The Monitor

Monitor

This is probably the largest difference from a first person shooter. As an amateur First Person Shooter player, I like bigger monitors (bigger targets for my significantly less than optimal Railgun aim). The Firing Squad first person shooter pros seem to think that bigger is just better as well. However, having too big of a monitor is counter-productive to RTS.

What the…? How can bigger not be better? Well, RTS involves more than just aiming on the monitor. In many RTS games, you need to keep track of your limiting factors or stats, (in Starcraft, it is the number of resources you have and how much food you are using) and also keep track of the mini-map as much as possible for movement.

With a large monitor, it’s very difficult to see what your resource number is at without actually spending a couple seconds to move your eyes and check it out. With a smaller monitor, you don’t have to look; you can keep track of how many digits your resource level is at and how your food condition is with your peripheral vision. If my resource (money) level gets too high, I just keep pumping until it’s drained from 3 or 4 digits to 2 digits. While playing on Thresh’s computer, his 21” monitor made me a mess. I couldn’t see my resource level without actually looking there. Doing so meant less time looking at the minimap and also taking care of what was going on in the main screen. Sounds trivial, but even a split second can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

With a larger monitor, your peripheral vision has a hard time checking out the movement in the mini-map. This was much more key in vanilla Starcraft rather than Brood War because the mini-map essentially told you everything you needed to know. With only a limited amount of units that can actually cloak, a color change in the mini-map alerted me to check it out. On Thresh’s 21" monitor, I had difficulty keeping track of the happenings on the mini-map and my limiting conditions while looking at the main screen.

For RTS, I strongly recommend a monitor size of 17”. If that is too big to keep track of the limiting factors and the mini-map, I would even be so bold as to recommend a 15” monitor for you. If your peripheral vision is extraordinary, you can live with a larger monitor.