Quote: "first off, now a days we are at 1024 x 768 pixels, what your question should read is do you want to play halflife to at 2048 x 1500 do it and see the subtle difference."
Only on your desktop computer.
NTSC/PAL Televisions are running at 720x480/540
HDTV in most televisions is 720i or 1080i
Which meants... 10240x720 or 1280x1080 resolution, currently there are very few televisions on the market capable of the legendary 2x1K Resolution.
futher more to the point most games nowadays are 800x600, while yes some people will up the resolution; the fact is from a survey done by Valve is that the largest majority of gamers use a GeForce 5200 graphics card, and they tend to play Half-Life at 1024x768, or Source at 800x600. This is because that is what the card can handle.
As far as monitors are conserned, again 2x1K is a legendary and for the most part unsuable resolution. I think you'll find that very few monitors support it, and instead opt out at 1600x1200. Another point is try playing any current game at that resolution. The benchmarks of the currently most powerful graphics card GeForce 7800 GTX have shown that even at 1600x1200 it can just about be playable at 45fps in Half-Life 2 (Source).
So the real likihood of anyone actually being able to play their modern games at that resolution is low at best, particularly given the polygon counts involved. As the Resolution goes up, so does the VRAM Requirements and the Polygons Counts much go down to compensate. There is no way around that fact they are mutually exclusive things.
Quote: "Second, pounds are different from dollars, and over here in america they charge alot for a good hdtv (cheap imitations don't count, expecally unwarrented ones)"
Not really, the spending to earning power is about equal; while your actual hardware is quite a damn-sight cheaper.
I never said anything about a top-line HDTV, just one that supports it. Here if you want one capable of 1080i your talking about parting with £350+
That wasn't the point though, the point was it isn't expensive to own a TV capable of it.
Quote: "Also, I would like to ask in the matrix revolutions, does having standard screen interfere with the plot? does it become too hard to know what is going on if you don't see both people? Wide screen is nice, just not necisary, unless you actually use it RIGHT..."
Looking at a blank wall while characters are talking completely distracts from the viewing, it has nothing to do with the plot; but the ability to follow what is there. I can't stand to watch a movie where I only get to see remote slithers of the actors. I might as well get 'Matrix Revolutions on Audio Tape' ... and simply image all of that CG that several billion went into having created.
Sorry but it's always people who don't have something that generally sit there and say something like.
"Well Surround Sound is nice, but it doesn't really add anything to the movie really."
I can't sit down and watch a movie and enjoy it in the same way without Widescreen, without Surround Sound, without HDTV Sharp Images. It just doesn't seem as good. Like watching a movie from a VHS rather than DVD... sure at the time it was good stuff, but now there is something better why would I want to watch it in a crappy format?
