"Newer" displays are typically widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio), and the ones I've looked at didn't have options to "keep aspect ratio" or "centre image on screen". If your Radeon's control panel doesn't have equivalent option(s), older games that don't have support for widescreen resolutions will be stretched horizontally and will likely look miserable, whereas your cheapo 4:3/5:4-aspect ratio Dell won't have that problem. Something to keep in mind.

With a quality VGA cable it can be hard to tell VGA from DVI. If you don't like the appearance try a different cable, or it could just be the monitor, or the card...

SW-SSG wrote:

"Newer" displays are typically widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio), and the ones I've looked at didn't have options to "keep aspect ratio" or "centre image on screen". If your Radeon's control panel doesn't have equivalent option(s), older games that don't have support for widescreen resolutions will be stretched horizontally and will likely look miserable, whereas your cheapo 4:3/5:4-aspect ratio Dell won't have that problem. Something to keep in mind.

Many displays (not the rock-bottom cheap ones) do have "keep aspect ratio" options, and modern GPU drivers and configuration utilities are almost certain to have these as well. It usually works well for early Windows games that do not have widescreen options, but things get more complicated for DOS games, because for instance, 320x200, one of the most common DOS resolutions is actually widescreen, but was designed to run on 4:3 displays, so the games were coded with non-square pixels in mind. To get 320x200 DOS games to look properly you actually do not want to keep the correct aspect, but rather force 4:3 and squashed pixels. Some displays have this setting as well. Even more complicated is the fact that certain GPUs will output 320x200 as a higher 4:3 resolution with black bars, potentially confusing the monitor even further.

Samsung widescreen monitors tend to have the desired options for running in 4:3. If you see one at a thrift store, it might be worth getting.

One major issue is the monitor's native resolution and how it matches up with the resolutions you'll be using.
Your 17" monitor is probably a 5:4 1280x1024 panel. I think those are okay for scaling 640x480 and 320x200 modes, though not technically perfect. Unfortunately, the 5:4 LCD monitors I've used have never had an option to crop to 4:3. If yours can crop to 4:3 then it's a great find.

A 19" 1366x768 monitor can perfectly display a 1024x768 image in a cropped 15" region in it's center (assuming it has the required options in the menu).
There are some nice 20" 1600x1200 IPS/PVA 4:3 monitors around also. Most 20" 4:3 monitors you encounter will be these type of panels. That resolution can perfectly scale 320x200 and 800x600 modes.
However, the problem with IPS and PVA panels is that they support a narrow range of refresh rates between 56-64Hz. DOS 320x200 games normally run at 70Hz. The monitor picks up that signal but then converts it to something it supports, which makes it look choppy.
If the game involves smooth 2D scrolling then it can be really bothersome, but with most other games you might not even notice it at all. This is also not a problem in Windows, where you can run games at 60Hz.

The cheap TN panels usually support up to 75Hz, so they work fine with 70Hz signals from DOS games.