Samsung is pushing Microsoft Xbox to support ultrawide gaming monitors

Samsung is pushing for Microsoft to enable ultrawide monitor support on Xbox

[littletad]

Can someone explain what would be the benefits of this?

[Sophisticated_Chap]

So that someone like me, who has a 21:9 aspect ratio PC monitor, can use an Xbox One in my office, which is where I prefer to play video games. They already patched in support for 1440p (2560x1440) monitors a few years ago, so this shouldn't be too hard. I wouldn't even care if the games had black bars on each side of the monitor for 16:9 aspect ratio, but currently, because Xbox One doesn't support ultra-wide resolutions (2560x1080 & 3440x1440), you would get a horizontally stretched image and vertically, the image would be slightly compressed.

[littletad]

Thanks for that, I wasn't hating, just trying to understand, especially since I plan on investing on a monitor soon for even less latency. I assumed xbox or even the ps4 already supported these features.

[Sophisticated_Chap]

Not a problem :) If you are looking for a new monitor, look at either a 2560x1080 or 3440x1440 monitor. These monitors are starting to get higher refresh rates (75Hz/100Hz/144Hz) and I think I've even started to see them perform with response times as low as 1ms with some of the newest models.

Mine is just a 29 inch IPS display model with 60Hz refresh, and a 5ms response time, which I bought back in 2013. It's still a fantastic monitor, but I'd like to upgrade to a 34 inch IPS display (3440x1440), with at least 100Hz refresh. After playing on an ultra-wide (21:9 aspect ratio), I refuse to go back to a typical 16:9 aspect ratio, and this is what you will hear from most players who have experienced ultra-wide. When you go from ultra-wide, back to playing on a 16:9 monitor, you don't just notice it, you feel constrained, and it feels weird, kind of like losing your peripheral vision.

Most games support 21:9 aspect ratio these days, and even back in 2013 when I bought my monitor, games like Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, Left 4 Dead and many others, all worked just fine. Even Borderlands supported it, but they basically fish-eyed the view, so the image stretch at the ends of the monitor, but it wasn't a problem, and I think Borderlands 2 uses the 21:9 aspect ratio correctly now. There are some older games, where they use black bars on each side of the screen to show the game in a 16:9 aspect ratio, but again, it didn't bother me. The older Call of Duty games didn't support ultra-wide, but the games were still good enough to play. Overall, it's a great experience.

Most PC gamers who post in Steam forums and who make videos on youtube, will take a 3440x1440 ultra-wide monitor, over a 3840x2160 4k monitor any day, because 1440p ultra-wide is still a really crisp resolution, you get 30% more screen real estate, which is great for peripheral vision in shooters and even adventure games, and 3440x1440 monitors have 33% fewer pixels over 3840x2160 4k monitors, so you can jack up the graphical detail in every game to the max, and get far better frame rates than someone who uses a 4k monitor. Even an RTX 2080TI GPU has a tough time playing the newest games at 4K/60FPS, but with 1440p Ultra-wide, it absolutely crushes every game out there, and it's a better experience having the wider screen.

[Kubark]

Nicely said. I just hope Sony also supports 1440p and ultrawide on the PS5.

[timotim]

I can see this as an option on SX along with - but not as robust - more display and graphics settings. I hope I'm right.

[AspiringProGenji]

Monitors have different display settings to make any content fit on the screen, but that wouldn't be native support for 21/9. That has be done by the developers themselves

If PS5 and the devs support it, I would gladly play it on my Ultrawide instead of my 65 inv TV

[mikeslemonade]

The systems are too weak to do ultra wide. Your resolution won’t be good enough.

[Rude-ro]

A beautiful image if supported.
I would not do it on current gen.. but take it into next gen for sure.
I game on an ultra wide and absolutely love it with my pc.. ps4 does not support it either, so it is stretched out.. but it can impact the frame rates according to the hardware.

[NeoGamer232]

Simply....

Widens the field of view. To me any new features are good features. (As long as they don't encourage monetization)

[PitbullMonster]

It would be a nice if the PS5 would support 21:9 and 3440x1440p too.

[AspiringProGenji]

I think the support has to come from the developers themselves too. Consoles supporting 21/9 res would be like stretching the image until it fits, but it is the game developers that have to natively support the resolution

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

How big is the market for 21:9 monitors? Hard enough getting people to upgrade to 4K TV's, something they'll likely use daily.

[Lon3wolf]

There seems to be a healthy market for them, sadly not all games support 21:9 (that support is getting better though). I did have a 21:9 a few years back but changed back to 16:9 (supported games were a lot less then).

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

Just seems too niche - I can't see it gaining traction, 21:9 is more suited to office work or sim set-ups.

[specialguest]

I love gaming in ultrawide at 3440x1440. I've been gaming like this for over 4 years now. The resolution is not as demanding as 4K and the extra field of view is great for most games. Additionally, when I'm not gaming it makes multitasking on my PC amazing

[Lon3wolf]

People see value in them for FPS games (prime example but the benefit if the game supports the mode fully is meant to be good regardless of genre), as long as they add the right support.

Edit: Not sure if TV manufacturers will take to 21:9 in a big way, that would be a driving factor too.

[AspiringProGenji]

The market is still small but we still exist. Many games support it and when they do they look awesome. Monster Hunter World looks and performs awesome on mine (ACER PRedator Ultrawide) , and so does every game I play.

[rainslacker]

I like them because they give me a wider screen to be able to work with multiple windows. I have two in my work office, with a regular 1080 monitor which sits above them. Gives me plenty of screen real estate to work with...or throw on a TV stream on one while I'm piddling around coding. There are other ways I use this set up to make my work easier, but the short of it is, it gives me more screen real estate.

I don't game on PC much though, and the games I do play wouldn't benefit from them that much.