30" Apple Cinema - how is it for games?

[blakespot]

I have two 20" Apple Cinema displays on my dual G5 w/ GeForce 6800 Ultra.

I was wondering how a single 30" is for games? I can play HALO and UT2K3/4 at high framerate at native, fullscreen 1680x1050 w/ all effects on. I doubt native 2560x1600 on the 30" Cinema could be achieved w/ same framerate.

Can a smaller res, like 1680x1050 or so be used, centered on the screen with black space around - equivalent to the physical size of a 20" in the middle of the 30" field? Or must it be scaled out to full screen?

Any other game comments, or comments in general? Thanks.



blakespot

 

[ReanimationLP]

Tune down the effects and it'll be fine.

Of course, you only really need about 45 FPS for it to be smooth. Hell, some FPS games you can play at 15-30 FPS.

 

[Jason Bourne]

I have played a bunch of games at native (or semi-native - for example Doom3 runs at the full vertical resolution of the display, but is not widescreen) resolution of my 30" ACD. It's hooked up to a Quad with a 7800GT and the framerates are fine with all the games I have tried even with the settings close to maxed out. It isn't perfect, there are scenes where I get slowdown for the really demanding games like Doom3 and some levels of Halo, but for the less demanding games (Close combat, Call of Duty, America's Army, etc...) it's perfectly fluid. I imagine your G5 would be close in performance (since no game is using my 4 processors and the 6800 Ultra is pretty similar to the 7800GT) but I don't know for sure.

Also - you can always run at a lower resolution on full screen. It won't look as good, but it's perfectly reasonable unless you're right up against the screen.

It's a beautiful monitor, I say go for it.

 

[radiantm3]

It works with games, but I wouldn't buy one for games. Sometimes I play Unreal tournament 2004 with the highest settings at the 1080p resolution (1920x???) and that's the highest it will go unless you are able to up the res in the console. I get a good 30-60fps at that resolution. I have a 6800GT and a dual 1.8ghz G5. I haven't really tried any other games with this display.