50
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by Sunny@slrpnk.net to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world

Hiya!

Wondering how people's experiences are regarding the use of ultrawide monitors on Linux these days. What kind of setup do you rock?

Am thinking about getting an oled monitor as my next monitor and current setup is two 32inch monitors where one of them is vertical. But been keeping a keen eye on ultrawides for a while but not sure its for me and how well it's supported with Linux. I've read KDE supports it well, but what about when gaming? Also what's the current state of oled and hdr support?

Also, please add your monitor brand+models, would love to see what peeps are rocking. Personally been looking at the Alienware AW3423DWF.

Edit: I'm looking at screens that are oled and 2k resolution.

Let me know your experiences, tips or recommendations!

top 38 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] VeganCheesecake 4 points 2 days ago

I much prefer Multi-Monitor on vesa arms. Works better with the way I work, less hassle in games that don't like unusual aspect ratios.

[-] raef@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Just my two cents: I've had occasional problems with games through steam on dual monitors. Things like losing mouse focus or changing resolution on the other monitor (though that hasn't happened for a long time).

Monitors are old Asus. I won't bother looking up the models as I'm sure they're outdated

[-] dingdongitsabear@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

10-year old 40" 4K in standard 16:9 ratio. way less neck swivel than two 24" side-by-side and way more screen real estate. 60 Hz max, runs off a $30 RX 570 4 GB. got no HDR, 100+ Hz, freesync, and other rich-people-stuff.

to me ultrawides are like what I have, only they chopped off like a third of the vertical resolution and they want more money for it.

[-] foster@lemmy.hangdaan.com 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I've tried both and I prefer Ultrawide for the following reasons:

  • Less cables. Cable management is already hard enough as it is.
  • No borders in between screens. Looks amazing when watching movies and for gaming.

My current monitor is a GIGABYTE G34WQC.

[-] morbidcactus@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Have the non-curved version of that, prefer the curved display at that size but it's a nice display regardless, at the distance it sits not really an issue, just preference, definitely recommend.

Built in kvm is fantastic for using with my work machine, used to use 3x 1080p displays, just like this more for pretty much everything I do.

[-] Illecors@lemmy.cafe 14 points 3 days ago

I'm a sucker for window managers, so my preference is towards more displays, rather than bigger ones. It's mostly been dual horizontal setup, but I've rocked a triple vertical setup once that's been absolutely glorious for browser, terminal, and email client.

Gamingwise I would also suggest sticking to a multimonitor setup. It's easier to drive a smaller resolution.

OLED is a physical thing - OS and userspace doesn't care about it. HDR - not absolutely sure as I don't have a monitor to test, but I've definitely seen wlroots merge support for it.

[-] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

works fine on KDE, I use a 34" and wouldn't go back to a two monitor setup. Maybe two ultra-wides stacked vertically? But not 16:9.

I do use kwin with tiled windows, btw, with the new Krohnkite.

[-] Sunny@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 days ago

Cool thanks, what brand+model is your monitor?

[-] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

it's a curved viotek @ 144hz, not the best quality, but it was the cheapest with these specs back then

[-] commander@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Ultra wide is better. If enough space an ultra wide and another 16:9 monitor. Games look so nice 21:9 and wider without the bezels of the older solution for ultra wide with multi monitors

[-] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 2 points 2 days ago

I have an Alienware AW3423DWF and use it with Fedora KDE.

No problems here. Some games don't support ultrawide without mods but I haven't encountered any of these mods that don't work on Linux yet.

As for HDR, it should be ready for primetime once Proton 10 comes out with Wayland support. As of right now, you have to either run your game through gamescope or use Wine/Proton with Wayland support enabled, e.g. Proton-Tkg (Wine master).

It's a really good monitor by the way, still impresses me with its pure black on a regular basis, even in SDR.

[-] Sunny@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago

It looks like a Hella impressive screen! Thanks for sharing.

[-] tomten@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

I use a 34" UW as my main and a 24" as my secondary works great.

[-] AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

i have a 3 monitor setup for work machine and a 49" 32:9 ultrawide for my home machine. i like them both because of the things i do on them.

my home rig is regularly for gaming. a single, large, high ppi, high refresh rate, ultrawide monitor is amazing for a gaming-first setup. there is flexibility for off-work productivity here where i split 1/3x3, 2/3-1/3, or even 2/3-2/3 with 1/3 overlap.

my work rig is regularly for programming, communication (chat, video conference, email, ticket comments), time management, word processing & diffing, testing web clients....... i have to do a lot of things. the structured 3-monitored layout is great for me to keep everything in its place and flip between them frequently.

both multi-monitor and single-monitor setups have their benefits. all that matters is that you choose according to your preference and expected use-case.

[-] felsiq@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 days ago

Not an ultrawide or multi-monitor user (single 4K 27” miniLED for me), but hdr support is so close to being perfect but not quite there yet. The support has finally been added to Wayland git and is coming in the next update iirc, but at the moment it relies on your window manager’s implementation (KDE’s works great) and doesn’t work for gaming without running gamescope (steam’s window manager) in a window. The only issue I think will remain with HDR after the next update is with apps that stubbornly use X instead of Wayland (steam is the one that kills me here), since X won’t ever support it so those apps will be SDR.

In terms of OLED support, they don’t need to be treated specially to work so any of them should work as normal - only thing to be aware of is that WOLED panels made by LG (used in asus monitors too) use an uncommon subpixel layout and you may have to set it manually or fiddle with your text rendering settings a little to see it perfectly. Samsung panels (like the ones Alienware uses) use the normal layout so no concerns if you go with that. Otherwise, screen dimming / turning off after a period of inactivity is a common feature and should be good enough for protecting from burn in. The only other OS-level feature I’ve seen related to OLEDs is shifting sustained bright pixels around to share the load - not sure if anyone’s made this on Linux, it sounds awful to use so I’ve never looked into it.

Someone else already mentioned old games not supporting ultrawide well, but worth adding if you go OLED you can just run it 16:9 and the letterboxing won’t be nearly as obnoxious as on a standard IPS/VA/TN/whatever monitor that would be blasting ugly blue/black light from the “disabled” areas.

[-] Sunny@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 days ago

Thanks for the detailed response, very insightful!

[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 3 days ago

A multi monitor setup would be ideal. Get an OLED for gaming and an LCD for everything else. Text looks bad on OLED monitors because they don't support subpixel antialiasing. Panels and window borders will start to burn into OLEDs after several years, so it's best to save them for gaming and movies.

For an ultrawide monitor, you will definitely want a window manager that supports tiling. KDE supports basic tiling functions and there are plugins to make it better.

[-] kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I use a 49" ultrawide. I find a window manger work very well with it.

5120x1440p

Edit: one downside is getting proper wallpapers for it that are not stretched or cut

[-] Sunny@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 days ago

What's the model and brand of your screen?

[-] kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

It is a dell ultrasharp U4924DW

[-] TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Have personally found an ultra wide to work better as the secondary monitor. Can use it like 1.5 screens.

No issues on the various distros tried. The difficulty appears to be when having both hdmi and displayport connected instead of 1 or the other. (More than likely wrong just what I've experienced)

Can't speak to hdr but found the hassle of ultrawide compatibility on games to be not worth it. Most work out of the box but play a good bit of older games and those can have some hiccups.

YRMV

[-] erotador 4 points 3 days ago

I would kill for a 32:10 monitor

[-] juipeltje@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I have both lol, dual ultrawide setup. My main monitor is a 1440p 165hz ultrawide, and i have a 1080p 75hz ultrawide mounted above it that used to be my main monitor before i upgraded. A decent amount of games support ultrawide from my experience, but for some reason mostly japanese games often times don't support it. Usually you can find guides to edit the exe to enable ultrawide support, but i haven't had much luck with that myself. I don't have an oled display or use hdr though, but from my understanding you might be able to make it work in games by using gamescope. For other types of content hdr isn't really there yet, but the good news is that the required wayland protocol recently got merged, so it should be a matter of time before it will eventually be working. I usually always have atleast 2 windows open on my desktop next to each other, and ultrawide is really great for that because it gives each window more width to work with, so you have lots of space.

I did multi monitors for years and switched to a single 34" 3440*1440 ultrawide both at work and at home and I have never considered going back. I use a curved msi at home and a flat samsung at work. I would go larger size or higher resolution eventually but ultrawide is really nice for cad work so you still get a good work area without the sidebar eating into your view/modeling space. For normal use, I just do window snapping so I still get the function of two work areas.

[-] zyberteq@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Same here. In the end, my second monitor was a window with chat and one with a browser while I was gaming or watching a video on the other. I can do that with one ultra wide as well. I have to alt+tab anyway.

[-] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

My ultra wide monitor has worked perfectly from day one on Linux.

Currently I'm running an LG and Gnome 42ish, if I recall.

But Linux has had excellent support for ultra wide monitors since before I started being able to afford ultra wide monitors.

[-] tankplanker@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

I have 2x32"@4k side by side at 100% scaling. No way I would switch to a single ultrawide as I would be losing screen size, so I would have to adjust the ratio to make it the same size and thus lose screen real estate.

I also prefer two monitors as I have different workspaces for each so I can switch just half the "screen" between different groups of apps. It would also be harder for my tiling WM, sway, to tile the large number of apps currently split over two workspaces without a lot more faffing.

Oh and switching apps to full screen would be less useful, I use that a lot as it's just two keys to flip it back and forth. I can keep reference on the other screen and the other app full screen.

[-] kekmacska@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Depends on your workload. If you watch movies and game, ultrawide. If you do streaming or web development, dual monitor is like a must. Oled and hdr are also supported, stable on kde and gnome, experimental on xfce. Dual monitor is supported by these, plus cinnamon, mate, lxqt, budgie, pantheon and many window managers. I myself use a 15" laptop bc im poor

I went for a 27" 1440p w/ 24", but that's because I had the 24" laying around.

I use an ultrawide at work, and it's fine, but I generally just use it like two monitors anyway, so for productivity I'd prefer two monitors so I'm not screwed when one dies. But I haven't done any gaming on that monitor, so I'm not sure how the extra real estate would feel for the games I play.

I'm considering replacing my 24" and am considering another 16:9, just bigger (30+") and 4k, though I'm worried my GPU will struggle (6650XT). We'll see.

[-] cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 days ago

I went for ultra big. 42' 4k OLED with no scaling is beautiful for gaming and practical for work.

[-] SolarPunker@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 days ago

What resolution do you play at? Ultrawide for gaming is really niche, I don't recommend it.

[-] stargazingpenguin@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 days ago

Why don't you recommend it? I've run into very few games that don't support a 21:9 aspect ratio, and the extra screen space is very immersive.

[-] SolarPunker@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 days ago

If gaming is your priority isn't a good idea to have a niche display format, most of the games will just looks bad/unoptimized.

[-] stargazingpenguin@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 days ago

I've been gaming on one since 2021, and on modern games the only issues I've had are a few games with pillarboxing and pre-rendered cutscenes showing in 16:9 instead. For me the benefits of having a wider monitor far outweigh the few things I've noticed.

[-] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

Ultra wide gaming works fine for Luanti, lol.

(Which has vanilla Minecraft level graphics. I'm just trying to make you laugh with this comment.)

[-] Sunny@slrpnk.net 0 points 3 days ago

Right now I play at 2560x1440.

[-] SolarPunker@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago

Check here: https://www.wsgf.org/ this site tell you ultrawide compatibility of games reported by users

[-] Sunny@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 days ago

Thanks for sharing

this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
50 points (100.0% liked)

Linux Gaming

16754 readers
651 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

Resources

WWW:

Discord:

IRC:

Matrix:

Telegram:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS