About widescreens

[Poro]

Hello

I've been thinking about this. If I have 22" 5:4 monitor with resolution of 1600x1200 and I have 22" 16:10 widescreen with resolution of 1680x1050 will they be equal of height?

So does widescreen work like this: We just add some width to monitor, but we do not take away from the height

Or does it work like this: We take away from the height and move it to the width so the widescreen display will not be ass tall as 5:4 but it will be bigger in horizontal direction?

From the resolutions I would think that we take away from the top and add it to sides, but isn't this a little lame to make the monitor smaller from top and increase the size of it from the sides? Doesn't this mean in games that if the aspect ratio is right, someone would have more hard time to attack you from the sides as you could see them, but it would be easier to attack you from above?

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/FAQ

That site got me thinking about it. They have those aspect ratios there, but they all are equal at height, but bigger aspect ratio the bigger the display is in horizontal direction. That can't be as the resolution is smaller in vertical direction in 22" 16:10 than in 5:4. Or can it? Do those pics show it exactly as it is?

 

[Skrying]

Take from height and put it on the width... basically. I believe a 19" 5:4 (maybe its 4:3) is about the height of a 22" widescreen, not positive on that. Human vision more closely matches a widescreen aspect ratio you could say. Field of view tweaks help with the game issue you describe but some games don't bother and such advantages for either can be the case.

 

[Davros]

I have a 22" 1680x1050 widescreen lcd
and the height of the screen is 11.5" if that helps

 

[nicolasb]

I believe very few monitors actually have a 5:4 screen aspect ratio. They may have 1280x1024 pixel resolution, but if so the pixels are slightly rectangular: the actual screen aspect ratio is 4:3.

The size in inches measures the diagonal, so for 4:3 screens the screen height is 0.6 * the diagonal. For 16:10 screens the height is 0.53 * the diagonal.

So, this gives us:

4:3 Screens
-----------
Diagonal  Height
14"       8.4"
15"       9"
20"       12"
21"       12.6"
22"       13.2"
 
5:4 Screens
-----------
Diagonal  Height
17"       10.62"
19"       11.87"
 
16:10 Screens
-------------
Diagonal  Height
17"       9.01"
19"       10.07"
20"       10.6"
22"       11.66"
24"       12.72"
27"       14.31"
30"       15.9"

So, 17" widescreen is roughly equivalent in height to 15" 4:3, 20" to 17", 22" to 19" and 24" to 21".

 

[Kaotik]

I believe very few monitors actually have a 5:4 screen aspect ratio. They may have 1280x1024 pixel resolution, but if so the pixels are slightly rectangular: the actual screen aspect ratio is 4:3.

Actually that's incorrect, the 1280x1024 17" & 19" screens do infact have 5:4 physical aspect ratio aswell, not just resolution.

 

[nicolasb]

They do? Oh well.

In that case, 17" and 19" 5:4 monitors would have heights of 10.62" and 11.87". Previous post edited accordingly.

 

[Davros]

its 1280x960 that is 4:3 i beleive

 

[Kaotik]

its 1280x960 that is 4:3 i beleive

Yep, but tbh, I've never seen such TFT

 

[digitalwanderer]

I found a 19" CRT 1280x1024 is just about the same physical height of display as my 22" 1680x1050, if that helps you any.

I was curious about it before getting my 22", it's kind of why I chose a 22" too. Anything smaller would have sort of felt like a downgrade.

 

[Kaotik]

I found a 19" CRT 1280x1024 is just about the same physical height of display as my 22" 1680x1050, if that helps you any.

I was curious about it before getting my 22", it's kind of why I chose a 22" too. Anything smaller would have sort of felt like a downgrade.

there isn't a single crt out there with 1280x1024 as "native" resolution, they're all either 4:3 or 16:9

 

[ShaidarHaran]

there isn't a single crt out there with 1280x1024 as "native" resolution, they're all either 4:3 or 16:9

I wouldn't be so sure of that... I believe there's an Aperture Grille Pitch CRT or two out there (probably from Sony or one of the many Mitsu partners) with a 5:4 ratio @ 1280x1024. Should be right at 19" too.

 

[Pete]

The AG wires are vertical, aren't they? So I'm not sure you could say they're "native" 5:4. They may be native 1280, but I thought it was settled that the 1024 was just convention (12x10x32b=5MiB even, so it fit into memory better back when every bit counted?). It's the shadow mask ones that have the actual holes (dot pitch, IIRC) that you can equate to a full X*Y res.

Poro, 1600x1200 is 4:3 (it's science--er, math ). You can probably work out the heights if you get a DPI for each LCD (same DPI, then you'd expect the one with the greater vertical res to be taller). Some (IIRC--it's been a while since we had a thread on this) games have a fixed FOV, so 1280x1024 would show more than 1280x960. I remember the last thread on this used screenshots from Return to Castle Wolfenstein to show this. Maybe a search'll turn something up (like how wrong I am).

 

[Humus]

Some (IIRC--it's been a while since we had a thread on this) games have a fixed FOV, so 1280x1024 would show more than 1280x960.

FOV is usually measured vertically, so a wide-screen becomes wider, but shows the same angle vertically. A 1280x1024 screen would actually show less of the scene than 1280x960 since it's more like "tall-screen".

 

[digitalwanderer]

I had no clue CRT's even had a native resolution, I thought that was only LCDs.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

FOV is usually measured vertically, so a wide-screen becomes wider, but shows the same angle vertically. A 1280x1024 screen would actually show less of the scene than 1280x960 since it's more like "tall-screen".

Usually yes. Unfortunately there are still some companies (EA) that love to keep keep width the same and squash it vertically, so you end up losing a LOT of viewing area instead of gaining some.

But thankfully with Games for Windows it appears MS requires games branded with that to have an option to run in a window. Yay. So now it's no biggie if a game doesn't support widescreen. I just run it in a 5:4 or 4:3 window.

Regards,
SB

 

[Kaotik]

Usually yes. Unfortunately there are still some companies (EA) that love to keep keep width the same and squash it vertically, so you end up losing a LOT of viewing area instead of gaining some.

But thankfully with Games for Windows it appears MS requires games branded with that to have an option to run in a window. Yay. So now it's no biggie if a game doesn't support widescreen. I just run it in a 5:4 or 4:3 window.

Regards,
SB

Or just use the fixed aspect ratio scaling and live with the black bars on the sides

 

[Moloch]

I had no clue CRT's even had a native resolution, I thought that was only LCDs.

They dont(other than having the max "real" resolution depend on dot pitch), it's just the aspect ratio and crts are either 16:10 (not 16:9) or 4:3/
Thats for monitors.. obviously.
the infamous sony 24"crt monster is 16:10 aspect

 

[Poro]

I completely forgot about this thread! Thanks for the answers. I get this now. I just needed to understand this completely as I am looking for a new display. Thanks again!