Standard or Ultra-Wide Monitor for sims

A lot late to the party, but have had an lG 34UG89-C for 6 months - whilst 144hz is good the blur isn't that nice, and 21:9 just doesn't give enough room to move your head about IMO, causing eyestrain. I've tried VR and it looks like crap/couldn't get into it in the same way that some do so sorely tempted to go for a 1080p 49 SUW. Will need a dedicated rig for it though...
 
I had three 22" 16:9 monitors on my rig, until one went up in smoke. Then i moved to a single 34" 21:9 monitor.
Instantly regretted it, but used it for 2 years. Now i am back at three 22" 16:9 monitors and it feels just so much better with the added FOV. The Ultrawide is used for office work now.
 
I am now in a similar situation regarding the decision between SUW or UW monitors. I am finally getting away from sharing a 50" TV with my sons PS4 and setting up a stand alone cockpit (existing Rseat RS1). I have ordered a monitor stand and now need to fill it!
I don't have room for a triple set up and have been looking at various monitors, and am tempted by the Samsung SUWs. At the minute I can see the freesync version £100 more than the standard version with the only difference I can see is the response times (5 vs1), however coming from a cheap 50"TV anything will be an improvement.
Budget is leading me toward the cheaper version, does anybody have experience of both? Or is there an alternative which may also fit the bill. The reason for looking at this size is my concern in coming from such a large screen, the immersion will diminish for me.
 
While setting up my new rig I tried a number of setups.

I'd bought an LG 43'' 144hz widescreen monitor, which I thought if not used on the sim gaming rig I could use for other games. I also have two 1080p 24 inch monitors.

First try was with 3 screens, widescreen in the middle. It was ok, but a pain to set up, as I rapidly found out that all three monitors have to be the same. I also had to downgrade my Nvidia drivers as the newest one had a glitch that would only support two monitors. Eventually I got it working, and while it was nice, the stretching of the central monitor to match the outer two was noticeable.

Then I tried with three similar resolution (1080p) monitors. It was OK, but for open wheel stuff the bezels were really noticeable, plus the apparent distortion on the side monitors I found a little distracting, at lest at first.

Then my boss (nice guy!) decided we should upgrade our work monitors and bought six new 2560 X 1440 BenQ monitors. I took the opportunity to borrow them (well, three of them) and tried a triple screen setup with that. despite the extra resolution, I found that it still didn't wow me, if anything the fact that the side monitors accentuated the stretched look was worse.

I went back to a single 34'' widescreen at a lower definition, and realised that for driving at least, those side monitors were not actually adding to the gameplay sufficiently to make their inclusion worth it. I actually found the single screen more immersive as there were no distractions.

Lastly I tried TrackIR with it, and this was better than the two side screens once set up properly.

In the future, I may splash out on a higher resolution and larger ultrawide screen, but certainly for now I'm ditching a multiple monitor setup and sticking with a single ultrawide and TrackIr.

Just my five pence worth

Les
 
Very interesting to read your evolution. I love TrackIR, cheap, immersive and simple (once aclimatised with a decent profile). I have found that FOV is important to getting the most out of TrackIR though.
 

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