Why You May NOT Want An Ultrawide Monitor For Gaming

for as long as i can remember i've  wanted to try gaming on an ultra   wide display and i finally got my hands on  one which means in today's video i'll let   you know how the experience holds  up to several years worth of hype now i know ultrawides are by no means a new thing  and they're about as exciting at this point as   that two-year-old hot wheels of yours with three  of its wheels missing but i've never tried one   before so i'm really excited now when cooler  master reached out to send one of these over i   was interested because this seems like a great  specimen for a first time ultrawide experience   down here we've got a whole bunch of the monitor  buzzwords it's a 1440p ultrawide version so it's   a good resolution it's got a bit of a curve  which interestingly this is also my first   ever curved monitor so very interested to see  that it's also got a wide color space coverage   with some quantum dots it's got a high refresh  rate with low response times and some loser hdr   so generally it just seems like it's  a very well-rounded gaming monitor and then we've got some nice clear setup  instructions on the inside of the box that's cool   get this kind of powder coated steel stand  which i like it it looks and feels nice   sturdy feeling base for the stand it's  got lots of little footies for grip   we also get all of the cables  with it we've got a displayport   hdmi a braided mini usb cable thing  and then square to standard usb whoa that is a lot bigger than  i was expecting actually that's   quite a substantial display do you have high  to adjust yeah you do a little bit wow that   is more curved than i was expecting  this is quite a substantial monitor now at this point all i want to go do is  game on this thing so let's let's get to it   oh i am definitely gonna have  to move my speakers out of it   now first impressions just on the desktop here is  i don't like the curve very much there's something   about the way it makes everything look although  i've just sat down with the monitor so hopefully   i'll get used to it over time and i'm sure it'll  be different when it comes to actually gaming now when it comes to gaming this is this this is  really cool um i i do wish that this monitor's   stand would go a little bit higher although  that is a very specific to the monitor complaint   because of how it stretches into your  peripheral vision kind of like peripheral   movement is is a bit disorienting similar  actually to when i did that a six-panel vga   multi-monitor display thing having so much  display in your peripheral vision is is initially   a little bit disorienting but it's much better  in this format and in the context of gaming the   curve is better uh i i feel like i can still see  that the is displayed on a curved surface a bit   although that could just be the aspect ratio but i  it it does still feel like i can see the curve but   it adds to the but it does add to the  envelopment of it so yeah i mean i i think   i could get used to it uh this monitor is also  nice like the okay well my squirrel brain got   a bit distracted by the gameplay here what i  was trying to say was that the actual image   quality is really good the colors are bright and  vibrant with pretty good black levels on first   impression it's a beautiful display i mean yeah  initial impressions are are very good so now i'm   going to take it home for the weekend and spend  a bunch of time playing various things on this now just a couple of notes on the cooler master  gm 34 it's got a really nice panel in it these   quantum dot va panels are awesome because you get  you get very good color space coverage and in fact   in terms of color accuracy i measured an insane  0.7 average deviation and in that matched with   the great contrast ratio levels on these va panels  gives you a really punchy colorful good looking   image although i do think that this specific one  was damaged in shipping a bit because if you have   a solid color up there's a bit of a dark spot on  the right here also there's a bit of a backlight   pulsing issue which only two of the color profiles  didn't seem to have standard and fps2 i think it   was aside from that the motion rendering on the  display is a bit weird uh if you have no overdrive   on at all the image is really blurry when you're  moving quite quickly which does not look nice and   then when you have too much overdrive on there's  a lot of overshoot so you have to have the monitor   on advanced overdrive settings to deal with either  the overshoot or the blurriness in advanced it's   not amazing in terms of motion rendering but it's  it's much better than any of the other settings but now we need to talk about just ultra wides in  general from the perspective of somebody that just   very recently lost their ultra wide virginity  first off in terms of productivity i really like   this monitor like if you want like a word document  open with like a browser open doing research for   the word document or excel or however productivity  works it's really cool for that and in fact i   think if you had a flat version of one of these  displays it would be amazing for premiere pro   and photoshop and stuff so yeah generally for that  kind of thing it's really cool and then there's   the obvious benefit of it looking all futuristic  and wide on your desk when it comes to gaming   this is where the mixed bag lives because this  ultra wide display is really good for some games   and then really bad for others if you like playing  mobas things like dota or league of legends you   can forget about an ultrawide pretty much it it's  pretty much not usable for that genre of game   now the reason for this is because if you even  have a little bit of skill in a game like dota   you're going to spend about 60 percent of  your time gaming looking at the mini maps   on a normal display the mini-map is here and it's  really easy to kind of look between the mini-map   and what's going on just around you where an  ultrawide basically just moves the very vital   mini-map out of your field of view so then you  spend the whole time doing this pretty much and   it it just doesn't work at all i actually think  this will also be a problem for rts games things   like age of empires or uh or starcraft how about  first person shooters things like cs go escape   from talk of battlefield v and even something  like daisy you know you still have the problem   where the hud elements all kind of move out to  the peripheral of your vision but it's not that   important to constantly have that information in  your eyesight and the extra bit of width you know   it's nice you get to see a little bit more of the  game and it feels a bit more enveloping because   most of your peripheral vision is taken up by the  display now after the fbs's i moved into no man's   sky which is like a space flying game with like  exploration and stuff and for that it's really   cool like getting to fly around in a spaceship  with so much of your peripheral vision being   taken up by space and planet things is pretty  cool and i think the same thing would go for uh   like microsoft flight simulator and even racing  games stuff like forza it's really nice playing   those games on an ultra wide although again  the whole time i was gaming i just thought it   you know it's just a bit wider like it's cool and  everything but it's not it's not that amazing but   then sunday came around and i was like okay for  the last bit of the weekend i'm gonna take off   the ultra wide and go back to this 27 inch 27-inch  16x9 display and i immediately missed the ultra   wide i was like wow this sucks a whole lot more  why can i see my room through my peripheral vision   what is going on here this is awful so like you  know going from a 16x9 to the 21x9 ultrawide   i was kind of like ah yeah this is a little bit  better i guess but then going back from the 21 by   9 to the 16 by 9 i was like okay this is terrible  this this really sucks i want the ultra wide back   um i got used to it very very quickly it  took like three hours maybe of using the   display and i was like yep this the curve is  fine i don't care about it anymore although   i still would refuse to do like premiere pro and  photoshop and stuff on a curved display but for   gaming and even things like productivity i i the  curve is fine now quick conclusion time ultra   wide monitors are like normal monitors just  a bit wider and that means that moba players   shouldn't get anywhere near them other than that  though i've enjoyed gaming on this ultra wide like   i said i was initially a bit underwhelmed and then  i went back to the old monitor and i was like wow   i i immediately missed the ultra wide i actually  think now is quite a good time to get into ultra   wide gaming because like two or three years ago if  you wanted a 34 inch ultra wide display that had   above 60 hertz refresh rate you had to sell  multiple kidneys to be able to afford one of   those and then you'd also have to sell like  a liver or something to be able to afford   a graphics card that could comfortably power  that display whereas now that's not really the   case anymore like you can get a high refresh rate  ultra wide display for not a whole lot more money   than just a 1440p 27 inch display so hopefully  that helps you decide i don't know how much if any   useful information that was in this video although  if you did enjoy the video please subscribe to the   channel maybe watch another video and uh yeah  until the next video thank you for watching bye

Channel: Dawid Does Tech Stuff

Views: 280,875

Keywords: dawid, dawid does tech stuff, PC, gaming, intel, AMD, Corsair, Gaming, Game, Computer, Gaming PC, David Does Tech Stuff, DDTS, Tech, Stuff, David, Linus, Linus Tech Tips, Windows 11, CoolerMaster, Monitor, Curved, Ultrawide, Ultrawide Monitor, Ultrawide Gaming Monitor

Id: Zzm02dptTJw

Length: 11min 3sec (663 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 03 2022