I’m considering upgrading my current 43”4K TV to a 49” widescreen monitor. Does anyone have any experience of running Zwift on a widescreen monitor, is it worth it ?…any particular recommendations for a monitor or should I just stick to what I have as the cost benefit of upgrading to a monitor isn’t worth it.
I like the 34” curved ultra wide I am using. I switched from a 50” TV that was faulty.
After some testing based on resolution and my actual measured viewing distance I just went for an LG C5 48” OLED a couple of months ago, basically its perfect for a fully immersive experience at 120Hz. Fills roughly 80% of your vision and the brightness and contrast is amazing.
Depends on what you have currently, there are very cheap panels on the market. When the HDR kicks in on the LG you need to wear sunglasses and once you see it there is no going back.
I would recommend instead a much bigger TV screen like 65” - that will be far more immersive provided you have space to fit it, maybe wall mounted.
I have a 55” 4K TV wall mounted and it’s brilliant.
The big TV screens aren’t even that expensive.
I wouldn’t recommend a 65inch at all, it depends entirely on your viewing distance and available space.
I had the option to pull my old 65inch 4K lounge TV and use that because its from 2014 and both the Wi-Fi is slow and Apps on it cannot be updated and its basically useless from anything other than a HDMI input from another source and freeview TV.
Sure if you have a wall mounted option and you can adjust the bike position meters away from the wall, sure but I wanted a ultra small footprint setup and mine all fits in a 1.1m x 2.1m footprint, the bike, the TV the custom made wooden frame and the huge fan.
A 65inch OLED is also really expensive still. I did consider a 43inch, however for another couple of hundred bucks you get the 48inch with 30% more screen area.
I would be more focused on the actual image quality and frame rates than the size to be honest.
What does a widescreen monitor add? Honestly curious. I’m thinking (probably incorrectly) that a 49” widescreen monitor would be cropping scenery from the top and bottom of what would be available in a 49” standard widescreen TV? I assume widescreen in a monitor means something different than widescreen in a TV?
It doesn’t crop anything but it is a shorter/wider view. Nothing wrong with using a TV or large format monitor either. The curved display is nice, I like it, but loads of people use a TV and are happy with that.
Available space = wall mounted
And I found ones for $800 in my country which is cheaper than ultrawide computer monitors.
How does that work, unless it compresses and distorts the graphics vertically (making our avatars fatter for example)? Unless I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying
so it sorta maps all the pixels into a fisheye effect?
Just giving a different field of view for the viewport, then the overlays are just moved accordingly.
So on a normal monitor for your screenshot, would the roof of the building be showing and some more clouds?
I’m pretty sure wide-screen gives you a wider field of view. The central part of the screen seems identical to having a standard monitor when using the same camera position.
I like it because it moves the rider list and leaderboards etc further out so they’re easier to ignore when you don’t want to look at them but they’re still available when you do.
It’s slightly annoying that the power graph doesn’t stretch to the full width, but I only have that on for workouts and I don’t do many of those.
So basically Zwift is NOT available in a true widescreen format so its distorted.
The native image is 16:9 for your normal TV or monitor.
No you get a wider view and it is not distorted. The power graph is not expanded to the full screen width, and it doesn’t handle the rider list in the starting pen properly, but otherwise it works fine.
Sorry but that view would drive me nuts, its stretched and cropped. Zwift would need an available widescreen graphics option in the options to display the correct image to the GPU and yes done properly its better than 16:9.
- Native Aspect Ratios: A 21:9 or 32:9 monitor requires the game to understand this specific, extended aspect ratio, rather than just the standard 16:9 ratio.
Some people could live with that image, I walked into a house once and the people had the TV on and had been watching it with the wrong aspect ratio for years. Things that were supposed to be round were oval, faces were wider, its was nuts, they both thought is was fine, got hold of the remotes and fixed the problem.
If you think its okay then great.
It’s not stretched or cropped. It’s the exact same 16:9 in the middle with extra added to each side.
Me and a team mate side by side… he’s using a widescreen monitor - I’m on a 40” TV….
He has lots more room for more sauce ![]()
So in the Zwift setting there is the correct option ?
So Zwift recognises the widescreen option and add this to the graphics options ?
Then fine, my mistake.


