Dual Monitor or Ultra Wide Monitor ?

Chidambhar_Swaroop

Hello lovely Polycounter's

I am planning to build a new PC. Mostly for the purpose of game development ( Unreal,3dsmax, substance etc ) and also sometimes to play games when I am bored. I have this major doubt, whether to go for Dual Monitor or Ultra Wide Monitor ( 21-9 or 34-9 Ratio ). I wanted to hear your suggestion guys...

Thanks for the help....

PolyHertz

I just answered this question over in the PC building thread, so I'll just copy/paste what I wrote there:

Ultrawide / 21:9 displays: For content creation, the main issue is limited options available at 3440x1440 right now (1440p ultrawide), and they don't give you as much screen space as a dual monitor setup would. There are many 1080p ultrawide monitors available, but you really don't want to go with such a low resolution these days for most 3D modeling / content creation apps. For gaming, it has the same issues the switch from 4:3 to 16:9 had; Many games still don't support it and so you'll probably be playing a lot with black borders on the sides or a stretched image.

igi

Do not buy 1080p ultrawide monitor because they're (2560*1080) just a standard 1440p monitor with bottom part cropped. You'll be better off with a single 16:9 1440p monitor than that. Dual 1080p may have some advantages then single  1440p and so on.

If you can afford it buy any monitor with 1440 pixel vertical resolution since most software barely fits into 1080p novadays, especially substance.

EarthQuake

I like multiple monitors, that way I can use each monitor for a specific thing, like Modo on screen 1, Toolbag on screen 2, slack on screen 3.

I don't like trying to sort out multiple apps on one monitor.

Sunray

Same as Joe also snapping windows is a lot easier with multiple.

Axi5

I haven't tried an ultrawide monitor but would love to.

@EarthQuake some of the ultrawide monitors these days come with PIP and other options. I think you can configure them so that Windows sees two monitors and so on.

I really wish they had 1440 or even 1200 depth as mentioned

thomasp

using a 27-inch as my main display - 1440p. not sure if that qualifies as ultra-wide. at any rate large enough for a decently sized canvas and keeping palettes from spilling over to the second screen.
my secondary is an old 21-inch regular aspect in portrait mode that i kept from my previous setup. ideal format for explorer, reference, text editor and all that. i also run toolbag on it as my "fancy" viewport.

i'm not working a lot with unreal but if i was i'd connect a third screen in a heartbeat. that's one application that eats screen space for lunch and where it's great to be able to just maximize a view. with a single screen it'll take a lot of discipline to deal with managing UE's various windows.

Cibo

I think a 21:9 Monitor can be useful. Todays UI is often at the left and/or right side so a 21:9 Monitor can help to archive a more natural 16:9 viewport. For single content creation its maybe not important but for a Leveldesigner its a pain in the ass to have a small vieport or you must alyways change into ingame mode for the standart FoV.

Mark Dygert

I prefer multiple monitors.

Chidambhar_Swaroop

Hmmmm i am still confused...

Tnx @PolyHertz for the PC Building thread link, really useful...

@Cibo i get your point but like sometimes when i am working with multiple software's like substance painter and marmoset don't you think Dual Monitor's are more convenient then an ultra wide monitor, even though there is a option to dock two software's ??? 

I think i will go for a dual monitor with QHD ( 2560 x 1440 pixels ) or more, ips, 99%sRGB.... 

Now i have to search for a gud Monitor....

Thanks everybody .....

igi

One thing about 4k monitors is that they're right now unpractical under 32". Their pixel concentration is waay to high for most software that doesn't support dpi scaling for ui. You'll end up with tiny menus at a 27"/28" 4k monitor. dunno maybe this is just me.

Spoon

Multiple monitors ftw

swann

Yeah! Multiple Ultra-wide monitors FTW!

PixelGoat

igi said:

One thing about 4k monitors is that they're right now unpractical under 32". Their pixel concentration is waay to high for most software that doesn't support dpi scaling for ui. You'll end up with tiny menus at a 27"/28" 4k monitor. dunno maybe this is just me.

Amen to that! I have 4k monitor on my 15" laptop, worst decision ever :P I cant see ANYTHING inside Max for example, everything is so small that its impossible to work. Text looks wonderful though  


I like my 34" ultrawide, it is a good option if you don't have all that much on your desk, and docking windows is still very easy with WIN-key + arrow keys to dock in any direction.

Axi5

Despite my earlier loving of getting an Ultrawide I can't recommend them. There's pro's and con's but:

Pro's:

• Space saving
• No bezels
• No arrangement/setup specifically needed

Con's:

• Price. The only monitor's on the market that look like a good buy compared to a dual monitor setup are close to £1000. No thanks.
• Size. 34" is not that big compared to dual 24" monitors.
• Resolution. As other posters have mentioned, the vertical resolution is not too great.
• Curve. While great for general perception, for 3D/design work the curve will take some time to get used to.

Dataday

I went from a dual monitor set up to an ultawide. No regrets at all. It is so much better in my opinion.

I disagree with those saying stay away from the 1080p vertical resolution. It really depends on needs/software used. I found the 1080p vertical to be more compatible with various GUIs. These options are also more affordable, as well as faster when it comes to refresh rates.

Slap it on an ergotron arm mount and you have screen that you can easily adjust how close/far it is to the user.

Prime8

I don't have much space on my desk and got an ultrawide 2 years ago, there were not so many choices at that time, I got the Dell U3415W. I absolutely love the format, don't think I could go back anymore.
If I would go with a multi display setup, I would use ultrawide as a center display still. Resolution 3440x1440 is completely fine for the size, just if you want to do some gaming you need a lot more power compare to a single 1080p display. A few games don't support 21:9.

Before I used a 30" Dell 2560x1600 in hindsight that display felt to high compare with this one. 

Axi5 said:

Despite my earlier loving of getting an Ultrawide I can't recommend them. There's pro's and con's but:

...

• Curve. While great for general perception, for 3D/design work the curve will take some time to get used to.
  

Didn't have any issue with that, might depend on the curvature.

Bedrock

1080p + 1440p + 1080p 4life..

Chidambhar_Swaroop

Guys I have decided to go for a dual monitor...

Specifically this BenQ - https://www.amazon.com/BenQ-2560x1440-PD2700Q-Animation-Flicker-Free/dp/B01K1INYWG/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1502708406&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=BenQ+BL2420PT
 
It's a 24-inch, QHD, IPS Panel with 100%srgb. It's 329 Dollars, so I will get 2 Monitors.

Thanks for all the help...

Ryusaki

That's what i would have recommended. You said 24 inch but on Amazon it says 27'' at 1440p which is the right choice between size and resolution in regards to UI's as well as gaming.

igi

329 dollar version is 27" though which is ideal size for QHD imo. I wouldn't go for 24" QHD resolution, pixel size can be too small than the average.

Obscura

Joining to people with 3... 
"1080p + 1440p + 1080p 4life.." I have a similar setup and it helps a lot with not having to put things behind each other. I also like the huge workspace. On one of them I can put references, and use the 2 another with Unreal or Substance Designer. It is indeed expensive but depending on what you are doing, it might worth to invest. I couldn't imagine properly working without at least 2. Even if its an ultrawide, you can't put your references, especially if its multiple, and your software with its interface and the viewport, if you only have one display. If these are the 2 options that you want to choose from, I'd recommend having 2 1080p ones.

claydough

three 27" monitors in surround for gaming. 3 monitors Vertically for workflow pipeline
( 1 documentation/reference leveraged vertically, 2 maya and script editor echo or UE4 in center, 3 notepad or visual studio all vertically scrollable for maximized screen real estate... Vertically can also be referenced at once with greater ease than a peripheral gaming centric horizontal aspect )

1440P for workflow as well...
GUI readability ease ( text thin sharp lines etc.. )
Would be nice if we could fast forward to a future where our work monitors had the HDR color accuracy/wide color gamut and AMOLED contrast ratio crispness that the newest round of phones had? ( it's depressing considering the TV tech is beginning to age and just reaching our monitors at thousands of dollars and my phone screen will be my sexiest display for years to come )

Like the poor support for desktop stereoscopic gaming...
Your best bet for Multi-monitor Surround/Eyefinity/Ultra-Wide gaming is the very active community solutions/support you can find at the widescreen gaming forums WSGF.com. Namely Hayden's "Flawless" Fixes that are updated frequently for old titles and new releases.

claydough

Dataday said:

I went from a dual monitor set up to an ultawide. No regrets at all. It is so much better in my opinion.

I disagree with those saying stay away from the 1080p vertical resolution. It really depends on needs/software used. I found the 1080p vertical to be more compatible with various GUIs. These options are also more affordable, as well as faster when it comes to refresh rates.

Slap it on an ergotron arm mount and you have screen that you can easily adjust how close/far it is to the user.

Agree...
All monitors support vesa mounting and many modern stands support both vertical and horizontal out of the box nowadays anyway?
Why would it then be a question of either or? When leveraging both is as easy as twisting your monitors 90 degrees to the left after gaming?

Obscura

I was originally about to leave this in the what made you feel good today thread. I moved into a new apartment and it didn't allow me to put all the monitors, because of the furniture it came with. Now i bought a new desk. This is how it looks like...



I would say its still not a question, you want at least 2 1080 ones...I couldn't imagine alt-tabing between reference and Substance, or modeling.

- Dell u2312hm
- Asus mx299q 
- Some samsung.. its really bad. It only has vga connector and no any rotations but its like 100 euros lol...

Axi5

Man you're lucky Obscura! I moved to a new place and my desk space downgraded. Now I've got a spare cheapo 19" monitor that I'm probably going to get rid of. Despite what I said earlier, I'm still drooling over an ultrawide, since I don't have enough room for even 2 24" monitors side my side.

Neox

EarthQuake said:

I like multiple monitors, that way I can use each monitor for a specific thing, like Modo on screen 1, Toolbag on screen 2, slack on screen 3.

I don't like trying to sort out multiple apps on one monitor.

I thought so too, one of our artists has one tho. and you virtually split it as you like, he basically has 3 screens in one display now. works surprisingly well

joebount

Neox said:

EarthQuake said:

I like multiple monitors, that way I can use each monitor for a specific thing, like Modo on screen 1, Toolbag on screen 2, slack on screen 3.

I don't like trying to sort out multiple apps on one monitor.

I thought so too, one of our artists has one tho. and you virtually split it as you like, he basically has 3 screens in one display now. works surprisingly well

You mean that windows detects it as 3 different screens?

Neox

joebount said:

You mean that windows detects it as 3 different screens?

lemme check with him before i say stuff thats wrong, but yeah this is how it looked,he has 2 smaller screens on the left on top of each other and another bigger one on the right.

Prime8

Dell hat a tool called Display Manager which can split the screen using many different layouts.
It's possible to switch between display profiles depending on the program you are using, that's quite nice if you want to low saturation in a game for example.

 

almighty_gir

y'all are thinking too small...

Malus

I have two 24" at work (+ a 21" tablet monitor), and a 34" widescreen at home.  I much prefer the widescreen setup, and will be upgrading at work some time. 

As Neox said, you can normally split the screen, so there no more need to alt-tab than you do now.
I use Display Fusion, which allows me to set up a bunch of different configurations based on what I'm doing.
I have hotkeys to change between 'virtual screens', each can be split into different custom regions. For example, I have Zbrush on a primary region, with  ref images/browser etc on secondary.

Malus

PolyHertz said:

For gaming, it has the same issues the switch from 4:3 to 16:9 had; Many games still don't support it and so you'll probably be playing a lot with black borders on the sides or a stretched image.

I've only come across a handful of games which didn't offer at least basic widescreen support, and almost all of those were small indie titles.
The most disappointing is Overwatch, with its locked max FoV, it means 21:9 players get the top/bottom docked off.

16:9 vs 21:9

almighty_gir

16:9 vs 7:3

ugh, plebs...

Prime8

almighty_gir said:

16:9 vs 7:3

ugh, plebs...

21:9 is easier to compare, that's most probably why they chose it as a spec.

There is a super ultrawide format as well 32:9 (double 16:9 obviously).
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/samsung-launches-chg-90-dr-compatible-49-inch-curved-ultra-wide-monitor.html

almighty_gir

Prime8 said:

almighty_gir said:

16:9 vs 7:3

ugh, plebs...

21:9 is easier to compare, that's most probably why they chose it as a spec.

There is a super ultrawide format as well 32:9 (double 16:9 obviously).
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/samsung-launches-chg-90-dr-compatible-49-inch-curved-ultra-wide-monitor.html

I was being facetious.

I'd be willing to bet it's because most people would think 16:9 is bigger otherwise. http://mentalfloss.com/article/76144/why-no-one-wanted-aws-third-pound-burger

throttlekitty

Prime8 said:

almighty_gir said:

16:9 vs 7:3

ugh, plebs...

21:9 is easier to compare, that's most probably why they chose it as a spec.

There is a super ultrawide format as well 32:9 (double 16:9 obviously).
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/samsung-launches-chg-90-dr-compatible-49-inch-curved-ultra-wide-monitor.html

I need that. I need that but not curved plzthx.

Prime8

almighty_gir said:

I was being facetious.

I'd be willing to bet it's because most people would think 16:9 is bigger otherwise. http://mentalfloss.com/article/76144/why-no-one-wanted-aws-third-pound-burger

Have you been facetious here too?
Interesting story about the burgers. Maybe it's the word "third" that is confusing the customers, they think of third as in a ranking.  They need a double quarter pounder.

throttlekitty

Arkaria said:

Planning to upgrade my GPU and monitor setup soon and I've been agonizing over this decision myself. Ultrawide is simple with just one monitor to plug in and looks sleek af. But it will cost me more to get one decent ultrawide monitor than 3 regular ones. Also it seems like you still get much more screen space with 3 separate ones. Really on the fence about this one ;-;

Really depends on your preferences. I have two ultrawides side-by-side, but I only use the left one when rendering going hard on lookdev, and sometimes references. If I had a decent and smaller screen for the left side, I'd use that; so I'm using my old display when i upgraded my main. I have to turn my neck nearly all the way to see the left side fully, and that's just painful after a short while.

I generally prefer to have everything in one screen when working in 3d apps, I like having a wide layout in maya/substance. I've worked odd jobs in the past where having multiple smaller ones was far superior, spreadsheet-y kinds of things between lots of smaller programs kind of things.