Hey,

I am looking to buy a new monitor and step up in size from my old 19" CRT. I am looking at a 22" widescreen, but as I would like to have the option of playing games with a lower resolution than the native without distortion, I am going for a 1:1 pixelmapping monitor.

This is however difficult to find and limits the choices somewhat. Then I heard that nvidia drivers can do 1:1 pixelmapping - so my question is if any of you use this and are you satisfied with the results?

Is it good enough so you would recommend me to include monitors without 1:1 pixelmapping in my search ?

Why not just play the game windowed?

Because that sux

By 1:1 do you mean that if you play something in a resolution of 1024x768 on a 22" display (1680x1050) only 1024x768 pixels are drawn on the screen? (usually centered in the screen, with black bars filling the rest).
If yes, I have used this feature through nVidia driver and it worked OK.

However, I tried this with Starcraft (640x480) and Diablo 2 (800x600), and those resolutions were very small compared to the entire screen, so I played them stretched, but keeping the aspect ratio (this is also an option in the nVidia driver utility).

That's exactly what I mean. Do you or anyone else know if there's any difference between using the driver feature and a monitor which supports 1:1 pixelmapping directly?

theres no difference, my monitor does it and so does my driver, both have the same effect, black bars on either side. and i haven't noticed any performance issues using either one. although be warned playing Diablo 2 in this manner on my 21.5" screen made the actaul image size about 4cm across total lol.

hehe

Sounds good. If I can rely on the driver's pixelmapping feature I got quite some more monitors to choose from.

I know 800*600 is gonna be quite small, but I can live with some stretching when playing Diablo 2, which is the only game I play in such low resolutions.

It's more likely 1280*1024 on a 22" I will run for some other games, as this will be equivalent to a 19" non-widescreen - that's big enough for me

Just about every LCD monitor ever made will do what you are asking.

Well what's all the fuss about 1:1 pixelmapping then? Which all monitors obviously don't have

Every one I've ever used has it.

Don't you think that you think of the software pixelmapping feature? For example HP W2207H and Samsung T220 doesn't have 1:1 pixelmapping to my knowledge.. just to take an example of two realtively new monitors..

No, I'm thinking of a 1:1 feature in the monitor's menu. The same place you set brightness and contrast, as well as clock and phase if you're on VGA.

I think you have been very lucky then. Can't come up with any other explanation

Actually, there aren't many wide screen monitors which have 1:1 pixel mapping.

I know mine does though.

Finding a 22" with it would be tough. I bought this cheap 24" which does have it. I'm thrilled with this thing for a gaming monitor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824014173

I know for a fact that the Dell SP2208WFP has it.

Okay. I just think Dell's design is so boring

But if the software can do the 1:1 pixelmapping just as well, then there's no point in searching for a monitor having it?