I need to buy a Monitor for Flight Sim. Is there an advantage of a widescreen vs 4:3 (regular) size? I am inclined to buy Widescreen monitor. Whatever is your answer... please elaborate. Much appreciate it.PS: I could care less that I can use it for DVD movies. This is to be used only for Flight Sim.

Hi,I'm sure the more knowledgeable will correct me if I'm wrong.FS9 does not inherently support Widescreen modes, and AFAIK things don't look geometrically correct running a native wide screen resolution (16x9 or 16x10) with FS9. I've seen it running on notebooks where the gauges don't look perfectly round etc

Thanks Rob.I may consider two flat screen 4:3 monitor there... If the price difference between the 4:3 and the widescreen is not much.. Then I may get one widescreen.

Bumping this up. I was reading about the Dell 20 inch widescreen, and it meantions a scaling function that seems designed to allow a game to run in 4:3 aspect, leaving some space at the side. It isn't clear if this is just a pillar mode, or more of a windowed mode where the main window could be moved to one side and a second window opened alongside?scott s..

I finally got it. I got the 24" Ultra widescreen DELL monitor.and WOW... Its awesome... I am running the flight1's ATR in VC. and there does not seem to be any distortion (If there is...I didn't notice). Yes..the 2D gets stretched and you can see the Oval dials instead of round dials. But, for some reason the 3D/VC seems normal... The color is spectacular and vivid. The blacks arereal black. Its far more vivid than the 19" CRTs I had.I got it for $1100 (total with tax and shipping cost (free)).I also got an XPS Gen 3 DELL (refurbished) on ebay for around $850. Its faster than my Dell Dim 4400. Its got 1G dual Mem, 250 MB HD, P4-3.2G, 800 Mother board.I orignally wanted to buy/build the fastest computer there is. But then after reading about the new dual processor..I decided to hold the big purhcase..but get an intrim silution that would use my FX5900 Ultra GeForce (AGP 8X slot) thats on my dim 4400. I'll swap the 128MB ATI card to the Dell Dim 4400.So..now I am planning to hook the DELL 24" and the 14" ELO Touchscreen on the XPS DELL and the two 19" CRTs on the Dell Dim 4400 and connect them using the WideView (I got to read up on how to use it).My only concern is how to keep the virus/adware out of myssystem.. I am thinking of not using IE on the XPS DELL..and reinstalling the OS on the DIM 4400 and using the FireFox browser on both.And then.. After a year or so..and after the 64 bit OS... I';ll get the bigger and better computer.the Pride and Joy is the 24" Widescreen DELL.I could have gotten two 21" Regularl size monitor or two 21" widescreens for the same price. Since I already had two 19"CRTs that I don't want to throw away... I got the single 24".

>Is there an advantage of a widescreen vs 4:3 (regular) size? I>am inclined to buy Widescreen monitor. >Go For It Manny !I've been using FS9 in my brand new laptop equipped with the widescreen LCD.The monitor has 1280x800 pixels, and at first I couldn't figure out how to take advantage of the new screen size, so I ran the thing at 1024x768 . I went to several on-line forums looking for a way to do this and didn't find anything. Until I ran accross a message that said something like this "Only the 2D panel is stretched. The outside views and the VC will actually use the additional screen size".So I decided to play with it and here are the facts : 1) FS ALREADY supports widescreen (via the windows video driver as it is supposed to do), it doesn't need anything extra.2) The Virtual Cockpit benefits from the widescreen just like it is supposed to!3) The external views (spot, tower) also benefit from the widescreen the same way.4) The 2D panel runs at the full wide resolution (we already knew that) and it will AT FIRST stretch the 2D panel. Only the panel, because the view you see out the windscreen is actually correct, not distorted, but simply wider (you can see more). BUT (and this is a BIG BUT), you can use the mouse and manually resize the PANEL to the correct proportion, by sliding the right side of the panel back toward the middle until you see the dials are round again, and here is the kick : 5) You now have space to the right of the panel where you can place the GPS or whatever other "Pop-up" screens you want, be creative, you can resize/reposition everything there.On one of my payware I now place the full radio stack (which used to be a pop-up window) permanently on the right side of the panel. If you're getting a real big widescreen that will go beyond 1280x800, you may be able to resize everything and probably never have to "pop-up" anything anymore, just put it all on-screen at once. I use two monitors for this purpose, which reminds me : 6) Make use of the "Undock window" option : When you bring up a new "Pop-up" window (such as the throttle quadrant), you can "drag" this new window OUTSIDE of the FS9 main window, just as if it was a separate Windows application and place it somewhere else, such as when you have a second monitor.Here's an experience I can share : In my case, I use FS9 for my own training, both to practice IFR flying skills and also for failiarization (to visit places in the sim before I visit them in real life, practice their approaches).My new laptop has an external monitor connector, so when I'm going to fly it a lot, I just hook my old 19" monitor to it and use it as a second monitor, by extending the desktop to it (my Graphics card utility does this) and position it on my right side. I then start FS9, which runs primarily on the laptop screen, load the aircraft with the panel that I resized and saved before, then I manually bring up the FMS and part of the center pedestal and resize and reposition them on the right side of the instrument panel. It all fits on the Laptop's main screen. I then bring up ALL of the other pop-up windows for the other parts of the panel, undock them all, then drag them to the second monitor, where I reposition them so I can see everything at the same time. I can fly for hours without EVER having to pop-up anything, and like in the real airplane, its all there on one of the two monitors. Primary flying and controls such as radios and FMS is all on the main panel (laptop), the rest of the secondary systems which I need to watch/control as I go through the checkliksts, are all on the monitor to my right. Hope this helps.ArnoldERJ-145

>(..........)>My only concern is how to keep the virus/adware out of>myssystem.. I am thinking of not using IE on the XPS DELL..and>reinstalling the OS on the DIM 4400 and using the FireFox>browser on both.>>(...........)Good idea about using Firefox as your browser instead of IE. I've done this months ago and am amazed at how little spyware my computer has now.It will go for weeks before SPybot or Ad-Aware (I use both) will actually detect something. Congrats on the new system, I posted a message in response to your original post without seeing this one...ArnoldERj-145

Hi Arnold.Oh yeah... thanks. I use my second monitor 14" ELO Touch screen for the Garmin GPS and other panels using touch. Its awesome..except for rotary dial function. (and the Right mouse click obviously won't work).BTW.. how do I adjust the panels (resize) in the 2D view? I don't get it.

Just run the mouse over the right-hand side (or the left hand for that matter) of the screen. There's a point in which it will turn into that double-pointed arrow to resize the window, so just "drag" that with the mouse, you'll see that the 2D panel is actually like an overlay, which you can resize. The view out the windshield is a background layer (which you can also resize).All of the components of the 2D view are overlaid windows, even though it usually starts with only 2 : the panel and the external view.Then all the pop-ups (shift 1 thorugh 9) are also overlays, all of which you can resize and undock to move around.I hope I explained it well, otherwise let me know or write me an e-mail.Happy flying.