Frustrations with Screen Technology
Hello All,
I was just having some thoughts regarding monitors and thought I would jot them down in case they might generate some interesting conversations.
With the latest iteration of the AMD gaming cards coming out it became painfully obvious that AMD is ready to move away from the Dual Link DVI interface, because they completely got rid of it.
The large plug and large (expensive) cables are probably some of the reasons for moving away from this interface and the new display port technology can provide the same throughput at a fraction of the size. It is rather unfortunate that so many great monitors still rely on Dual Link DVI input.
While new monitor technology is always great, it is pretty pointless when the games you want to play are not optimized for it. There are many ways to trick a game to work on a monitor with an unsupported resolution, but this usually causes more issues than it fixes. Just like we see with 4K TVs right now, there is a very limited amount of content that will even take advantage of the full resolution. I find it pretty funny that the best consoles are still limited by the throughput of an HDMI cable, so gaming on a 4K television is completely pointless on them. Might as well just get a much larger and cheaper 1080p TV for console gaming.
Back when 3DVision surround first came out, I was an early adopter and had my triple 3D screen (3x AW2310) setup working when the first beta driver was released. While it provided amazing peripheral views in the games that worked, it caused many compatibility issues with games that didn't support it. This of course limited the games I played on this setup to ones that worked, and even some of them had issues that caused you to turn settings down or completely off (lots of strange shadow issues). Then one of my monitors died and Dell was having issues replacing it, so I was down a monitor for a few months. The various hassles and compatibility issues associated with a 3D surround setup pushed me back to a single 27" 3D monitor fairly quickly.
Then VR came along and wrecked 3D gaming for me. The 3D effect on the monitor just doesn't compare to the HMD. If I play a game on a monitor, it looks much better using the full 120 Hz to refresh the screen instead of 60 Hz per eye. Some games are still awesome in 3DVision, but only the ones who took the time to properly support it (Just Cause 2 is great). 3D Vision just seems like it was an attempt to give us the presence of VR, but it could never do it justice because the screens don't move with your head.
VR is really the next great gaming platform, there is no doubt in my mind. It doesn't matter how big a screen is and how high the resolution is, a flat screen will never compare to a screen that moves with your view and surrounds you. A flat screen will never give you a real feeling of presence.
With all of the new 4K gaming monitors coming out, I wonder just how many new games even support these resolutions and how many of my old favorites would either look terrible or not even work. With consumer VR just around the corner, I have to wonder if my monitor will even see much use. If the HMD resolution is good enough and I can navigate and do everything I normally do on my gaming PC right when it starts up, I might be forgoing the monitor altogether. After all, I can play all my old favorites in the Virtual Cinema :). I think with time, people will realize that all the resolution in the world doesn't compare to a screen that surrounds you.
I was just having some thoughts regarding monitors and thought I would jot them down in case they might generate some interesting conversations.
With the latest iteration of the AMD gaming cards coming out it became painfully obvious that AMD is ready to move away from the Dual Link DVI interface, because they completely got rid of it.
The large plug and large (expensive) cables are probably some of the reasons for moving away from this interface and the new display port technology can provide the same throughput at a fraction of the size. It is rather unfortunate that so many great monitors still rely on Dual Link DVI input.
While new monitor technology is always great, it is pretty pointless when the games you want to play are not optimized for it. There are many ways to trick a game to work on a monitor with an unsupported resolution, but this usually causes more issues than it fixes. Just like we see with 4K TVs right now, there is a very limited amount of content that will even take advantage of the full resolution. I find it pretty funny that the best consoles are still limited by the throughput of an HDMI cable, so gaming on a 4K television is completely pointless on them. Might as well just get a much larger and cheaper 1080p TV for console gaming.
Back when 3DVision surround first came out, I was an early adopter and had my triple 3D screen (3x AW2310) setup working when the first beta driver was released. While it provided amazing peripheral views in the games that worked, it caused many compatibility issues with games that didn't support it. This of course limited the games I played on this setup to ones that worked, and even some of them had issues that caused you to turn settings down or completely off (lots of strange shadow issues). Then one of my monitors died and Dell was having issues replacing it, so I was down a monitor for a few months. The various hassles and compatibility issues associated with a 3D surround setup pushed me back to a single 27" 3D monitor fairly quickly.
Then VR came along and wrecked 3D gaming for me. The 3D effect on the monitor just doesn't compare to the HMD. If I play a game on a monitor, it looks much better using the full 120 Hz to refresh the screen instead of 60 Hz per eye. Some games are still awesome in 3DVision, but only the ones who took the time to properly support it (Just Cause 2 is great). 3D Vision just seems like it was an attempt to give us the presence of VR, but it could never do it justice because the screens don't move with your head.
VR is really the next great gaming platform, there is no doubt in my mind. It doesn't matter how big a screen is and how high the resolution is, a flat screen will never compare to a screen that moves with your view and surrounds you. A flat screen will never give you a real feeling of presence.
With all of the new 4K gaming monitors coming out, I wonder just how many new games even support these resolutions and how many of my old favorites would either look terrible or not even work. With consumer VR just around the corner, I have to wonder if my monitor will even see much use. If the HMD resolution is good enough and I can navigate and do everything I normally do on my gaming PC right when it starts up, I might be forgoing the monitor altogether. After all, I can play all my old favorites in the Virtual Cinema :). I think with time, people will realize that all the resolution in the world doesn't compare to a screen that surrounds you.
