I’m looking to buy some screens as I’m upgrading from a 22" display, I currently do a look of visual effects work, so Maya, Houdini, Photoshop, After Effects etc. programs that have a lot of menu bars etc.
So I’m wondering if it you think it will be better to go dual at a lower resolution but a higher overall pixel count, or whether to go for the higher resolution but on a single display, or whether to go for something completely different like the ultra-wide 29"
Thanks for the help,
Gary
1080p is for watching video. I would not be able to work with such a resolution, regardles the diagonaly.
1200 points vertically is the minimum i find usefull.
Cheers
Björn
Hey man,
That’s really up to personal preference. I like having one large 1080+ monitor and then a smaller 1600ish monitor, but some people hate this setup and like to have both monitors the same.
If you’ve got the cash, go for one high resolution display, and maybe continue to use your 22" display for tools and stuff.
-AJ
Ultra wides are a pain in the arse and are impossible to orient properly to your field of vision. Give them a wide berth right away.
Single vs dual, IMO, is a matter of space and habits. Dual will quite simply always win for people multitasking (even within a single app) like CG artists and engineers tend to do.
Dual 27" gets a bit too bulky though, and the dot pitch of a 27 at 1080p is kinda awkward (but that might be because I’m used to different).
Personally: Dual 24" 1080p or 1200, or 27" 1440p with one additional monitor of any description for browsing/reference/spare windows. If you can find a tilting 1440 x 900 monitor that’s not too big those actually go nicely alongside a 27", as you can orient them vertically and be pixel aligned to the other for very cheap.
I run a 27" 1440p and a 24" 1920*1200, I sort of regret having bought the 27", or I would if it wasn’t for the excellent colour, support for this resolution in DCC apps is plain bad, and the gains not that significant.
That’s given me some things to think about thanks!
Thinking about it now I was working on dual 1200 24" monitors at uni, which was good, maybe that’s more something to consider since you seeming to regret buying the higher resolution 27".
And I’ve never really thought about the support in the apps, thanks for your help, there don’t seem to be too many decent 1440x900 screens that tilt, obviously not something many people come by.
Thanks for the help guys
Generally the 1920x1080 27" screens are either for gamers or people with eyesight problems. At 27", a sensible resolution is around the 2560x1600 mark, the new apple monitors expected with the macpro are expected to double the resolution sizes with 4x the pixel count.
Ultimately the main thing is to get one good sized, nice resolution screen and something else for stuff. eg. I use a 30" 2560x1600 main screen and a 24" 1920x1200 second screen, but to be honest, almost anything works fine as a second screen as it tends to get used for ‘stuff’, email, webbrowser, text editor, reference images, messengers etc. But thats just what I happened to have available, Ive been perfectly happy with a 17 and 19" second screen over the years.
For the record, I don’t quite regret it, but software UIs have largely not caught up to it.
I know people who swear by it (size and res), but upon asking, they tend to all be on the text or photoshop heavy side of things, or into gaming.
For those, it’s great.
When the Widgets in the UI matter little and the contents of the main viewport, be it a text editor in an IDE or your canvas, are everything, it’s great.
The problem arises with interfaces that are widget heavy and aren’t scalable.
If clicking the “frame” part of the UI or fixed sized items is a must, it can get painful very quickly.
IE: in ZBrush the axis icons by some sliders, which you can’t work around with keybindings, are literally just over a mm tall.
In games or UIs where paragraph text is rendered at a fixed size even with perfect eyesight and relaxing glasses it can get straining after a while. And so on.
If UIs scaled properly, like they do in some softwares or like windows/linux/OS-X do with the iconsize and text options, it’d be dandy, but most softwares simply don’t.
If you’re on a budget, and the choice is between two 24s and one 27, two 24s any day of the year, without hesitation.
If you don’t use ZBrush and don’t need to click on icons and widgets that will inevitably be rendered microscopically, and you mostly work single task off the one viewport (painting), then one 27 COULD be considered, but goes out the window when the option of having reference and browsing on the second monitor is so convenient in a dual 24 setup.
you really can’t have too many monitors…
for price of one 27" you can probably go with 2 maybe even 3 24" HD monitors… which I did…
3x 24" full HD and still sometimes missing some space could use another 3x 24" above these 
With singel higih resolution mon you will ALWAYS have some windows over othrs, managing opening and closing all the time…
in any case personally … multy mon > single hi res
…as posted before, it boils down to personal preference and habits.
That said, with most new monitors being wide 16:9 and too wide 21:9, there is a point where the user has too much horizontal workspace and relatively less vertical, leading to frequent head turning even if monitors are placed at an angle. Whereas in the past two 4:3 20/21’ers at 1600x1200 side by side seemed perfect.
For video editing/compositing AE, PP I’d say at least two displays even cheap IPS 23’ers at 1080, for all menus n such and ideally a third big one (a 32-42 HDTV ) on top, for viewing the final comp full screen at a decent size, able to see any shortcomings, and for clients.
For drawing, photo editing, PS, 3d modeling and apps mentioned by Raffaele, a big high res main 30’er or even an 27’ with a secondary one in portrait mode would be my preference.
For what its worth, the new 4K monitors seem quite appealing (mostly for PS etc).
Not the $3K 30" Asus, as the cheap 39"Chinese ones Seiki /Skyworth which sport an MVA panel priced around $600-700.
Here’s a first hand review:
http://www.overclock.net/products/skyworth-39e780u-uhd-tv/reviews/6071
http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/25/seiki-launches-39-inch-4k-tv-for-699/
I recently went from two 24" 1080p screens to a single 27" Dell ultrasharp 2560x1440 screen and I couldn’t be happier. I do programming professionally, and I prefer two screens for that as I need very responsive feedback on things I do (code on one monitor and browser in the other) but two screens drive me mad for 3D/look dev work. So for gaming and 3D I much prefer the single 27" setup.
I much prefer to have it all on one big screen and not having to sort of shift focus from one screen to another. I don’t know why it works like that, but it does for me, superhappy with my change. To be honest, for some applications like Maya one should have had a 4K screen of a great size, as I feel that I always need many of the windows/dialogs all the time.
thanks for the link. We all want 4k monitors, but looks like there’s going to be a lot of unexpected issues over the next many months just trying to get basic display functionality from Nvidia, AMD, Windows, Mac OS, etc.
I love how they repeatedly say it’s a professional monitor, but then mainly test out games. I know that’s what their main fan base is calling for, but still it’s ironic.
thanks for the link. We all want 4k monitors, but looks like there’s going to be a lot of unexpected issues over the next many months just trying to get basic display functionality from Nvidia, AMD, Windows, Mac OS, etc.
I love how they repeatedly say it’s a professional monitor, but then mainly test out games. I know that’s what their main fan base is calling for, but still it’s ironic.
I watched the video last night and it seems there is quite some work that will have to be done for these 4k monitors to work well. I agree about the game testing but it seems pc per does a lot of benchmarking in that area.
I recently went from two 24" 1080p screens to a single 27" Dell ultrasharp 2560x1440 screen and I couldn’t be happier. I do programming professionally, and I prefer two screens for that as I need very responsive feedback on things I do (code on one monitor and browser in the other) but two screens drive me mad for 3D/look dev work. So for gaming and 3D I much prefer the single 27" setup.
At a crossroad because i am contemplating getting either another 24 or going with a 27. Still using the ultrasharp 2407wfp i bought back in 2k6 and i found someone selling one on craigslist for 175. So its either a second one or the dell 2713hm. Saw a ultrasharp 3014 for 500 on clist but read about ghosting issues which is a turn off.
At a crossroad because i am contemplating getting either another 24 or going with a 27. Still using the ultrasharp 2407wfp i bought back in 2k6 and i found someone selling one on craigslist for 175. So its either a second one or the dell 2713hm. Saw a ultrasharp 3014 for 500 on clist but read about ghosting issues which is a turn off.
Did you decide on something? I do miss two screens at times, but I must say I’m still very happy with one, if I could afford two 27" Dell screens though… (no I still think that would be a bit too much, friend of mine did go for that though, two 2713hm’s)
http://www.dslrfilmnoob.com/2013/07/22/seiki-4k-monitor-price-drop-39-inch-4k-model-1000/
The 4K displays… They are coming…
Did you decide on something? I do miss two screens at times, but I must say I’m still very happy with one, if I could afford two 27" Dell screens though…
no i didn’t, still using my 2407wfp. i miss having two screens too, i had a 24inch samsung monitor that i gave to a relative. it was used as my tv/second monitor. dell announced a 4k 30 something inch monitor coming in near the end of the year so i decided to hold on till then. hopefully it will push the prices of the others down.
I hope youve got the thunderbolt 2 connection it will need?
the dell 4k monitor requires thunderbolt 2? from what i have seen it has many input options.
