New monitor help please

[Michka]

Building a new computer to run archicad 27 is there a particular type of screen I should avoid? I can't decide between a wide screen or an ultra wide screen? I'd love anything over 34inch. Ideally I would love to be able to use the 1 large screen with a few windows open one always being archicad and then email or a web browser open.

is there a preferred resolution for archicad 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Thankyou

[Barry Kelly]

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@Michka wrote:

is there a preferred resolution for archicad 

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In my opinion, low resolution.

It seems to me people buy big hi-res screens and when they run Archicad, the icons are so small they can't see them.

So the first thing they doo is increase the screen display scaling in the system settings.

This defeats the purpose of having a hi-res monitor if you ask me.

Archicad seems not to like system display scaling very much, especially if it is not done in multiples of 100%.

But maybe that is just my experience.

I am running a laptop with 2 x 24" monitors, both running at 1920 x 1080 resolution (they can go much higher).

As they are 2 separates screens, I could have them set at different resolutions, but as i mainly use Archicad on both, I don't.

If I open my laptop screen as well that gives me a third screen that I can have at another resolution.

In my opinion, I prefer 2 or more screens rather than one large one.

Barry.

[Lingwisyer]

If the purpose is about having emails or other documents open at the same time on the side, it would be better to just use a second monitor. I would suggest getting a good large 16:9, then having a cheaper 9:16 on the side.

Ling.

[Michka]

Thankyou for your reply, do you think this will work?

https://api.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/samsung-odyssey-g5-32-qhd-165hz-1ms-gaming-monitor...

[Lingwisyer]

I would recommend a monitor with an IPS panel if it is primarily for work such as any of the Dell Ultrasharps.

[mikas]

Display size and pixel sizes are very much of and about personal preference. That Samsung seems to have unnecessarily big pixels, at least to me they would be. I think 109 ppi is the normal for 27" 2560x1440 monitors.

As mentioned by Barry, the super dense pixel monitors can have too small text and buttons at default resolutions. That too depends on your preferences and you eyes of course.

On Mac, they use (Apple uses) Retina pixel densities. It's 4x the normal density. Text and interface elements are still that of a 109 ppi monitor, but the huge resolution adds up to a super crisp view for the user. You have almost true hairlines for example.

I jumped from Mac to PC a few years ago, but still have this 5K iMac 27". It beats all my Dells and Samsung with its crispiness.

That said, you can have the "Retina" effect with a PC too. My main display is now Dell U4021DW (40": 5120x2160), with a pixel density of 140 ppi. I can change the display scaling aka resolution, or interface elements to 120 125% for example, but the Archicad lines (or anything displayed) will be crisper to my eye. It's not that Apple "retina", but in that direction of display crispness.

I have tried many displays till today. I like the Dell U3821DW (38" 3840x1600) too, it's 109 ppi, so a normal-density monitor.

Samsung 49" 5120x1440 is 109 ppi, and pretty handy because it can double as two monitors if you need to. It can split two display streams side by side. So can the big Dells too as a matter of fact. It can be convenient in some use cases. Windows 11 does have pretty good window management today, I am quite pleased with their solution at that. Please see some monitor specs compared in the screenshot (https://www.displayspecifications.com/en/comparison/6a452fb6cc#google_vignette), maybe pay attention to ppi when choosing the monitor for your work, and consider closely your eye capabilities too. BTW, you can have 4x 2560x1080 Archicad windows tiled simultaneously with that 40" Dell, attached a pic from my desktop today. I had a heavy multitask-day today 😉

[Lingwisyer]

Ideally you will not use Scaling for what ever monitor you get, as you will lose sharpness as you try to display half pixels or get to a point where you should have just gotten a monitor with a quarter of the resolution...

Retina computer screens are >200 ppi but everything is designed to an appropiate scale for it. This sort of ppi works poorly on Windows... I had a laptop once with a ppi of 260, that for many people would still be too small at 200% scaling... 

[Michka]

Thanks so much for all this… this has been extremely helpful 

[Lingwisyer]

In my opinion, the only reason to not get an IPS monitor is if you are wanting really high refresh and response rates, which might matter if your primary use is gaming, and not wanting to break the bank.

[Scott Boyd Turner]

Michail,  

I have been using this same monitor with no issues in AC, generally like to have AC full screen but also divide the screen into several windows when needing to review / compare docs or write a spec