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Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Is Life Better in Super Ultra-Wide?

My last display update was in early 2018, so that was about 7 years ago. Fast forward to last Friday, my 57" Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 came in. We were expecting it to be delivered yesterday but apparently, as with all of our most recent deliveries, it got bumped up several days as we are approaching Christmas. You would think that they would be delayed until after Christmas because you know, chaos and all. This display had been on my wish list for some time, and apparently my guy decided to get it for me as my Christmas gift. Thank you so much, love! Thus, the question at hand.


Best Christmas gift ever? I certainly think so.

My last 4K display was a 55" 4K LG, so the Odyssey Neo G9, being 32:9 is wider though it is much definitely much shorter. I had to move the table up closer to it of course, since it's more of a computer monitor, so the overall effect when it comes to the size of what's being viewed is almost the same with the addition of the wider field of vision. This is one sexy panel though, with no visible pixels and a hot resolution of 7680 x 2160 - That's two 4K monitors combined. The screen looks sharp and bright. Since I use an Nvidia RTX 4090, I opted to connect via HDMI to experience the full resolution, 7680x2160 at 120Hz instead of the 5120x1440 at 240Hz that can be accomplished via the card's DisplayPort 1.4a connection. The main reason for this decision is due to my GPU performing better at higher resolution from several of the high-end games that I have tested. I am used to the smoothness of 120Hz from my Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+ though seeing this happening on my Personal Computer is certainly cool. I didn't notice a drastic improvement in smoothness between 120Hz and 240Hz and I figured that once I upgrade to the next GPU, I'll eventually get there.

Sure, Mortal Kombat 1 is still plays within a 16:9 boundary but it's now oh so beautiful to watch.

This is my first foray into ultra-wide gaming - though we are talking about super ultra-wide here, which is a crazy maybe unnecessary version of ultra-wide that's barely even used in movies - and I am absolutely loving it. Having more to see via your peripheral vision makes all the difference in the world. The real test is to look at stuff in 16:9 afterwards and you will definitely miss it. Of course, not every PC game supports ultra-wide even though fans of the format always find a way to make things work, that's the PC community for you. I am not that fanatical about this (yet?) and I am not a big fan of modding games, so I'll take things in strides. And playing non-PC games will always be a 16:9 experience up to the current generation of consoles: However, I am happy to report that even running PlayStation 5 and X-Box Series games looks absolutely amazing on the Odyssey G9 Neo due to the crispiness of the display's visual clarity, despite the vertical black bars on the sides - and no, I will not squish my games visually just to fill up the screen! That's just silly.

Some games support ultra-wide while leaving some elements stuck at 16:9.

Now for the challenges. Well, I am so used to sitting afar from my gaming displays since, well, all my gaming life outside of Final Fantasy XI Online and Sega Dreamcast VGA sessions, that the first few days felt very, very off. It was hard for my eyes to focus too, I felt like my eyes were crossing at times. Because I was so used to everything being visible in that 16:9 confines, it was awkward to look for user interface elements located on the sides of the screen. Since this format is the exception to the rules, I wasn't ready to discover how ugly everything looks on the Internet while browsing. The super mega high resolution also means that everything is so small, and I am still constantly adjusting UI sizes so that I don't go blind from squinting. This is day 5 and things are moving toward the right direction, and I am getting used to all of these things. They are merely small annoyances however compared to the excitement and freshness of this brand-new experience. If you have the option to dive into ultra-wide gaming, I truly highly recommend it. Merry Christmas for those who celebrate it! I hope Santa will be extra giving to you this year as well!

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