Forum: gaming.stackexchange.com
Tags: <first-person-shooter>
Title: Would using a smaller screen help me play first-person shooters better?
Question: An old friend of mine (hardcore player) said once that a smaller screen is better as the area you have to concentrate on is smaller, so you can more effectively spot and shoot an enemy.  What are the pros or cons of using different screen sizes/resolutions, considering both efficiency (kills per minute or k/d ratio) and the length of time I can play comfortably? I have a choice of screens I can use: 26" 1920x1200, 22" 1680x1050, and an old 19" 1280x1040.

Answers:
sents: text: Doesn't sound right to me...
text: If you have a smaller screen, everything on it is smaller too.
text: A character who may have been 10 pixels tall would be smaller, maybe too small to make out properly, especially given that everything around him would be smaller and less detailed as well.
text: A larger screen does mean that there's more to keep track of, but your peripheral vision usually takes care of that anyway.
text: 90% of the time you'll be concentrated on a fairly smallish area in the middle of your screen, because that's where you're pointing/looking/walking.
text: A bigger screen doesn't really mean you'll miss things, either - you'll never be using a monitor that takes up your entire field of vision (if it does, you're probably far too close :P) and human eyes are very good at picking up small movement in the periphery of our range of vision.
text: We notice movement (but not detail) very easily there.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/8090/Alex
score: 5
sents: text: Just like Alex, I don't believe it's a good thing for the following reason's :
text: Human sight is large enough to cover a big screen (unless you play in a Cinema or with a 120cm TV)
text: If you play on a smaller screen, things are smaller, implies you have to concentrate more (or get closer to your screen) on them and your eyes will get tired much faster.
text: When you're eyes get tired, you loose concentration, etc.
text: Aim is also to have fun, and enjoy the immersion in the game, won't be as great on a smaller screen
text: The screen won't make you a pgm if you're a noob As for BC2, I play it but never heard of specific bugs / feature affecting aim.
text: But just the same, this is not what is going to transform someone into a good player.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/11339/Dalshim
score: 3
sents: text: If it's about choosing monitor don't bother too much with resolution since it is relative, small area=small targets, Large area=large targets.
text: The thing with lower resolution monitors is that you can play on lower sensitivity(better precision) and with less mouse scrolling get to the end of the screen(cover more area).
text: With that precision and coverage smaller enemies can be faster to hit than scrolling and shooting larger enemy.
text: Basically on smaller resolution you need less physical action which gives you some slight speed
text: advantage(and
text: that is only if you have very good aim and reflexes).
text: What matters more is to choose based on monitor quality and type(Plasma,LCD,LED) that fits better to your sight, some monitors have crappy color contrasts and enemy in bushes far away won't be recognized so easily while on other you could spot just a little bit of black color through green bushes.
text: It also applies to how well monitor displays moves
text: some seem just more natural to eye than others.
text: Technically that 2 monitor difference are not so important to your eye
text: and you dont even notice them too much, but your brain and reflexes could make a difference.
text: When you are buying monitors you will see bunch of them that look the same (by image quality), but if you play something fast on multiple monitors some will feel much more natural to your sight and grant you better performance(after tweaking brightness, contrast and colors).
text: All that said I would go with 22" no matter the battlefield or minesweeper 26" is too much for monitor and 19" is "the box"(4:3) which is outdated and lame for everything else than trying to score better killstreak.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/9888/Mentales
score: 2
sents: text: I've found that having too large of a screen is not a problem, unless (like a friend of mine)
text: you use a huge (50-inch) screen.
text: But in that case, you should be sitting farther back than normal anyways...
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/2578/BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft
score: 2
sents: text: A smaller monitor won't help at all, BUT a lower resolution on the same monitor will help you hit your targets more easily than a higher resolution.
text: For playing Natural Selection 2, a game where I find it challenging to hit other players, I recently switched from a 1920X1200 resolution down to a 800X600 resolution and it is much easier to hit my opponents since they are much bigger on-screen.
text: The game isn't as pretty as before, but I'm now much more competitive and get more kills.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/39197/FractalPrince
score: 1
sents: text: I've been an FPS player since Wolfenstein 3D and played a bunch of Counter Strike Beta until about four years ago when I moved solely to the PS3.
text: My skills are above average but with the release of Black Ops 2, I was getting extremely frustrated with a crappy KD.
text: During the holiday season, I brought my PS3 into the office to kill time and mated it with my Dell 24" monitor and started tearing games up.
text: I have about 13,000 total kills right now and in the last two weeks I've gone from a .88 KD to 1.11 (as of last night) with some games of Headquarters nabbing me 80+ kills.
text: Bigger does not necessarily mean better but it also has to do with how close you sit to your TV.
text: My brother-in-law plays on a 52" Samsung but he sits three feet away vs. my
text: and my 55" LG where I sit about nine feet away.
text: I tried sitting closer
text: but I just couldn't do it.
text: Right now, I sit about two feet away from the 24" monitor at home and am having a lot more fun with BO2.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/39666/Ian
score: 1
sents: text: I have noticed a difference in between my 55" Samsung led and an hp 22" computer monitor
text: and I am much more successful on the 22" screen than I am the 55
text: " I get way more kills on fps such as battle field 4 and cod ghost.
text: It seems that my reactions are more natural and aiming seems to be a lot more fluent.
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/61744/David
score: 1
sents: text: Just an opinion yes the human eye can view the whole screen with larger monitors
text: but it's far less efficent than looking at a smaller monitor due to you being able to lock your eyes in place not scaling the screen the entire time.
text: I use my 22 over my 48 any day.
text: But with proper distancing you can accomplish the same feat with a larger tv.
text: I guess I just don't have enough room to use the larger screen properly
answer_details: author: gaming.stackexchange.com/users/175586/Rikon01
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
If you play on a smaller screen everything looks smaller and you have to concentrate more. However, a small screen lets you lock your eyes in place rather than scaling the screen the entire time. You can also try a lower resolution.
A smaller screen does not equal better results, however the distance of the player from the screen can affect the overall efficiency.