I started playing 32: 9 and I m absolutely delighted. A revolution, as if I d finally looked out the window

As if I opened the window in the apartment, leaned out and finally saw everything that is outside. In recent years, many technologies and solutions have been created to improve the player's experience. However, none, absolutely none impressed me as much as playing in 32: 9 aspect ratio. After such an experience, it's difficult to go back to the old monitor.

Ray tracing, FreeSync, HDR, Quantum Dot - producers are competing with technological jargon that defines new technologies that drive the sale of GPUs, televisions and monitors. I am enjoying this pursuit of the latest solutions on average. Great games are not counted by the number of technologies used. Poor game will not suddenly become good because someone has implemented ray tracing or HDR to it. Unfortunately, there are those who think differently.

The last significant evolution for me was the refresh rate 120/144 Hz.

If someone told me to choose between a 4K / 60Hz monitor and an FHD / 144Hz monitor, I would choose the second model without blinking. When I first played the game with over 120 frames per second, on the monitor refreshing the picture at a frequency of 144 Hz, I was born again. Like a phoenix from the ashes. After that experience, no novelty improving PC gaming made such an impression on me. Neither HDR, nor upscaling 4K, or even ray tracing.

https://youtu.be/pUvx81C4bgs

I may sound like a technological mushroom, but I prefer great games to effective technologies. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild doesn't need ray tracing to be the best 2017 production. Minecraft doesn't have to shock with photorealistic graphics to be the best-selling game of recent years. The most important is the vision and quality of workmanship. All the rest are just additions. Less significant, more significant, but additions. That is why since playing in 120 frames on the 144 Hz monitor I have not experienced any other "wow". No new technology or new solution has ever managed to impress me so much that I can collect my jaw from the floor.

Until now.

The Acer EI1 monitor came to me for testing, and you will read the review in a few days. EI1 is the first 32: 9 screen sold at a "reasonable" price. Of course, for such proportions. This 49-inch, bent and 1.2-meter wide monster did not fit even on my desk. I had to put it on the dining room table. I did it with a face devoid of enthusiasm, because it seemed to me that a monitor with such dimensions is an evident overstatement of form over content.

Actually, I decided to test the device for one reason only. Acer El1 is equipment that you can afford for around 4,000 PLN. Dizzying price as for a monitor, but not so crazy when we see other 32: 9 models dedicated to players. I am talking about equipment operating at a native resolution of 3840 by 1080 pixels, preferably with a refresh rate of more than 60 Hz. I wanted to see what the monitor opening the 32: 9 segment for players could do.

The first delight came after running Total War: Three Kingdoms .

The battlefield, which I had to control earlier by moving the mouse, I saw the whole. Just. In one shot. With all troops and commanders. Enemy and allies. It created a great effect. I felt as if I was flying over the battlefield, magically turned into a bird watching a bloody slaughterhouse. And this control ... The feeling of total control in such strategy as Total War is very pleasant. I see everything. Nobody can attack on the flank. I can't be reached from behind using meals. Bomb.

However, panoramas made the biggest impression on me in Three Kingdoms. Wonderful just. I wrote to you earlier that the latest Total War is a pretty beautiful production . However, in 32: 9 aspect ratio, with a horizon as wide as never before, the impression was much, much better. I just realized how many games would seem visually more attractive to us if such wild proportions were standard. How many views I missed, carelessly playing 16: 9. Those who say that the unconscious is blissful are right.

The second delight is ARMA III and location stylized to Poland.

I wrote to you that the creators of the ARMA III simulator create a new map inspired by our country . Even announcements and traffic signs are there in Polish. I am testing a new location which has been combined with a fictitious campaign regarding the first contact of people with extraterrestrials (by the way a fantastic adventure). The scenario was constructed in such a way that many missions are carried out at night, in addition to the forests limiting visibility. I wanted to see what a homely look like on a 32: 9 monitor.

When I loaded the program and looked up, I could not resist the childhood "waaaaal". Hundreds of virtual stars shone just above my head. I remembered the admiration of the sky in Morrowind. The view was really beautiful. As if to go to a distant village, pitch a tent away from houses and apartments, and then look at the unusually black sky during a cloudless night. A wonderful effect.

As for the gameplay in the FPS game - I have two insights. The first will be against 32: 9. When aiming I have to cover a greater distance with the mouse. It makes me slower and I shoot later. In turn, by increasing the DPI value (with this monitor I play 2000 DPI) I lose precision in a natural way. Something for something. Therefore, I have no doubt that e-athletes are unlikely to want to play in this format. A positive perception concerns the broadly understood feeling . The 32: 9 curved monitor makes you really move to a forest full of UFOs. You pay more attention to locations, details and details. There is a climate.

I smiled when Imperator: Rome fit the whole map on one screen.

Almost the entire globe appeared between the Acer EI1 frameworks. Northern Europe. Rome. Carthage. Macedonia. Everything lived, occupied with its wars and intrigues. As with Total War strategy, the sense of control is gigantic. I don't want to do some megalomania here, but looking at the planet Earth, the player may feel like some Almighty.

Unfortunately, both Imperator: Rome and ARMA III have the same problem. The actual gameplay stretches beautifully on a 32: 9 monitor and looks really spectacular. However, the interface itself runs in classic proportions. This means that while surfing, the main menu will have either big dark stripes on the left and right of the screen, or pixel fonts. This forces you to ask a fundamental question:

Are all games compatible with the 32: 9 monitor?

Tests lasting several days suggest that any game that works in a 21: 9 ratio will also work in a 32: 9 ratio. So there is no problem that the creators barely adapted the Ultra Wide format, and here comes another solution. In addition, enthusiasts have already created a special program, thanks to which games that do not support such proportions are magically adapted to them.

Interestingly, some game producers officially boycott and do not support 32: 9 monitors, because these ... show too much. Blizzard is such a creator, who intentionally made StarCraft II unplayable on monitors such as Acer EI1. Reason? A player with 32: 9 equipment has a real advantage over a player with 16: 9 equipment. According to Blizzard, it is unfair, hence the blockage of new proportions.

I remember gameplay in Total War and I'm not surprised at StarCraft's producers. Playing on a 32: 9 monitor is like leaning out the window. Returning to the apartment and watching the world from behind the door again is out of the question. Anyone who costs a new perspective will never give it up again. Therefore, I have no doubt that my next monitor will be one with a 32: 9 aspect ratio. This is the first time since the mentioned case with a 144 Hz screen, when something impressed me so much. I really felt that I could take the game to a new, higher level.

It can be a difficult and demanding relationship, but at the moment I'm in love with playing 32: 9.

I started playing 32: 9 and I'm absolutely delighted. A revolution, as if I'd finally looked out the window