Widescreen monitors work ok with SL?

I'm considering asking Santa for a new LCD widescreen monitor but I'm wondering how SL will work with a widescreen. What does it look like on a widescreen (1680 x 1050 seems to be the common native resolution for a 20.1", does it look all stretched out horizontally, or does it sort of "letterbox" it on the sides, or does it actually use the entire screen with a real wide aspect ratio?

Also the 24" ones are usually 1920 x 1200, which is huge and will no doubt murdalate my framerate as that's near the max my Radeon 9800 Pro will handle. Can I run SL at a reduced resolution, if that's different from the native resolution will it look like crap on an LCD?? I've never even used an LCD monitor before. Could I do something like run it at 1600x1200 in sort of a letterboxed mode on a 1920x1200 monitor? Or even 1280x960 or something?

The other problem I have is that I've been a bad girl and Santa may not have me on his list.

my other screen is 1280x720 (27"lcdtv) it er works but looks odd alright, window mode stretched, fullscreen is bleh,.

Text and menues wont get stretched so it works, youll still see just as much in a smaller window as fullscreen/wide so doesnt really matter.

You'll get full resolution with a wide aspect ration, depending upon the settings you choose. My MacBook Pro has a 1440x900 screen and I normally run in a window that fills the available space of that screen. Sometimes (usually accidentally) I'll just run in full screen mode. No stretching at all.

SL runs great in widescreen mode. If running full screen, you'd want to go to Preferences -> Graphics menu and set the "Fullscreen Aspect Ratio" (or just check the "Auto detect" box there.) On my system at least the speed at 1680x1050 is still quite good.

Having said that, I still prefer to run SL in a window rather than full screen, because I like to multitask. On my 20" widescreen I usually run it at 800x600 windowed, and just "maximize" the window to full resolution when needed.

-peekay

I run it on a widescreen laptop with that aspect ratio and it works great: autodetects the situation and gives me plenty o'pixels to fill the screen. I like it because I can have build and script windows over to the side and still have a good view of the world.

I run on a 24" widescreen monitor at 1920x1200 with a GeForce 6800 256MB graphics card. I use it in a windowed mode but maximized so I have access to the Task Bar. Doesn't seem to be any different than when I ran on a 1280x1024 regular 19" flatscreen other than probably needing more horsepower to drive all those pixels.

Thanks so much for all the advice! I'm shopping for a widescreen yay!

Maybe I should have asked here first, as I have only just placed an order for a new monitor:

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=328072

If one of you eggsperts could assure me I haven't made a poor choice, it would be appreciated *fingers crossed*

youd want to keep out for this one;

Image Brightness ( 500 cd/m2 on this one )

Dot Pitch / Pixel Pitch , used to matter more on crt's then on lcd so no biggie. (smaller better picture you get)

Image Brightness - lower it is, worse it gets further from where your eyes are looking (grays/darker at corner of screen) higher image brightness 800-1000+ you wont get this (expect to pay like ALOT if you ever find one with 800+ brightness ), especially true on biiig screens, not so much on smaller ones.

screen will be like, if you center on middle of a lcd screen without strong enough brightness

xgrayx<--------white------>xgrayx
gray<-----------white------->gray
xgrayx<----------white------>xgrayx

Stronger light in room helps, and its bit odd at start but i grown accustomed to it to \o/ ...and watch for dead pixels n.n get a few usually, to many and you got warranty for it, but have to be a cluster of them, i have 8 last count of dead pixels, but i hardly notice them unless im staring at something REALLY white.

I have a 37" monster LCD at 1920 x 1080 and SL looks beautiful on it. I recommend going out to a retail store and buying it there. Yes, you may pay a bit more but most offer a return policy. If you get your screen home and it has a bunch of dead pixels, you can usually just box it back up and take it back. Online sources usually won't do that and will only honor the dead pixel warranty and for many manufacturers it can be a hell of a lot. I bought a demo model because it was hooked up and running and I could see it was dead pixel free. (most retailers will not put out a demo model with any dead pixels if they can help it)