PC monitor ratios

Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/PC monitor ratios

..past few days im messing with small HUD library suitable for use on monitors with different ratios...im wondering actually how many different computer monitors ratios does exist?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_display_standard

:P
That makes things easy...

There are four that you really need to cater for.

4:3 (eg, 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x960 etc)
5:4 (eg, 1280x1024 - native res on many LCD monitors)
16:9 (eg 1280x720 widescreen)
16:10 (eg 1280x800, 1680x1050 etc) - sometimes called 8:5.

This is a list I compiled from various sources and later modified:

List of 4:3 Monitor Resolutions

Resolution	Name	Aspect ratio

512x384			4:3
640x480		SVGA	4:3
800x600		SVGA	4:3
1024x768	XGA	4:3
1152x864	XGA+	4:3
1280x960	 	4:3
1400x1050	SXGA+	4:3
1600x1200	UXGA	4:3
2048x1536	QXGA	4:3
3200x2400	QUXGA	4:3
4000x3000		4:3
6400x4800	HUXGA	4:3

------------------------------------

List of 16:9 Widescreen Resolutions

Resolution	Name	Aspect ratio

852x480		EDTV	16:9 (incorrect)
1280x720	WXGA	16:9
1365x768	WXGA	16:9 (incorrect)
1600x900	WSXGA	16:9
1920x1080	WSXGA	16:9

------------------------------------

List of 16:10 Widescreen Resolutions

Resolution	Name	Aspect ratio

640x400			16:10
1280x800		16:10
1440x900	WXGA+	16:10
1680x1050	WSXGA+	16:10
1920x1200	WSXGA+	16:10
2560x1600	WQXGA	16:10
3840x2400	WQUXGA	16:10
7680x4800	WHUXGA	16:10

------------------------------------

List of 5:4 Resolutions

Resolution	Name	Aspect ratio

1280x1024		5:4


And if you rotate the display 90 degrees and tell windows to do the same you get double the ratios.

3:4, 10:16, 9:16 etc

One example in what situation this is used is on the Mame Emulator in some cabinets.

Doiron, you're missing quite a few there... like 1680x1050, and 1440 by... whatever it is. Both are common 16:9 resolutions.

Errr, 1680x1050 is 16:10, not 16:9, and it's listed there.

1920x1080 16:9 displays are going to be common in mid-range laptops within the next 18-24 months.

Ooops, hehe... it is too :) Thanks gosse.

6400x4800 HUXGA 4:3
7680x4800 WHUXGA 16:10

Wow! Those must be pretty nice monitors to use with hefty graphics cards behind them. All the more reason to make all your graphics scalable rather than bitmap based.

All the more reason to make all your graphics scalable rather than bitmap based.

Hardly. Flash struggles to do scaleable graphics in a 640x480 window, so you might as well go and make a cup of coffee while you wait for it to draw a single frame of a screen 100 times as large.

I think it doesn't really matter what ratio the monitor has if your game is using always 47:20 (2.35:1) CinemaScope ratio, and leaves a black bar at the top and bottom of the screen.

I found out that the screen ratio makes a game much more enjoyable than the actual size of a screen, ie. playing in "fullscreen" mode. The effect can be as huge as having DoF or no DoF in the game, which is also a big factor to make games more enjoyable and better looking.

Both this 47:20 ratio and DoF kinda "reduces" technical capability, but humans enjoy sometimes less technical and more real-life like things.

..past few days im messing with small HUD library suitable for use on monitors with different ratios...im wondering actually how many different computer monitors ratios does exist?

Anyway, if working with a 3D view, I find a lot more practical to let the developer decide the aspect ratio of the game, and then having a function match the aspect ratio on choosen resolution by resizing the camera viewport accordingly. That way the game will have the same aspect with whatever resolution you have (or will exist in the future).