Ultra-Wide Gaming

ewhac

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I used to think UWQHD monitors (3440 x 1440) were silly -- what could you do with one of those that you couldn't do with a 4K, or a pair of 16:9 1440p monitors? Then I got one at work, and grew to really like it, so much so that, last week, I finally got one for myself.

Last night, I spent a fair bit of time trying out some of my collected pile of old games, with the understanding that not all of them would work. Of the ones that did work, and looked pretty darned good doing it, included:
  • Obduction
  • The Solus Project
  • Elite: Dangerous
  • The Witness
  • Deliver Us The Moon
  • Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Haven't really fired up Everspace yet, but I'm looking forward to it. One I was especially hoping to try out was TES4:Oblivion, but my installation is b0rk3d, and I may have to scrub it and start over.

So: What games do you suggest for exercising all this 21.5:9 goodness?
 

Gordon_4

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution was designed with Eyefinity in mind so it looks good over a screen that big.

I happen to have an Acer Predator 34”, although I think a series or two earlier than yours, and man do I love it.
 

Topaz

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Not meaning to be a party-pooper, but I looked into this myself for a short while when I was in the market for a new monitor. But I ended up getting a 240Hz 1080p monitor instead.

For me personally, framerate trumps resolution almost all of the time. (And unless your PC comes from NASA itself, you can only pick one of these two, not both)
 

gorfias

Unrealistic but happy
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My jealousy of you knows no bounds!
This guy loves it:
I have an RX 480 and am unsure if it could make good use of such a monitor. As it is, I have a lowly 39" Visio TV for my TV. New card and monitor are on my radar. This one looks pretty great. If you do some Deus Ex, would love to see you post it here. I'm betting Forza Horizon 4 would take advantage of this too.
 

Gordon_4

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Not meaning to be a party-pooper, but I looked into this myself for a short while when I was in the market for a new monitor. But I ended up getting a 240Hz 1080p monitor instead.

For me personally, framerate trumps resolution almost all of the time. (And unless your PC comes from NASA itself, you can only pick one of these two, not both)
If you're big on the games that are fast paced, then frames beats real estate every day. Luckily I play stuff like WoW, SWTOR and older single player games like the DragonAge and Mass Effect series. So having the real estate is beneficial to me.
 

ewhac

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So having the real estate is beneficial to me.
I'm a software engineer, so I look at a lot of code. I also occasionally fire up Blender, Inkscape, GIMP, Darktable, and the Kdenlive video editor, so having the extra real estate is very much appreciated.

But this monitor is no slouch gaming-wise. It's a 10-bit IPS panel so it has beautiful colors, but advertises 1ms GTG pixel response time, 100Hz refresh, FreeSync support (which NVIDIA now grudgingly supports), and HDR support. Oh, and it has a bunch of breathing LEDs along the bottom edge :) (didn't know that when I bought it).

I'll probably try and resurrect my Oblivion install this weekend.
 

Elvis Starburst

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If you're big on the games that are fast paced, then frames beats real estate every day. Luckily I play stuff like WoW, SWTOR and older single player games like the DragonAge and Mass Effect series. So having the real estate is beneficial to me.
I ended up putting together a quad monitor setup to solve my real-estate issues. All 1080p. Though I start to wonder if it makes more sense to just get a 4k monitor at that point, but then I run into the problem of not being able to multi-task stuff if I wanna full-screen anything like YouTube. My 1070 can only handle a max total resolution of
7680x4320, so my options are a little limited for secondary monitors if I go that route. Not to mention older/indie games that don't support such a high resolution
 

Gordon_4

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I ended up putting together a quad monitor setup to solve my real-estate issues. All 1080p. Though I start to wonder if it makes more sense to just get a 4k monitor at that point, but then I run into the problem of not being able to multi-task stuff if I wanna full-screen anything like YouTube. My 1070 can only handle a max total resolution of
7680x4320, so my options are a little limited for secondary monitors if I go that route. Not to mention older/indie games that don't support such a high resolution
I’m running triple monitors for mine. Allows plenty of multi tasking. I got the Acer 34 in 3440x1440 and a pair of Benq running 1080. Never had a hiccup.
 

Elvis Starburst

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I’m running triple monitors for mine. Allows plenty of multi tasking. I got the Acer 34 in 3440x1440 and a pair of Benq running 1080. Never had a hiccup.
Hmm, fair! Still doesn't quite solve a few issues I could have with such a setup, but it could work, yeah
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Doom Eternal, I just got a 27 inch monitor with HDR. It's no super wide but playing Doom eternal on it looks really good, even if the HDR is on the crap end of it.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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Not meaning to be a party-pooper, but I looked into this myself for a short while when I was in the market for a new monitor. But I ended up getting a 240Hz 1080p monitor instead.

For me personally, framerate trumps resolution almost all of the time. (And unless your PC comes from NASA itself, you can only pick one of these two, not both)

Unless you're an amazingly good fps player you're probably not getting much benefit playing at 240fps versus 120fps, and 1440p or 4K is still pretty doable at 120fps if you have a beefy enough card. The higher the fps the more diminishing returns (though the same is true for resolution).

Personally I use a 144hz 1440p monitor with freesync, kind of a best of both worlds.