Compared to flat monitors, curved ones are less strenuous on the eyes and provide a more immersive viewing experience.

The curvature of the screen allows your eyes to take in everything on the display at once, with minimal eye discomfort.

Flat screens, on the other hand, are more likely to exceed your natural field of view and cause your eyes discomfort.

But in terms of gaming performance and core specs, such as response time and refresh rate, curved monitors are pretty much neck and neck with flat monitors.

Pound for pound, curved monitors also cost more to produce and will cost you more to buy.

So considering the extra cost, do the additional immersive qualities make a curved monitor worth it for gaming?

Are Curved Monitors Good For Gaming?

Curved monitors are good for gaming because of the level of immersion they provide. Watching the gorgeous visuals of your favorite game unfold on an ultrawide display that fills up all of your vision is second only to putting a VR headset on when it comes to immersion. Curved monitors are also much easier on the eyes, getting your peripherals more involved to reduce eye strain. They also provide less color fade and pixels that are always equidistant from the eyes.

Just the act of gaming requires your eyes to rapidly move around the display and focus on where the action is taking place. Keeping up with this fast-paced motion is an intensive activity for your eyes and anything a monitor can do to reduce discomfort will make the viewing experience easier.

Compared to a large flat monitor, a large curved one will match the national curvature of your eye more closely, allowing your eyes to feel more at ease when you are gaming.

Curved monitors are also excellent for almost any game genre, however, they’re even more so when it comes to racing games and flight simulators when you really need that immersion-level visual. 

ProsCons
> Improved feeling of immersion.
> Pixels are all the same distance from the eyes.
> Reduced eye strain and fatigue.
> Better color consistency.
> Curved monitors support higher resolutions.
> Curved monitors are ultrawide screen monitors.		> Higher demand for the GPU.
> Not the best choice for 2D gaming.
> They eat up lots of desk real estate.
> Doesn’t work well with games that lack ultrawide resolution support.

If you hate those black bars on the right and left of a screen, you will hate the fact that curved monitors employ them whenever there is a game that lacks support for ultrawide resolutions. While it’s not exactly a deal killer, it’s still pretty annoying when it happens. 

We listed 2D games as problematic as well. While some may not have any problems with it per se, it can be difficult sometimes for gamers to get used to precision platforming, in 2D, on a curved backdrop.

The same can be said about simple puzzle games, like minesweeper or something that requires a flat, level viewpoint. Of course, not many gamers are going to waste their time with the likes of Minesweeper if they purchase a curved gaming monitor but the point still stands.

Curved displays also tend to make straight lines appear curved and this can make them poor to use for tasks like creative and office-type work. So if you’re planning to do more work than gaming on your curved monitors, curved may not be the best option.

Curved monitors also exacerbate viewing-angle issues when you sit anywhere other than up close and directly in the center of them.

It’s also worth remembering that curved displays are better suited for VA panels that suffer worse from viewing-angle issues and less suitable for IPS panels with better viewing angles.

Are Curved Monitors Better Than Flat For Gaming?

There are a lot of reasons to prefer curved monitors over flat for gaming, especially in most genres. Flat monitors lack the level of immersion that you will find in a curved monitor and eye strain is certainly an issue with large, flat monitors, especially throughout long gaming sessions. 

However, flat monitors have the advantage of compatibility, since most games are compatible with a 16:9 ratio so you won’t see those annoying black bars on both sides of the screen. Flat monitors are also cheaper and, although the resolution can’t compete, you can still get fantastic, 4k resolution with lightning-fast refresh rates with a flat monitor. 

You can also achieve a similar effect by purchasing two flat monitors and placing them at angles, left and right respectively. 

On the flip side, curved monitors are much better at retaining their color and image qualities, especially at the edges of the screen. 

Due to its curved nature, it will also accommodate your eyes much better, so you can take in all of that glorious high-resolution without hurting your eyeballs. 

If you’re rocking a pretty state-of-the-art rig, a curved monitor is a no-brainer. For a mid-level computer, the flat monitor may be the better choice due to the curved monitor’s tendency to give your GPU more of a workout. 

Ultimately, a curved monitor is better for gaming, however, whether or not it’s better for you is entirely dependent on your needs and your computer’s capabilities.

Are Curved Monitors For Gaming Only?

If you don’t think you can sit back and watch a 4k movie on a curved monitor in lieu of Call of Duty, you’d be wrong. Curved monitors are outstanding for watching movies, gaming, or any other graphics-intensive tasks you want to run it through. 

The argument can be made that flat screens are better for graphics design and there is a great degree of truth to that. However, many graphics designers love curved monitors because a more accurate color value is represented. 

The more curved the monitor, the higher the level of immersion. Your viewing area improves by 30% as well, so no matter what you are doing, you will see more at one time on a curved monitor than you ever will on a flat one. 

Curved monitors are also better for people who simply prefer them. While that doesn’t technically make it superior to a flat-screen (the advantages of a curved over a flat are pretty minimal), some people just enjoy having a curved screen to look at for the better color values and the immersion factor, regardless of what they are actually doing at the time.

Do Curved Monitors Affect FPS?

While there are arguments to be made about the framerate of a curved monitor (the idea is that more pixels equal a lower framerate) the computer controls the framerate and the curved monitor can’t alter the computer. 

The only thing that might happen is that if there is a certain refresh rate on a curved monitor, there may be a limitation placed on the frame rate to accommodate the monitor’s refresh rate. Ultimately, that means that it just depends on the capabilities of your GPU as opposed to the capabilities of your curved monitor. 

That’s how the limitations may be applied. If your GPU is more than capable of handling the number of pixels on your curved monitor, at the current FPS, then there will be no change.

The limitation comes in if one is not equal to the other. 

The biggest potential issue is that you might be running a game that puts a serious burden on your GPU. Then, you throw in the curved monitor that is large, ultrawide, and running with a high resolution. It may be more than your GPU can handle at one time. 

In most games, however, you can adjust the visuals and framerate to better accommodate your monitor and your GPU.

It all just depends on what you are using, what you are playing, and what you want to do with all of it.

Related Article: Top 20 Reasons To Use A Large OLED TV As Your Next Computer Monitor

Are Curved Monitors Good For FPS Games?

Curved monitors are good for FPS games as long as the refresh rate is high. A curved monitor will give you a single advantage over a flat monitor in FPS games. That advantage is the ability to see more at once, where you would have to move around a little more to catch everything on a flat monitor. 

The only problem is, that the FPS game has to support ultrawide resolution. If it doesn’t, you lose so much of the advantage that what you have remaining is negligible at best. The following games are considered some of the best that support ultrawide resolutions:

As you can see, Call of Duty doesn’t make that list and, as a hyper-competitive game, they’ve stayed well away from supporting ultrawide resolutions at 21:9 aspect ratios and up.

In fact, many FPS games will lock you out or boot you when detecting that resolution, as if you’re cheating or something. 

So, it can be advantageous if you are allowed to use it if it’s supported, and if you have the hardware to make it worthwhile.

Outside of that, there is no distinct advantage of a curved monitor over a flat monitor.

Are Curved Monitors Good For Fighting Games?

Curved monitors are perfectly fine for fighting games, especially if you prefer the level of immersion that they provide. However, when it comes to the competitive fighting genre, most gamers prefer flat-screen monitors because they typically have the best refresh rates. 

The typical refresh rates on a curved monitor are 120/144hz compared to the flat monitor’s max of 240hz. Now, the human eye will never be able to distinguish a difference between 144hz and 240hz but it does make a difference when your GPU is capable of cranking out something that could be 240hz but is limited by the monitor. 

Whether or not this all equates to a faster or slower response time in terms of the player sitting behind a desk trying to beat another player sitting behind another desk, is largely untested. 

However, the great thing about gamers is that they go for the competitive edge no matter if that competitive edge is untested. If a gamer can have 240hz over 144hz, then 244hz it is, regardless of whether it makes a difference in real-time hand/eye coordination and reaction speed. 

There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and it makes a lot of sense to go with what is arguably the better refresh rate. That’s why the argument between curved or flat for various gaming genres always boils down to personal preference.

Right now, personal preference largely leans towards flat screens for fighting games.

Are Curved Monitors Good For Console Gaming?

Curved monitors are great for console gaming. Probably even better so for console gaming than they are for a PC game. That’s because the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles are only capable of pushing 120Hz, which is basically what most curved monitors are capable of. 

In April of this year, the Variable Refresh Rate updates started to roll out for Playstation 5 users so it’s another good reason to hook one up to a curved monitor. Since consoles aren’t going to be pushing 240Hz any time soon, there’s no reason to worry about a curved monitor having a lower refresh rate. 

That means you can enjoy the immersion factor of a curved monitor without worrying about the refresh rate.

Of course, the best gaming monitors recommended for console gamers are still the Acer Predator X 27P and the LG GP950 27”, both of which are flat monitors.

How To Choose A Curved Monitor For Gaming?

Before you consider the curve of a monitor, ensure it has a respectable refresh rate (144Hz or more), resolution (3440×1440 or higher), response time (1ms), contrast ratio, and features like HDR and G-Sync/FreeSync.

A curve will allow a display that would ordinarily be too big to fill up more of your peripheral vision and make it easier to focus and take in the whole scene. Take for instance a 35-inch monitor; to game on a flat version of it will cause eye fatigue over time because it will be too big for your peripheral vision and your eyes will have to focus on where the action is taking place. Introduce a curve to that same 35-inch monitor and your peripheral vision will have a much easier job taking in that whole scene.

But if a monitor is 27″ or under, It’s small enough for your peripheral vision to take in without the need for a curve. So in that case, the curve is kinda wasted and your money too. To get the best benefit of a curved monitor it needs to be ultrawide and ideally 34-inches plus to get an immersive gaming experience. Go even wider if you can afford to.

Another important thing to consider about a curved monitor is its refresh rate compared to what your GPU is capable of. The second thing to consider is the monitor’s curvature because not all of them have the same degree of curve. 

The rate of curvature is listed as a number and it’s going to be 1500R to 3000R, or something along those lines, with the higher numbers indicating a stronger curvature than the smaller numbers.

Usually, the stronger the curve, the more the monitor might struggle with fuzziness at the corners or edges of the screen, depending on what you are playing and whether or not it’s supported. 

You can do a dual-curved monitor setup but that’s usually just a waste of money, as the curved nature of the monitor is supposed to reduce the need for a second monitor. So, if you want only a single monitor, a curved one may be right for you. 

If you deal with eye strain and eye fatigue, purchasing a curved monitor may be the solution you are looking for as they are known for helping to reduce eye strain and fatigue. 

Also, check your desk space, as curved monitors are known for taking up a lot more real estate on your desk than flat monitors do.

All Things Considered

There are a few distinct advantages that a curved monitor has over a flat monitor but there are some advantages that a flat monitor has over a curved one as well.

What it really boils down to is personal preference and what your PC is capable of doing.

Once you answer those two questions, you may decide that a curved monitor is worth your time after all.