Monitor hunting

[flakbait]

Finally gonna get rid of my ancient 17" CRT for a real flat-panel LCD. One problem, however, persists. Some of my games (XP SP3) won't run true widescreen resolutions. Which means I need a monitor that will look good even at low rez (1024x768 typically). I know certain monitors will reduce the screen size down to that of a postage stamp at lower than native rez, while others merely get a little fuzzy. A "little" fuzzy I can stand, but displaying a Post-It note-sized active screen area I can't. Even more fun, I'd like to get a short list of screens I can look at through local dealers instead of merely online. Yeah, I've had good luck with Newegg and the like, but returns on LCDs tend to be a flaming pain in the 

Ideas?



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Flakbait

[Ghosth]

I've been very happy with the Samsung 23" I got at my local Sam's club for under 200$.
And I am running at lower than native rez, both windows and AH.

I don't actually see the difference in game or on the desktop. However if I take a screen shot it will show there.

[BaldEagl]

I run several older games (Papyrus Nascar Racing, Grand Prix Legends, older versions of Sim City, etc.) on my widescreen and haven't had any problems.  IIRC Grand Prix Legends defaults to 800x600 but fills the screen on my computer.  I even installed an old Jack Nicolas (sp) DOS game on my machine and it filled the screen but the graphics looked so bad I took it off (I think it defaulted to 640x480 res).  If the game doesn't include widescreen resolutions you can control how the monitor handles various graphic settings in your video card set-up but, I found that I couldn't using a VGA cable.  I needed to use a DVI cable so make sure you buy one if it doesn't come with the monitor.

I've got a 22" LG (2ms response) that I've been very happy with.  I run at native 1680x1050.