Two Displays of different size/resolution

[Thanee]

Hiyas!

I'm planning to get a second display (the one I got is 20" 1600x1200).

Now I have three options, and am wondering, which one I should choose, so looking for some further insight.

1) Get the exact one I already got a second time.
2) Get a 20" or 22" widescreen with 1680x1050 resolution.
3) Get a 24" widescreen with 1920x1200 resolution.

I would prefer a widescreen monitor for my second one, since it is better for some uses (like watching DVDs; I don't have a seperate DVD player or even a decent TV, as I do not watch TV except on extremely rare occasions), and so I would have one each to choose from, in addition to the immediate benefit of having a much bigger desktop area (which would be useful, as I tend to open multiple windows with multiple applications and almost never use full-screen on any application other than games).

Now the problem is, there is no display (at least I havn't found one) with comparable size (height mostly) and a 1920x1200 resolution (even the 22" ones only have the lower 1680x1050 resolution), so I'm looking at using two displays with different resolutions (height is mostly important here, obviously).

Maybe some of you have tried this already and could give me some insight, whether it worked out ok, or was rather irritating, when using a standard and a widescreen display together.

Bye
Thanee

 

[bodhi]

I'm using a Dell E207WVP LCD (1680x1050) as my primary monitor, with a Compaq P110 CRT (1600x1200) as my secondary screen (positioned to the left of my primary). I use the LCD as my primary even with the slightly lower resolution because it's significantly brighter and clearer than the ~7 year old CRT. Just a couple minor annoyances so far.

First, wallpaper. If you've got two identical monitors (at least in terms of resolution), then you can easily have the same backdrop repeated on each screen. Or, if they're at the same height as well, you can have one extra-long image (eg 3200x1200) spanning both. But if they differ, you'd have to do a lot of tweaking to fit things. But then I found DisplayFusion via a link from lifehacker, which makes it all easy.

Second, certain video apps won't display properly on the secondary monitor. I open the player window on the primary, and playback is fine; I move it to the secondary, and the video portion of the window is black. There's probably some app or driver tweaking that would make it work, but for me it's minor enough that I haven't put any real effort into it.

As for what you should get, my default position is to get the biggest and best that fits comfortably into your budget, unless you have a specific reason for getting a smaller screen (like, say, the hutch it needs to fit into).

 

[Steel_Wind]

I use a Dell 20.5" Widescreen as my main screen and a BenQ 19" LCD off to the right as a secondary display.

There are no problems at all with this setup. It is perfectly fine to use, no oddity to the eye or other bizzareness inherent in it use.

If you can afford a 24" Dell widescreen (or similar quality) - get it. You'll be very happy you did.

My only concern on the widescreens that go higher than 1680x1050 is that you had better have the video card power to push those pixels if you intend to play games on it. (Hell - you better have it for the 1680x1050, for that matter) Pixel Shader game's resolution does not scale like older technology - so you need a top end card and preferably an SLI video rig to drive a large format widescreen monitor. 1920 x 1200 is a helluva lot of pixels.

1920 x1200 will also give you full 1080p display resolution for HD/ Blu-Ray, which is very nice.

And yes, SLI will only work on one monitor. When SLI is on, you secondray monitor will go blank.

 

[Thanee]

I'm using a Dell E207WVP LCD (1680x1050) as my primary monitor, with a Compaq P110 CRT (1600x1200) as my secondary screen (positioned to the left of my primary). I use the LCD as my primary even with the slightly lower resolution because it's significantly brighter and clearer than the ~7 year old CRT. Just a couple minor annoyances so far.

There are no problems at all with this setup. It is perfectly fine to use, no oddity to the eye or other bizzareness inherent in it use.

That's good to hear.

As for what you should get, my default position is to get the biggest and best that fits comfortably into your budget, unless you have a specific reason for getting a smaller screen (like, say, the hutch it needs to fit into).

If you can afford a 24" Dell widescreen (or similar quality) - get it. You'll be very happy you did.

Yep, the 24" is the one I would prefer to get, if it turns out, that they will combine fine. It's certainly a bit more expensive than the smaller ones (about € 150~200 more than the other two options), but I guess it's worth it to have such a nice, large screen.

My only concern on the widescreens that go higher than 1680x1050 is that you had better have the video card power to push those pixels if you intend to play games on it.

I got a GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB, which hopefully should be up for it.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Steel_Wind]

I got a GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB, which hopefully should be up for it.

Bye
Thanee

For a 24" widescreen? For a pixel shader 3.0 game? Honestly - I have my doubts. That's what SLI was created for.

Yeah. I'm serious.

That's a LOT of pixels.

 

[Thanee]

That's a LOT of pixels.

It's not that much more than my current 1600x1200, though, and I just installed The Witcher running smoothly in that resolution with all options turned to max.

Bye
Thanee