From Ultrawide back to 16:9 2K, Experiences if possible

[shadowsite]

Hey everyone,

I am currently struggling to decide if I should switch from Ultrawide (about 1 year now) back to an dual 1440P 27" setup and hoped that one or two people maybe did the same thing and can give me some insight in their experience :)

How hard was it to adjust to a smaller screen again?
Did you feel good about going back to 2 monitors instead of 1 ultrawide?
What were your main reasons behind it?

In my case it's rather simple: perfomance.
While I do have an 7900 xtx and the old but reliable I7 7900K in my system, I do drop often under 100 FPS, in some games (Tarkov for example) I even struggle with the magic 60, but that game is held together by ducktape and good, russian will anyway.

I would really appreciate some experiences to maybe get to an decision :D

[Karumati]

Once you go ultrawide it’s hard to go back to 16:9 permanently

[DevaVictrix]

I switched to ultrawide about 4 years ago and as above, I couldn’t go back to 16:9. 16:9>21:9 is like 4:3>16:9 imo. Film directors have been using ultrawide type resolutions for a long long time… they were right to!

Having said that, ultrawide is no replacement for two monitors. When I’m doing dev stuff I still have to dig out a 16:9 monitor for windows I need to reference continuously.

… it’s all down to your usage of the computer and screen real estate. Only you will know.

[shadowsite]

Just about an hour ago, I connected my 16:9 Monitors and damn, this is tough.
While 2 displays do have their appeal, it just feels.......really really cramped.
Also (and I know that thisi s just my eyes deceiving me right now) due my ultrawide being curved, the flat 27" pannel seems........kind of crooked outwards for some reason xD

[Julien, cut it out.]

In the first place, you need to evaluate which of the two components (GPU- or CPU-side) is limiting the performance of your setup. By far the easiest (but inaccurate) way is to grab a hardware monitoring tool and look at the GPU usage.

At least your experience in Tarkov sounds to me that you're very likely CPU-bound in this game.
In such a case, I don't think a wider aspect ratio (or basically FOV) does contribute to a significant(!) impact on performance on the CPU-side, i.e. reducing the performance because of the wider FOV/ aspect ratio.
You can increase performance by reducing ingame settings that affect the CPU like render distance f.e.
A better performing CPU will increase the performance, a reduction in the amount of pixels won't.

But you could test if there is indeed a performance increase in these CPU-bound scenarios by rendering the game at an aspect ratio of 16:9 on your current 21:9 monitor and validate the data to the ultrawide gameplay.
Or if the game offers a FOV slider, see how different values have an effect on performance.

[shadowsite]

Ok, so I am currently testing my main games out and doing some benchmarks and I get around 20-25 FPS more with the 2560x1440p resolution on average.
Right now i am not seeing if the perfomance increase is worth the "loss" of the wider field of view.

But I would like to hear some more experiences if possible, because I am not against the idea of 2 monitors, even if it is currently a bit hard to the eyes

[shadowsite]

UPDATE: I AM A F'ING IDIOT!!!

I will stay with my Ultrawide, why?
Because I just realized, months after doing my last BIOS update, that my X.M.P Profile was deactivated which made my RAM run 2133Mhz instead of 3200Mhz!

After turning it back on, I get my desired FPS no problem on the ultrawide, god am I stupid

[Schrute_Farms_B&B]

Excuse me for asking, but why not just change your aspect ratio to 16:9 instead of switching monitors? Black bars = plastic-edge ?
Or just change your resolution/aspect ratio in Adrenalin for each game individually.
You could also make use of AFMF2 if youre struggling to maintain your desired FPS.

Having said that, Im using a 7900XTX/7900X3D myself on 3440x1440 and I would rather upgrade my GPU than change the aspect ratio from 21:9 back to 16:9.
Im just waiting for the RTX 5000 series to be announced and switching to a 4090 or a 5080 as soon as possible.
While ultrawide is a gamechanger, having used a 4080S prior to my 7900XTX, I can assure you that DLSS is also a gamechanger compared to FSR. It will hopefully allow me to keep my PC for another couple of years.

edit: Well, Id first upgrade the 7900K to at least 10th/11th gen CPU before thinking about upgrading the 7900XTX.

[shadowsite]

Schrute_Farms_B&B님이 먼저 게시:

Excuse me for asking, but why not just change your aspect ratio to 16:9 instead of switching monitors? Black bars = plastic-edge ?
Or just change your resolution/aspect ratio in Adrenalin for each game individually.
You could also make use of AFMF2 if youre struggling to maintain your desired FPS.

Having said that, Im using a 7900XTX/7900X3D myself on 3440x1440 and I would rather upgrade my GPU than change the aspect ratio from 21:9 back to 16:9.
Im just waiting for the RTX 5000 series to be announced and switching to a 4090 or a 5080 as soon as possible.
While ultrawide is a gamechanger, having used a 4080S prior to my 7900XTX, I can assure you that DLSS is also a gamechanger compared to FSR. It will hopefully allow me to keep my PC for another couple of years.

edit: Well, Id first upgrade the 7900K to at least 10th/11th gen CPU before thinking about upgrading the 7900XTX.

I will sound rather foolish to ask but: how can I force a game to be in 16:9 Ratio with a 2560x1440 resolution?
Because most games I have don't offer that option in the settings, it's either some 2560x1080 res or anything else.

[Soulreaver]

shadowsite님이 먼저 게시:

UPDATE: I AM A F'ING IDIOT!!!

I will stay with my Ultrawide, why?
Because I just realized, months after doing my last BIOS update, that my X.M.P Profile was deactivated which made my RAM run 2133Mhz instead of 3200Mhz!

After turning it back on, I get my desired FPS no problem on the ultrawide, god am I stupid

Happy you found an error that was able to save your setup :D

Because every kind of news would have been dim.

I switched from 38 Ultrawide back to 16:9 but only because my 16:9 is now 48".
No way I could've switched to something smaller.

Yeah so very happy you were able to make your setup work :)

[Schrute_Farms_B&B]

shadowsite님이 먼저 게시:

Schrute_Farms_B&B님이 먼저 게시:

Excuse me for asking, but why not just change your aspect ratio to 16:9 instead of switching monitors? Black bars = plastic-edge ?
Or just change your resolution/aspect ratio in Adrenalin for each game individually.
You could also make use of AFMF2 if youre struggling to maintain your desired FPS.

Having said that, Im using a 7900XTX/7900X3D myself on 3440x1440 and I would rather upgrade my GPU than change the aspect ratio from 21:9 back to 16:9.
Im just waiting for the RTX 5000 series to be announced and switching to a 4090 or a 5080 as soon as possible.
While ultrawide is a gamechanger, having used a 4080S prior to my 7900XTX, I can assure you that DLSS is also a gamechanger compared to FSR. It will hopefully allow me to keep my PC for another couple of years.

edit: Well, Id first upgrade the 7900K to at least 10th/11th gen CPU before thinking about upgrading the 7900XTX.

I will sound rather foolish to ask but: how can I force a game to be in 16:9 Ratio with a 2560x1440 resolution?
Because most games I have don't offer that option in the settings, it's either some 2560x1080 res or anything else.

There are no foolish questions. Well, there are but this isn't one of them. ^^
You cant really force a game to run a resolution which is not being offered on the ingame settings. Technically you could, but the image quality would look disastrous.

16:9 resolutions are pretty standardized and being offered by almost any games. Ultrawide is more rare, which you might have experienced for yourself.

What you can do however, is to use Radeon Super Resolution to upscale the ingame resolution to your native resolution.
You could also use the scaling option in Adrenaline so 16:9 ratio wont be stretched to 21:9.

An last but not least, you could always change your native desktop resolution to 16:9 while playing a specific game.
Most games will adapt the resolution or at least, give you a broader set of resolutions to choose from.

[Julien, cut it out.]

You can create a custom resolution in AMD Software:
https://www.amd.com/en/resources/support-articles/faqs/DH3-032.html

If a game still refuses to offer such a custom resolution ingame, you could run the desktop environment at that resolution.

If a game's output resolution differs from the native resolution of your monitor, either the monitor or the gpu driver scales the image. Depending on the setting, the image looks different.
GPU Scaling in AMD Software:
https://www.amd.com/en/resources/support-articles/faqs/DH3-019.html

[⛧jakey⛧]

1440p on a 35 inch screen 21:9 just looked bad to me, so I had to switch to 16:9 4K.

[DevaVictrix]

Check you monitor setting for 16:9 option… my 34” 1440 uw lets me set it to use the central 1920x1080 pixels as a 24” 16:9 monitor.

Or, in game, I’ve never had a problem using a 16:9 resolution.

I’m left with black bars with both options but when gaming I never notice them.

I don’t use either option though. 1080 is horrible to me now and uw doesn’t cost many frames so I just play as native.

[C1REX]

The only way to go back to 16:9 without feeling like a downgrade is to have the new monitor at least as wide. It’s a challange unless you go for a 48’+ gaming TV.