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HoratioWondersocks

Bigger monitor question.

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Hello AllI have a fairly old ,(but perfectly acceptable in terms of performance for FS9) PC (P4 .2.8 .2gb ram,Nvidea 6600GT GCard) my current monitor is a seventeen inch Philips non widescreen) I have been looking at monitors at various sites and they are pretty cheap now (I paid over three hundred pounds for my current monitor about five years ago) I have seen twenty inch Monitors for as little as 80-90 pounds.These new monitors seem to have a much higher resolution than my current one.( i run FS at 1280 -1024 ) My question is would a newer 20inch have a significant affect on performance? I assume the bigger the screen the more demand on your Gcard.Anyway any thoughts appreciated.Oh and yes! widescreen seems to be the only option unfortunately, will I get used to the widescreen display ie cockpits etc.cheers AndyPS Avsim where has my lovely shimmering Pharaoh head gone? I can now only get a dull non shimmerer to display.Its very important for me to have a shimmering head as I was a Pharaoh in another life ,and shimmering reflects my importance as a great Egyptian leader both wise and fearless in battle .


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Hi,I got a 22" widescreen over three years ago. My video card has 1 GB of RAM itself, and I generally get very high frame rates. The only thing I had to do was adjust the display settings within FS2004 to what I liked, which is likely what you would have to do with a new monitor.John

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Howdy!Bought a 23" WS monitor two years ago and I love it! I'm running FS 9 at 1900 x 1080 and it works just fine.I also have a 1GB graphics card (Radeon 4650) with a very similar system to yours, Andy.As far as monitors go, try to shop around; there are a lot of good deals out there if you search them out.Alan


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Go with a good quality 1080P 32 inch or larger LCD TV. I got an LG and the model is in my sig...Much cheaper than a large monitor and way bigger. I connect it with an HDMI cable (the 460GTX has HDMI out)

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Thanks GuysI notice that you both have superior GCards .My card GForce 6600 gt(AGP) only has 256 ram. So that might be a limiting factor.The card is fine with my current 17inch monitor but I am just wondering if a twenty inch will pose performance problems (drawing more from the card)Anyway thanks chaps for your thoughts .All input is welcome.Andy


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The size of the monitor has no affect on FPS. You need to look at the native resolution. Screens are very cheap nowadays, you can pick up a 40" LCD for under £200 now but if I was you I would focus on upgrading your gpu.Regards


Rob Prest

 

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If you switch from 1280x1024 to something like 1920x1080 screen resolution it will ceartainly affect your framerates, but as Rob says, the size of the monitor has nothing to do with it.

will I get used to the widescreen display ie cockpits etc
Yes, you will become an exclusive VC flyer :smile:Jim

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If you switch from 1280x1024 to something like 1920x1080 screen resolution it will ceartainly affect your framerates, but as Rob says, the size of the monitor has nothing to do with it.Yes, you will become an exclusive VC flyer smile.pngJim
Thanks JimI new that a higher resolution equalled possible performance issues, but I also thought that if I kept my normal resolution 1280*1026 but displayed that on a larger monitor that could ALSO possibly have an affect on performance. Would a newer monitor be capable of displaying at 1280*1026 ?Thanks for your thoughts on this subject,cheers AndyPS still not convinced I am going to like widescreen.and I certainly can't imagine flying only in VC.I use viewskip.gau to remove the VC(view at least) in most of my aircraft.(I hear you scream form here)smile.pngPPS those higher reso's must be great if you have the horsepower. Even 1280 is pretty good.

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Well, it may be possible to run 1280x1024 on a widescreen monitor, but the aspect ratio will be way off. 1280x1024 is an aspect ratio of 1.25:1, not sure if it's the norm nowdays but my 27" monitor's aspect ratio is about 1.8:1 which means there would be a 320 px width black band on either side of the display area which makes the widescreen monitor rather pointless. You'll likely need to find a resolution that matches your aspect ratio but still doesn't put a lot more pixels on screen. 1280x1024 works out to 1,310,720 pixels displayed where 1920x1080 works out to 2,073,600 or roughly 160% of what you are currently displaying. That's gonna hurt in the FPS department, but I'm showing an option in my FS9 display settings for 1600x900, and at 1,440,000 displayed pixels, that option would only be about 110% of what you're currently displaying and probably wouldn't affect your frames terribly.All your 2D panels that aren't specifically designed for widescreen will display oval gauges at that resolution, it sucks, I've "widescreened" a couple of my favorite panels to eliminate that problem, it isn't extremely difficult to do, but you do have to come up with a new panel .bmp that fits by resizing and then filling in the blank area with some sort of background that blends in (or not). If you add the extra width along the far right edge, most of the gauge placements will survive since they are all referenced from the upper left corner of the .bmp. You'll have to do the math and come up with a new "window_size_ratio=x" for [Window00] which is something that taxes my feeble little brain a bit, but it's neat when you finally get the right calculation in place and all the gauges pop back into their respective places.I'm a diehard 2d panel guy too, or at least I was. I've been migrating towards the VC since I started flying the newer Carenado aircraft about 3 or 4 yrs ago. I think it was the Arrow IV that was first released without a 2D panel. I howled like h*ll at first, but I had to get my money's worth so the only option was to either build a 2D panel (which I did - sort of) or fly from the VC. Next thing I knew those 2D panels were starting to look a little strange to me; what the heck, they don't do anything but just sit there, you can't pan around, the lighting doesn't change when you turn and fly directly into the sun, and now with the WS monitor all the gauges are egg shaped? Yuk...Now, since I've moved to FSX I've gotten used to the "head latency" and I really enjoy it. I hated it at first, but one takeoff in the Turbine Duke is all I needed :) . She really slams you back in the seat, at 40 kts or so in the takeoff run the turbines spool up fully, the panel lurches forward about 3 feet, and the next thing you know your at 1000' AGL, 220 kts, and climbing at 3500'/min (god, it's sweet, reload the flight and do it again). Now if I fire up FS9 it seems like everything's happening in slow motion. Not sure what they did in FSX (or how this really relates to widescreen monitors), but somehow there's a sensation of speed in FSX that isn't there in FS9.Jim

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Well, it may be possible to run 1280x1024 on a widescreen monitor, but the aspect ratio will be way off. 1280x1024 is an aspect ratio of 1.25:1, not sure if it's the norm nowdays but my 27" monitor's aspect ratio is about 1.8:1 which means there would be a 320 px width black band on either side of the display area which makes the widescreen monitor rather pointless. You'll likely need to find a resolution that matches your aspect ratio but still doesn't put a lot more pixels on screen. 1280x1024 works out to 1,310,720 pixels displayed where 1920x1080 works out to 2,073,600 or roughly 160% of what you are currently displaying. That's gonna hurt in the FPS department, but I'm showing an option in my FS9 display settings for 1600x900, and at 1,440,000 displayed pixels, that option would only be about 110% of what you're currently displaying and probably wouldn't affect your frames terribly.All your 2D panels that aren't specifically designed for widescreen will display oval gauges at that resolution, it sucks, I've "widescreened" a couple of my favorite panels to eliminate that problem, it isn't extremely difficult to do, but you do have to come up with a new panel .bmp that fits by resizing and then filling in the blank area with some sort of background that blends in (or not). If you add the extra width along the far right edge, most of the gauge placements will survive since they are all referenced from the upper left corner of the .bmp. You'll have to do the math and come up with a new "window_size_ratio=x" for [Window00] which is something that taxes my feeble little brain a bit, but it's neat when you finally get the right calculation in place and all the gauges pop back into their respective places.I'm a diehard 2d panel guy too, or at least I was. I've been migrating towards the VC since I started flying the newer Carenado aircraft about 3 or 4 yrs ago. I think it was the Arrow IV that was first released without a 2D panel. I howled like h*ll at first, but I had to get my money's worth so the only option was to either build a 2D panel (which I did - sort of) or fly from the VC. Next thing I knew those 2D panels were starting to look a little strange to me; what the heck, they don't do anything but just sit there, you can't pan around, the lighting doesn't change when you turn and fly directly into the sun, and now with the WS monitor all the gauges are egg shaped? Yuk...Now, since I've moved to FSX I've gotten used to the "head latency" and I really enjoy it. I hated it at first, but one takeoff in the Turbine Duke is all I needed :) . She really slams you back in the seat, at 40 kts or so in the takeoff run the turbines spool up fully, the panel lurches forward about 3 feet, and the next thing you know your at 1000' AGL, 220 kts, and climbing at 3500'/min (god, it's sweet, reload the flight and do it again). Now if I fire up FS9 it seems like everything's happening in slow motion. Not sure what they did in FSX (or how this really relates to widescreen monitors), but somehow there's a sensation of speed in FSX that isn't there in FS9.Jim
Excellent JimThat resolution of 1600*900 you describe I think is the normal resolution of all the monitors I have checked out.I am still wavering. I really don't like the idea of oval gauges OR having to build a 2d panel (couldn't do that anyway) or just having to muck about generally .I just want to plug in ,fire up and fly.What I may do is check out my local one man band PC shop (they are very good and have done all sorts of upgrades ,fixes and even used some new technique to save my failing Gcard which is still going strong three months later) He seems to be able to get hold of bits and pieces for older PCs IE AGP Gcards etc and even a new mother board for my old timer when that expired) He may know of someone who has some non widescreens or I might try for a used one (there must be some knocking around surely)Anyway thanks for your help Jim ,and I am glad to see you are getting much joy out of FSX (You seem to be a fairly rare breed) .so have fun.Andy

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I pretty much only fly in widowed mode, and you can adjust the window to get a 4:3 display, which is needed if your resolution is 1280x1024 regardless.It seems like the 1920x1080 is becoming a de-facto standard, even for computers but I find a 23" monitor is necessary at this resolution. I think the amount of filtering done by the video card (AF/AA) is the main performance concern.scott s..

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