[ShadowGorrath]

Hey all,

I got a new monitor for now-fully-mine PC. A widescreen 22 inch monitor. Flatron W2252S. However, this gives me a few questions that I need an answer for:

What resolution should I use? I don't want anything to be stretched, and I want to have the best performance, since my PC is quite old. The stats are uber lame: 128mb RAM, 1.2GHz processor, small and lame HDD, video card not meant for games with 64mb. So what's the best resolution for me?

Plus, I might want a widescreen build for FS, unless it's now in newer builds by default? Any recomendations though?

[Jeff Vader]

The widescreen fix has been committed. So just use any half-recent 3.6.10 build and you'll be fine. Of course, the HUD and the interface art will stretch with widescreen resolutions, but otherwise there are no glitches anymore.

Using the native resolution of the monitor offers the best quality, of course, but you can try lower widescreen resolutions or forced 4:3 resolutions, such as 1024x768. It is a bit hard to say. Do some testing and find out what is the highest you can use without disturbing slowdowns.

[BloodEagle]

1680x1050 Is the only resolution you should use ever with that monitor.

[Ghostavo]

Try the monitor's native resolution and see how fluid it is. Beyond that, there's not much helping.

[Jeff Vader]

He wants a resolution for his general desktop use, not FreeSpace.

He also asked about what build to get.

For general desktop usage, nothing is better than the native resolution. Or at least something with the same aspect ratio, if possible.

[Ghostavo]

He wants a resolution for his general desktop use, not FreeSpace.

He also asked about what build to get.

For general desktop usage, nothing is better than the native resolution. Or at least something with the same aspect ratio, if possible.

Notice the absence of requests for resolutions to use in the game. The only thing he asked related to FreeSpace was the build.

[Jeff Vader]

Failure to communicate is always fun.

He asked about builds that support widescreen. There is a remote chance that he wants to use a widescreen resolution when playing FS. And there is also a possibility as big as a hydrogen molecule that the resolution becomes imminent when deciding whether to play in widescreen or not.

Have I really been so evil and cruel that I should jump out of the window now? If yes, then kthxbye.

[BlackDove]

Any recomendations though?

Quickly return or sell that monitor to some other sap.

22" = FAIL.

The only acceptable inchness = 24 because that's 1980x1080 native.

So get rid of it and get a man's sized monitor. That's my reccomendation.

[ShadowGorrath]

Any recomendations though?

Quickly return or sell that monitor to some other sap.

22" = FAIL.

The only acceptable inchness = 24 because that's 1980x1080 native.

So get rid of it and get a man's sized monitor. That's my reccomendation.

Haha, why? This one's great.

And yea, I'd like to use FS2 too in widescreen, without loosing too much of the precious performance.

Currently using the largest resolution, and for now it's all fine. HLP looks so different from my old 1024x768 res.

P.S. Would a new hard drive and RAM increase the performance a lot, or am I stuck with this unless I change the graphics or video card and processor too?

[Jeff Vader]

Adding RAM never hurts. At least in desktop usage. But if money allows, a thorough upgrade would also be good, because that way it would also be possible to avoid any major bottlenecks.

[ShadowGorrath]

I'm 16. So unless I get a job during the summer ( which is next year ), I can't afford such stuff.

[Jeff Vader]

We have this old saying here in Finland: "Pappa betalar". It would roughly translate to "Daddy pays".

[Ghostavo]

The monitor costs about as much as it would take for a decent upgrade. Try to use the "the computer is not fully using the monitors capabilities" excuse.

[ShadowGorrath]

Yea, they paid for a new PC. Which I'm not gonna use. This one's fully mine now though...

And they're gonna upgrade this one. Just not enough, I suppose. Or is it enough?

[Triple Ace]

I would suggest saving up for a new pc. If you are planning on getting any newer games, you are not going to get much more out of that. FS2 retail will work, but don't expect FSO to without crashing. In my experience, FSO does not like grapahics cards anything below directx8. With your current specs, you will be lucky to get good performance at 1024x768 standard screen. If you still just want to do an upgrade, get some more RAM and a new graphics card.

[ShadowGorrath]

I can run FS2 with 3.6.10 mediavps on OpenGL FSO just fine.

Ok, well, thanks for all the help.