21:9 will never have 100% support in games.

[Bacon1]

I should have noted that I prefer 16:10 displays. I do have a 16:9 on my gaming machine, but only because there was no 16:10 144Hz displays at the time.

I used to go with height but the industry moved away from it and games started showing less content than on 16:9, so I went ultrawide instead. 30" 2560x1600 with 2x 1600x1200 on the side was a nice PLP setup, but I definitely prefer my 34" 3440x1440, just need to replace my 1600x1200 with a 1440p. I noticed that on my 2560x1600 I'd have many windows open, but productivity wasn't that great because side-side didn't work well, so I had many that were just floating around. 2x side by side on my ultrawide however is perfect for usability. It feels like dual monitors with no bezel.

 

[xthetenth]

It feels like dual monitors with no bezel.

Yeah, this is the real heart of the reason I love mine, especially with modern W10 letting you drag the border between snapped windows.

 

[bearxor]

I don't know how you guys can stand the uber-rectangles. Unless you buy super big, you're gonna be squinting when reading text. Vertical space yo.

It's a shame that 5:4 has been abandoned. Square is king.

I came from a triple 27" 1440p setup (XG270HU) to a Predator x34. It's almost the same height and about 40% wider than one 27" by itself. It's pretty sweet.

I do have a 1080p monitor in portrait right next to it though that I'm replacing with a K272HUL next week but, TBH, I'm barely using the side monitor as it is...

 

[Headfoot]

Don't knock ultra wide until you've tried it. There is a definite immersion enhancing aspect to having your peripheral vision filled with useful information. You feel way more like you're in it rather than viewing it through a small rectangular window. This is coming from 5760x1080 but the very edges of my set up are out of my view, so 21:9 would be basically optimal

 

[DrMrLordX]

I don't know how you guys can stand the uber-rectangles. Unless you buy super big, you're gonna be squinting when reading text. Vertical space yo.

It's a shame that 5:4 has been abandoned. Square is king.

I miss 5:4 and 4:3 both.

I actually still think 4:3 isn't as bad as it seems now on 16:9 screens. A 50" 4:3 TV was one heck of a bad ass display to watch sports on.

I am basically stuck on 1600x1200 since the only way to get a better 4:3 monitor is to buy some old Princeton 21" CRT monstrosity with resolutions no modern dev supports anyway. 16:9 makes me crie every tiem.

 

[crisium]

You could buy a 3840x2160 and letterbox it to 2880x2160 if you so please. Just pretend it's 4:3. But you'd be a fool at that point.

Just pretend 16:9 is actually 4:3 wide. So my monitor is like a slightly larger 21-inch CRT in 1920x1440, but then stretched wide!

Unless you simply lack the desktop room, there's no need not to get 2560x1440 or 3840x2160. You get more vertical space. So just pretend.

The main exception is laptops, where current designs make 16:9 not at all optimal. Most laptops have giant bezel. This is why I applaud 3:2 for laptops, as it seems to me it's just getting ride of the horizontal bezel much of the time.

 

[moonbogg]

The aspect ratio is an important factor. 2560x1080 will show more of a game on screen that a 4k monitor.

 

[crisium]

What if I get a 40-inch 4K and run a custom 3840x1620 if I desire wider FOV? A little bigger viewing screen than 29-inch 2560x1080 and way more PPI.

The answer is that'd be bad, because enjoy the input lag and response times of your 40-inch television.

But if we had monitors that size it'd be worthy of discussion.

Edit: 42.5 inch 4K is common, and letterboxed to 3840x1620 it is a very similar size as a 34-inch 3440x1440, but with a minor PPI boost.

Hmm, this is just making me wish TV's were more viable for gaming. Or very large monitors existed.

 

[DrMrLordX]

You could buy a 3840x2160 and letterbox it to 2180x2160 if you so please. Just pretend it's 4:3. But you'd be a fool at that point.

Just pretend 16:9 is actually 4:3 wide. So my monitor is like a slightly larger 21-inch CRT in 1920x1440, but then stretched wide!

Unless you simply lack the desktop room, there's no need not to get 2560x1440 or 3840x2160. You get more vertical space. So just pretend.

Honestly I'd rather run some high 4:3 ratio and downscale it via VSR to fit my 1600x1200 monitor, but neither AMD nor the application/game programmers support that behavior. Which sucks. That should be relatively easy for them to do, barring UI problems (and there are enough broken UIs out there for people anyway so big deal).

PC Monitors have been dead to me ever since someone got the bright idea that wider is better. It wasn't like that in the old days. What changed was HD video content.

 

[xthetenth]

You could buy a 3840x2160 and letterbox it to 2880x2160 if you so please. Just pretend it's 4:3. But you'd be a fool at that point.

Just pretend 16:9 is actually 4:3 wide. So my monitor is like a slightly larger 21-inch CRT in 1920x1440, but then stretched wide!

Unless you simply lack the desktop room, there's no need not to get 2560x1440 or 3840x2160. You get more vertical space. So just pretend.

The main exception is laptops, where current designs make 16:9 not at all optimal. Most laptops have giant bezel. This is why I applaud 3:2 for laptops, as it seems to me it's just getting ride of the horizontal bezel much of the time.

3:2 is really good on laptops in part because they're constrained for space, so extra vertical real estate is valuable for showing one window and doing it really well (especially on smaller devices like my SP4).

The thing is that a really good window wants to be 1200 pixels tall or a bit taller at 100% scaling to fit enough content, and 1440 is really good but each bit more adds progressively less. At that point monitors start being able to display two things and the distinction is how well they do that. At 1440, if your screen is 3440 pixels wide you've got two half-screens at 1720x1440 which are both bigger and slightly taller than 4:3. You can go taller than that, but you start to get into diminishing returns and neck strain continually moving your head up and down. 1440 is already tall enough that I scroll content to put it in a more comfortable part of the screen.

 

[bystander36]

The aspect ratio is an important factor. 2560x1080 will show more of a game on screen that a 4k monitor.

That's typically the case, though to be fair, it's only that way because most dev's have chosen to base the games FOV on your resolution's height, and not the width. That could be changed if the dev's felt like it.

 

[BFG10K]

Sometimes it’s wise to stick to the norm, which in this case is 1080p. Virtually everything supports it from games to TV to Bluray to consoles, so it works perfectly in most situations.

Also GPU vendors heavily optimize around it, so even mid-range graphics cards power through it.

 

[Madpacket]

If competitive games allow for 21:9 the industry will change as it will give the gamers an advantage over 16:9 players. There's millions of DOTA/LoL/SC/CS:GO players that give companies the opportunity to show off their wares in a public forum (tournaments etc). Through sponsorship they get to market their products. This is why shitty TN Benq monitors tend to be favoured by pro gamers as they provided sponsorship money. However giving extra horizontal pixels will make a difference to gameplay so these pro gamers will flock to them. Then it'll trickle down to the rest of industry.

 

[Elfear]

What if I get a 40-inch 4K and run a custom 3840x1620 if I desire wider FOV? A little bigger viewing screen than 29-inch 2560x1080 and way more PPI.

The answer is that'd be bad, because enjoy the input lag and response times of your 40-inch television.

But if we had monitors that size it'd be worthy of discussion.

.

I'll just leave this here.

That's the monitor I use and I do exactly what you described with running in 21:9 mode (3840x1646). Since it's a PVA screen, the blacks are deep enough for the bars to not be very noticeable on the top and bottom. The response time isn't as fast as the top gaming monitors, but I don't notice any lag. I wish it had Freesync/G-Sync and the ability to have a higher refresh rate at lower resolutions. That and the banding on a white screen is noticeable but not terrible.