well there has been alot of discussion on widescreen and non widescreen so i thought i post pictures from what you would see in a 17" at 1024 x 768, a 21" at 1600 x 1200 and a 24" Widescreen at 1900 x 1200,mind you i had to reduce the image size to reduce size of the picture, but you can see for yourself the greater viewing of the wider monitor.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/135165.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/135166.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/135167.jpghappy flying!

Don't really see the point of this since you are increasing the size of the monitor with the resolution rather than comparing like with like.I could show you a picture of a 24" (CRT) to equate with your 24" widescreen except that it's resolution is 2304 x 1440.In terms of resolution, by going to that widescreen, you could argue that you're actually loosing 200 or so pixels from the vertical since it's 'widescreen' format rather than 4:3.

Yeah but you would need two other people to help you lift that 24 CRT LOL. Trust me, you do NOT lose anything with the 24 inch widescreens...-PaulLiquid CooledAMD 4000 San Diego2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2Dual 7800 GTX 24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCDRaid-0

yep thats trueno amount of screenshots will show you the beauty of going widescreen!

"Widescreen" is just a 4:3 screen with the top cut off... You are actually getting less, not more.Granted, that lovely Dell or whatever, is a beautiful screen - but just imagine if you had those extra 200 or so pixels on top to make it back up to a 4:3. You wouldn't lose anymore desk space since the width would be exactly the same, and your guages would be naturally square and circles round...

who wants 2D panels when you see this in VC? 1920 x 1200 :( http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/135361.jpg

But just imagine how much better it would be at 1920 x 1440, i.e. if they hadn't bent to the trend of widescreen and had instead produced a standard 4:3 screen.Same space on your desk, more of a view of the overhead... :(

I tried widescreen and found it distorted, back to 4:3.

Widescreen is the TV industries attempt to duplicate what is typically seen in a Movie Theater. This wide angle look started with Cinemascope back in the 50's, where they used an anamorphic lens to take a wide angle shot and compress it onto a piece of movie film with an aspect ratio of about 1.37 to 1. Then when it was projected in the movie theater, it was stretched back to the 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio of Scope. You can duplicate this on your 4/3 TV at home by cropping the picture top and bottom which is called letterboxing. The width is the normal width of your TV screen, and the picure is compressed vertically until you hit the wide angle ratio. This is the way most DVDs are done, so you get the 16 x 9 look. Black bar on bottom and top of picture on your 4 x 3 TV screen. Now if FS9 is creating the picture in a 4 x 3 aspect, and you are going to show it on a 16 x 9 or similar wide angle panel, you either would have to reduce the width to get your 4 x 3 image, or you will have gauges and such that are stretched horizontally, and aircraft that look like they have been elongated with a stretching machine. To get rid of the stretched look, your only alternative is to reduce the width until you are back to 4 /3 but now you have a black bar on either side of the picture, and you might as well have stayed with a 4 x 3 display device. I would think the only other way you could remedy this situation would be to resize all the gauges horizontally until they appear round on your 16 x 9 display, which sounds like a big headache to me, and you would still have scenery and aircraft stretch problems. If FS9 could output in a 16 x 9 format, then, the problem with a 16 x 9 display would go away, but I don't think that can be done with the current version of MSFS.

Guys, all of you can go to this URL http://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.html scroll down because there are 3 or 4 pictures, and then come back here and tell me FS is distorted. FS can handle it, there are just no 2-d panels that are sized correctly. Now if you want to talk VC no offense MagicMan, you are wrong, you get a tremendous amount MORE viewing area, seeing is believing... Most people run FS at 1024*760 1280*1024 or 1600*1200, I run at 1920*1200. How can you say I am losing viewing area? Guys, no disrespect intended, all of the number crunching at statistics are great and in 2-D a lot of what you say is correct, but I invite any of you over to my place to fly VC 1920*1200 on a 24 inch widescreen and tell me you don't want one right away. -PaulLiquid CooledAMD 4000 San Diego2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2Dual 7800 GTX 24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCDRaid-0

>Guys, all of you can go to this URL >http://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.html scroll down>because there are 3 or 4 pictures, and then come back here and>tell me FS is distorted. FS can handle it, there are just no>2-d panels that are sized correctly. Now if you want to talk>VC no offense MagicMan, you are wrong, you get a tremendous>amount MORE viewing area, seeing is believing... Most people>run FS at 1024*760 1280*1024 or 1600*1200, I run at 1920*1200.> How can you say I am losing viewing area? Guys, no>disrespect intended, all of the number crunching at statistics>are great and in 2-D a lot of what you say is correct, but I>invite any of you over to my place to fly VC 1920*1200 on a 24>inch widescreen and tell me you don't want one right away. >-Paul>>Liquid Cooled>AMD 4000 San Diego>2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2>Dual 7800 GTX >24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCD>Raid-0>Let's look at the aspect ratios first. 1024*768 is 4*31280*1024 is 5*41600 * 1200 is 4 * 3 These can all be set in FS9, so should not be distorted, because FS9 is mapping the video. Now if you take a 4*3 image from FS9 and map it to a 1900*1200 display, it will be stretched about 20% horizontally. If you put something on that display , that is round, it will now be oblong, or flattened vertically by 20%. If the setting of 1900*1200 is done in FS9 rather than the graphics card menu, then you might not see this distortion, but I don't think that FS9 has option in the settings. In any case, if the 20% elongation is not bothersome to you, then it should be no problem.

Bob, did you see any distortion in my pics? Say what you want but a picture is worth a thousand words. I don't fly 2-D and the VC handles 1920*1200 no problem. There is NO distorion or resizing issues at all. FS only shows resolutions that your graphics card will support. When I installed my 7800 GTX video cards 1920*1200 is an option that can be set within FS and within the graphics card. Oh, by the way the Dell 2405 1920*1200 is 16: 10, NOT 16: 9. Bob, no disrespect here but you are speculating here and I am looking at it. (Right now, I am flying the PSS T7 KEWR-EGCC) Yes 2-d images will be stretched if the panel was designed for 1280*1024 or 1280*1024. If it was designed to support 1600*1200 then the stretch is really not noticable. If you fly predominantly 2-D then you do not want a widescreen, we are in agreement there unless you are a panel designer and can design your own panels for a widescreen resolution. Hopefully 2-d will become like moveis and you can have your choice but personally I think it is a matter of time until all flying is done in the VC.But the following is FALSE:Distortion in VC-FALSEFS unable to handle 1920*1200-FALSE1920*1200 automatically = 16: 9 -FALSE, the Dell is a 16:10Widescreen=distortion-FALSE depends on 2D or VCSo if you like to fly VC then there is no better choice than a widescreen running 1920*1200. Go look at the link again, there is NO distortion...-PaulLiquid CooledAMD 4000 San Diego2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2Dual 7800 GTX 24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCDRaid-0

You just answered what I was questioning. I said that if "FS9" had an option for the resolution that you are using, that the picture would not be distorted. As you just stated, FS9 does have that option, which I was not aware of. Actually it is hard to see a 20% distortion from a screen shot anyway, if it did exist. By the way, I am the Manager of a Training Department for a International Company that makes very high end video displays ( over $90K a piece) that are used in among other things, the video displays in the Commercial Simulators that the Airlines use. Just so you don't think I was pulling this stuff out of my hat. ;)

No,not at all, you were dead on with the 2D side of it. As for selecting 1920*1200in FS, I never got that option until my vid card supported it. Where it differs is VC only. Obviously a panel designed for 1024*768 would look incredibly stretched 2-D at 1920*1200, basic laws of graphic design apply there as it is a flat bitmap, but the new Feelthere 737 was designed for 1600*1200 so I will let you know how that stretches once I finish this flight to Manchester and load my new 737 up ;). In the VC though like you said because FS knows to display at 1920*1200 there is no distortion, it is very sweet...-PaulBTW, got any of those displays you need help testing??? Just curious, do you know what resolution the commercial simulators would use? What size are those screens? Fascinating stuff, if I could do it over I would love to do SOMETHING with aviation. Poor me I am stuck in the Computer Security field ;)Liquid CooledAMD 4000 San Diego2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2Dual 7800 GTX 24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCDRaid-0

The actually use several resolutions, the mainstay for years weas 1280 x 1024, but now they are going higher than that, probably in the 1600 x 1200 range. Keep in mind that either 3 or 4 projectors are used for the cockpit windows, one for each window. When you look our the window, you are actually looking at a curved screen, so it really looks real...I have had the opportunity to fly many of the sims over the years , from Harrior Jet , to Cobra Helicopter, 767-400, 737 NG etc... When you are flying one of these , especially with the motion platform, it is like being there.