimmering will be gone.
Same happened to me when I first booted up with it but it's just a simple setting in the options.

As far as Doom3 is concerned, Hard|OCP has very comprehensive benchmarks up for combinations of cards and systems. My 3.0GHz P3 and the X800XT-PE will happily run it at 53 fps with High Quality settings, all options on and 1600x1200 resolution with 8AF. That will only get better with driver optimizations too.

I have a Viewsonic N2750w (just got it) running on my Radeon 9600SE...
And I have this red static. I'm using the VGA cable, as the DVI cable actually produces worse graphics....

What can I do?

J