4:3 or 16:9 ?

I bought a new computer that is coming in a week, and i'm gonna buy a new screen soon.
So i was wondering if i better buy a 4:3 or a 16:9 monitor for GW to work as good as it can

any suggestions?

atm i am looking at this: L222WS

i'm pretty partial to 16:10 myself.

I'd go for the widescreen monitor, 1400x900 and upward. I'm using a pair of 22" samsung lcd, GW looks really pretty and you can see more stuff going on as well.

Most PC monitors come in 16:10 if they are widescreen... don't know if there are any 16:9 ones out there. But yeah, as far as PC monitors go, 16:10 ratio is standard for widescreen. Either 1440x900, 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 resolution (The latter is like HD quality)

But beware: the higher the resolution, the more stress it will put on your PC. While GW won't be a problem, newer games will probably have to be played in a lower res if the PC isn't strong enough.

That said, I'd go for the widescreen monitor. I got a 22" myself with a res of 1680x1050, and I'm very pleased with it.

Eeeww 4:3 is so last century.

Basically, if you play GW in widescreen (16:9, 16:10) it's much better than 4:3 - it's like having the 4:3 with extra space on the sides for your compass, U map, party box, etc.
Once you go widescreen you'll never go back.

Yeah I agree with Quaker - widescreen pawns it's predecessors like Lindsey Lohan vs a six pack.

*ok stupid joke - but you get my point*

Unanimous, then - 16:10 it is. 20-22" at 1680x1050 or 24" up at 1920x1200.

Buy a wide screen. I don't even see the point in buying non wide screen anymore.

Go with a 22 inch or higher, promise you won't regret it. Like the others said, you won't ever want to go back. It's so much more room in games and makes things feel less cluttered with menus.

And of course, 16:10.

Make sure your current GPU can support the resolution of the monitor you are looking at. By support of course, I mean play your favorite games at very reasonable settings with a steady and decent FPS (30+). If that is going to be an issue, you may want to upgrade your GPU as well.

What is the price range you are looking at?

And can you post the specs of your PC?

CORSAIR TX 750W Ultra-quiet 4Pci-e 8sata 20-24pin

INTEL Q9400 Quad-Core2

SAPPHIRE HD4870 512M GDDR5 PCI-E DUAL DVI-I / TVO

OCZ DDR3(1600MHz)4GB(2x2GB)Gold series

ASUS P5Q3 DELUXE-WIFI P45 4DDR3 3xPCI-E CF 2xGlan

180-200 € so 250-280 USD

The 24" 1920x1200 option is what I'm looking at myself in a few months...that is of course, assuming that prices have dropped a bit.

The perhaps most important component for gaming, the graphics card, is missing in that list. If you're going to use the integrated graphics you will probably not be able to run 3D games at the native resolution of a large monitors. It is possible to run at lower res, but that will degrade graphics quality.

Nope. SAPPHIRE HD4870 512M.

There's two ways to look at widescreen:
a) it's a 4:3 screen with extra at the sides
b) it's a 4:3 screen with the top and bottom removed
So really, whether you consider widescreen to be better/worse than 4:3 is a matter of personal perspective and/or how influenced you are by fashion.

Having said that, if you watch TV or movies on your PC then widescreen has a benefit. Similarly, some games (but not all) benefit from a wider horizontal field of view, than a higher vertical field of view. But if you use your PC for office-type stuff like word processing, spreadsheets, reading "wordy" websites etc then 4:3 is generally more comfortable for reading and working.

The majority of PC's are used for business, not for games or movies... and widescreen has no real benefit there. They started making widescreen monitors because they are cheaper to manufacture, not because of any particular advantage or benefit to the majority of PC users.

Haha, crap, I read it as a 512GB HD!

Yeah, that graphics card will push GW, and most other present games, quite easily even at high resolutions.

I can second this. It's a bit more straining if you are typing or reading text on a 16:10 widescreen. Just like watching a tennis game. >> << >>

Yet GuildWars plays so much better on widescreen

Note also, monitor sizes refer to the diagonal of the screen. Do the maths and you'll see:
A 22" widescreen monitor has barely more actual area, than a 20" 4:3 monitor.
To put it another way, a 22" 4:3 monitor has significantly more screen area than a 22" widescreen.

I bet marketing guys love this... Widescreen makes less, sound like more.

16:10 is all the way now. Try playing Assassin's Creed in 4:3 :/

And for GW, more space = win. For any MMO.

EDIT: - Summary - an entire 1280x1024 17" monitor's screen can fit onto a 22" widescreen's desktop and leave room to spare.

That is only true from a theoretical standpoint. The truth of the matter is that, because of the actual pixels in the screen, the 16:9(10) is actually a 4:3 with extra on the sides. For example, the screen on my Gateway 16:10 (can't remember if it's 20.1" or 22") is the same physical height as my Samsung 17". The Samsung is 1280x1024, the Gateway is 1680x1050 - approxiamately the same pixel height. That gives them about the same pixels/inch both vertically and horizontally. Given equivalent font pixel sizes and jpg/picture resolutions, the widescreen displays more horizontally, not less vertically.

This may be true. For none game applications, people do tend to like things to be in more of a 4:3 aspect ratio. So, people tend to use roughly 4:3 ratio windows for their apps. On a 17" 4:3 monitor these windows tend to be full screen or close to it. On a 22" 16:9(or 10) monitor, you can have a full 1280x1024 4:3 window on your desktop, with the same font size, viewing distance, etc., as the 17", and still have room for other things, such as calculator, sidebar(Vista), contact list, etc., without switching windows.

Also note that many widescreen monitors (such as my Gateway) can be tilted sideways so that they are taller rather than wider. This allows you to view an entire 8.5x11 sheet of paper full size - many people doing text editing just love that.

Whether or not most PCs are used for business is arguable, but even so, and in spite of your own personal preference, the majority of new business computers are equipped with widescreen monitors simply because of the expanded screen real estate.
Widescreen monitors are not cheaper to make - how can you even make such a ludicrous statement when widescreen monitors cost more than 4:3 (I know, all the LCD manufacturers and retailers are in collusion.) They started making widescreen monitors because people wanted them.

EDIT - this may not be entirely accurate any more, but up until widescreen monitors began to outsell 4:3's, widescreens were significantly more expensive - to make and to buy. Now, widescreens are benefiting from economies of scale. It's the same as when LCDs replaced CRTs.

Actually, human sight is more horizontally aligned than vertical - your field of vision is a lot wider than it is high. Widescreen monitors/televisions more closely match our natural vision parameters. And, therefore, when people choose the size of a monitor, the vertical height in relation to their viewing distance is more a limiting factor than the width.

Unfortunately, monitors don't just go by "actual area" - it's the number of pixels and the area they cover, that matters. For example, a 19" LCD monitor has more "actual area" than a 17" LCD monitor, but they both (normally) have the same number of pixels - 1280x1024 - so the 19" doesn't display any "more", it just displays bigger, which can be of benefit depending upon viewing distance etc.
Also, as I pointed out above, a 19" 4:3 monitor (don't recall seeing 20") may have more "screen area" than a 22" 16:9, but it has a lot fewer pixels. (1280x1024 vs 1680x1050).

EDIT: - btw, this also involves equivalent font sizes. Obviously you can put more text into smaller pixels, but there is a normal font size and viewing distance that individuals prefer. So for example, if a person was using two 19" monitors and one was at 1280x1024 and the other was 1900x1200, the 1900x1200 would be displaying the same amount of text, just using more pixels per letter.

P.s. - I'm only talking LCD's (or flat panel) here. CRT's have their good points, but their bad points outweigh the good ones by a large margin, for most people (including me.)

For a given screen size and pixel size, a widescreen monitor has less pixels than a 4:3 monitor. Hence cheaper.

Typical 20.1" 4:3 screen is 1600 x 1200 = 1,920,000 pixels
Typical 22" widescreen is 1680 x 1050 = 1,764,000 pixels

ie. The 20.1" 4:3 screens have 156,000 more pixels than the 22" widescreens.

Please do a little research before your next rant, TY.