With the PS5, you can play not only on a TV but also on a monitor. But how does it feel to play on an ultrawide monitor with the PS5?
What are ultrawide monitors anyway? An ultrawide monitor simply offers the same screen size as 2 regular monitors combined. This way, you can save a lot of space on your desk.
Especially in gaming, the trend towards such large monitors has significantly increased. As a survey on MeinMMO about monitor resolution shows, around 12% of all players played on ultrawide monitors or in 21:9 in 2022. On Steam, there are even more users, and the number of users has been steadily increasing for years.
Games and movies generally look better and more immersive on such large monitors, allowing gamers to dive deeper into the action. But how are ultrawide monitors and next-gen consoles doing nowadays? For this reason, I connected a PS5 to an ultrawide monitor. You can read the results here.
Last updates: March 5, 2024, November 17, 2022
My ultrawide monitor works with the PS5, but I’m not really happy
Setting PS5 to 21:9 – Is that possible? Connecting the PS5 to such a monitor works effortlessly. You can use either the included HDMI cable of the PS5 or just take another cable.
While connecting is no issue, the aspect ratio on the PS5 cannot be switched to 21:9 or even 32:9. Here there are two options:
- Either you stretch the image to the applicable format (Stretched-Mode).
- Or you accept black borders on the left and right sides of the screen. Then you are playing “only” in 16:9.
How does that look in practice? In practice, I initially had to find out that the PS5 does not recognize the WQHD resolution of my monitor. Instead, I can choose Full-HD (1080p) or UHD (2160p). I tested both resolutions and recommend 2160p, as especially text looks much sharper.
In some details, you can already see in the main menu of the PS5 that content is stretched: circles appear slightly oval rather than completely round. But how does it look while gaming?
I started the PS5 version of Elden Ring on both a Full-HD monitor and an ultrawide WQHD monitor (UWQHD). Overall, the game also looks impressive on the ultrawide monitor. However, when comparing the two images from Elden Ring, one can see that the field of view hardly increases: for both monitors, the frame goes from the left pillar to the right pillar.
Was it worth it for me? No question, the game looks damn good on an ultrawide monitor, and Elden Ring or other games are a lot of fun. However, I do not benefit from the advantages of the large monitor since Sony’s PS5 does not support the appropriate resolution.
Regarding ultrawide or 21:9, I feel like a player, who also plays on the computer, is still somewhat forgotten.
I can understand that Sony’s (and by the way, Microsoft’s) focus is on the TV. Nevertheless, there are more and more players who also own a large monitor and would like to benefit from their hardware. Especially when I am happy with my monitor and prefer to play at the desk, I would like to use my console in this way.
Is an ultrawide monitor worth it for the PS5? No, at least if you can alternatively play on a 4K TV. And buying an ultrawide monitor just for the PS5 is hardly worthwhile either, as long as Sony does not support 21:9, since otherwise, you will have to live with either black stripes or a stretched image.
This also applies for the year 2024. Sony still does not support ultrawide on the PS5, nor does Microsoft on the Xbox.
So far, the focus of consoles has been on the living room
Why is there no support for 21:9? Both Sony and Microsoft had already turned down ultrawide support before the launch of the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Why is that? The reason is that the focus of home consoles is primarily on the living room. In the living room and home theater, 21:9 or 32:9 has simply played no role.
However, there is another issue behind it. Ultrawide resolutions require significant widening of the image compared to 16:9. Both Sony and Microsoft, as well as game developers, would have to support this.
Will the PS5 receive ultrawide support? Sony has not yet commented on whether such support will exist in the future. At least you can now use WQHD resolution (1440p) on the PS5, and that is already a important feature that has finally made its way to the PS5.
Thus, we must first wait. Perhaps we will also have to wait for the release of the next console generation, the PS6, until we can fully utilize an ultrawide monitor on the PlayStation. At least I hope that the support for 21:9 will come sooner:
When will the PS6 be released? Everything we know about Sony’s PlayStation 6
