Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-28, 02:01:

Eh? There are games that natively support 16:10, so not sure what you mean by it won't benefit any games?

If a game in question can support 16:10, then it also can support 16:9, which will give better viewing angle.

Plus the 1920x1200 resolution offers pixel perfect 1600x1200, which in turn scales perfectly into 320x200, 320x240 and 800x600.

Practically irrelevant for XP gaming. Also you can get 16:9 2560x1440 panel with pixel perfect 1920x1440.

IMHO, 1920x1200 is as good a resolution as it gets on an LCD display for running an XP system.

Reread my message. It's not about specific panels. BTW most common 16:10 displays were 1680x1050, which can't fit anything nicely.

P.S.
Lets also not forget that 16:9 have access to vast amount of high refresh monitors, while 16:10 options are very limited, at best it's just 75Hz (excluding some early 120Hz TN monitors like Samsung 2233RZ).

And 16:10 75Hz comes with caveats:
1) It's an old 1680x1050.
2) It's a semi-modern 1920x1200, but with 6-bit+FRC color.

I use a Dell Ultrasharp 27'' 4K that scales any resolution without blurring, even 800x600 or 1024x768

I have several monitors that covers the entire spectrum of resolutions formats: several Samsung 19 inch 1280*1024; LG 22 inch 1680*1050; Philips 27inch 1920*1080; but the monitor that I like most is Eizo 21.3 inch 1600*1200 which is perfect for every single game that I play - I stopped buying new games in 2010 and all my games are from the 90's and 2000's and all support 4:3 resolutions. It is by far the best LCD monitor that I ever used with superb viewing angles and perfect colors. The few games that support widescreen resolutions I play them on the 27inch because of its size - they are all from the late 2000's - such as Crysis. I prefer playing without mods or tricks so if a game does not support natively widescreen I play it in 4:3 on the Eizo and they all look very good - Quake 4 at 1600*1200 ultra settings with AA turned all the way up looks fantastic even today; FEAR at 1600*1200 AA 4X, soft shadows on looks beautiful. They all prove that even buying the best of the best the best GPUs available in a certain year was no match for the latest games; in other words there were each year multiple Crysis that could not be rendered at the max settings available in game - no driver trickery - with the current era video card.

F.E.A.R. has horizontal scaling and looks better on 16:9 screen. Quake 4 also scales horizontally, but requires some tinkering.

Personally, I would use a capture card on main PC to solve any resolution caveats on WinXP retro PC games.
Datapath E1/E2 capture card would be the most optimal for this (as it can work with higher refresh rates and pretty much ticks all resolutions old games use).
Lag shouldn't be that bad, and you get whatever resolution you want from it.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-27, 22:01:

Both 16:10 and 4:3.

I use an Asus ProArt 24" monitor. It natively supports 1920x1200 (16:10) and 1600x1200 (4:3), and will auto-switch between them depending on the game's resolution.

Seconded. I've got TWO Asus ProArt: one PA249Q and one PA248QV; bought the latter in emergency when the former's backlight module went out of order. Asus engineer gave up due to "lack of appropriate components" but a third party repairman fixed the problem in less than two hours. 🙄

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-27, 22:01:

I've also discovered some older games like Simcity 2000 and Civilization II support wide-screen resolutions. Civ II in 1920x1200 resolution is glorious.

Holy cow. Gotta dig my copies out. 😆

dormcat wrote on 2023-02-28, 16:59:

Seconded. I've got TWO Asus ProArt: one PA249Q and one PA248QV; bought the latter in emergency when the former's backlight modul […]
Show full quote

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-27, 22:01:

Both 16:10 and 4:3.

I use an Asus ProArt 24" monitor. It natively supports 1920x1200 (16:10) and 1600x1200 (4:3), and will auto-switch between them depending on the game's resolution.

Seconded. I've got TWO Asus ProArt: one PA249Q and one PA248QV; bought the latter in emergency when the former's backlight module went out of order. Asus engineer gave up due to "lack of appropriate components" but a third party repairman fixed the problem in less than two hours. 🙄

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-27, 22:01:

I've also discovered some older games like Simcity 2000 and Civilization II support wide-screen resolutions. Civ II in 1920x1200 resolution is glorious.

Holy cow. Gotta dig my copies out. 😆

XP is the OS i use in my main computer, and in this one i have a fullhd screen, then 16:9

I only use 1920x1080

.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-02-28, 03:05:

ptr1ck wrote on 2023-02-28, 02:38:

They made 27"+ of 16:10? I may need to look into what's out there.

There are although they are uncommon. The Hanns.G 28" monitor is one such display: https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/hanns- … 8in-lcd-monitor

Also 30" WQXGA (2560x1600) displays.

Using one of these right now (the DELL UP3017).

There is even a modern one - DELL U3023E. That one has USB-type-C and Ethernet (no Thunderbolt, though).

Whew no way I'd go for $800 on that Dell Ultrasharp. 60hz and no variable refresh is a joke these days.

Okay, I'm surprised. What's that monitor made for? It has high brightness, but everything else about it seems to be mediocre, beaten by monitors half its price.

The 30" 2560x1600 panels are a niche, thus expensive. My 32" 4K monitor cost less than this one.

Probably made as a replacement for office/studio environment, for people that absolutely need the exact same thing they had 10 years ago, so Dell does not care about regular customers.

DELL offers a wide range of monitors, some for 'regular' customers, some for 'office', some for 'professionals'. Not quite the same professional level that EIZO and some of NEC's offerings are aiming for (or used to), but still higher than average in terms of build quality, ergonomics, durability, and service level. The panels used in the Ultrasharp series are typically of very good quality, but do not have gamer-oriented features.

To be fair, modern 1920x1200 monitors aren't any better in that regard. For the same price or less you can grab 1080p with 144Hz+ or even 1440p 75Hz+ with deals, albeit without nice adjustable stand.

It's just the typical price points for "commercial" use products. Same thing with Quadro, FireGL, Xeon, etc.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-02-28, 03:40:

You can't completely turn off the blurring on this monitor either, if that's what you mean. Though its sharpness adjustment has quite a bit of range (0-100) which does help a little. What I meant was that 1600x1200 is 800x600 doubled on each axis, so it looks cleaner than upscaling from something like 1024x768.

Yeah, I was hoping there might be a way to disable the monitor's native image processing. The ProArt also has a sharpness option which can make 800x600 look close to pixel-perfect, but not quite.

Weirdly I find the ProArt seems to do better with resolutions like 1440x900 and 1280x960. Despite not being pixel perfect they actually look quite decent on that monitor.

It's a shame that GPU drivers didn't offer proper integer scaling until a few years ago, which rules out that option for WinXP gaming.

Agreed. It would be really nice to have those options, but I suppose it's better late than never.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-02-28, 10:14:

If a game in question can support 16:10, then it also can support 16:9, which will give better viewing angle.

True. Though I interpreted your statement that 16:10 was a 'useless standard' to imply a lack of native support for 16:10.

Practically irrelevant for XP gaming. Also you can get 16:9 2560x1440 panel with pixel perfect 1920x1440.

It can be relevant for applications like DOSBox. Since it's possible to set the DOXBox resolution to native 1600x1200 and then perfectly scale up from resolutions like 320x200, 320x240 and 800x600.

A 1920x1440 resolution would scale perfectly to resolutions like 320x240 and 640x480. But then you lose support for those other resolutions including 1600x1200.

I suppose it all comes down to what games one is running and the native solutions they support. For example, I prioritize SimCity 4 which natively supports 1600x120, so it's important for me to be able to run at that resolution.

Reread my message. It's not about specific panels. BTW most common 16:10 displays were 1680x1050, which can't fit anything nicely.

Agreed, though I would never advocate for a 1680x1050 monitor unless one only was planning to run at that specific resolution.

Lets also not forget that 16:9 have access to vast amount of high refresh monitors, while 16:10 options are very limited, at best it's just 75Hz (excluding some early 120Hz TN monitors like Samsung 2233RZ).

Does system bottlenecking become an issue though? I would think that as one starts pushing resolutions and refresh rates, XP-era CPUs and GPUs are going to hit their limitations. Though I suppose this would entirely depend on what games one is playing.

For me, I find games of the mid-2000s play nicely on 1920x1200 @ 75Hz with XP era hardware. How much further is it possible to push such games on an XP system?

Does system bottlenecking become an issue though? I would think that as one starts pushing resolutions and refresh rates, XP-era CPUs and GPUs are going to hit their limitations.

Not with decent hardware, instead of "period correct" potatoes. For example, F.E.A.R. can run 1080p with 100+ fps on Core i7 / GTX 580 easily. Early XP era games will run at blazing speed on something like 1950XTX.

A 1920x1440 resolution would scale perfectly to resolutions like 320x240 and 640x480.

1440p panel will fit 320x200 just fine, it has enough space for uneven pixel scaling in DOSBOX. 800x600 is also possible with small letterboxing, but will require some software solution or modern monitor with presets for emulating specific format and screen size, like on Gigabyte. 1600x1200 obviously will work fine with 1:1 scaling.

I prioritize SimCity 4 which natively supports 1600x120

SimCity 4 can use custom resolution, so once again, support for 1600x1200 specifically is irrelevant. Just like it was for majority of XP games.

On my xp build I run both desktop and fullscreen games in 1024x768 and the 27” Dell monitor is forced to 4:3 aspect on that DVI-D input. It scales with no bad effect on image. The black bars on the sides I don’t mind.