Gaming set to 1080p on a 4K monitor

[mmaestro]

Hey all. I'm looking at getting one of those cheaper Samsung 4K monitors, mostly for the crisper text (at least where there's High DPI support) and ability to fit more on the screen while working on the desktop. But I also do some gaming on my desktop PC. While the GPU (a GTX 760) I have is fine for 1080p gaming, it'll be woefully insufficient for gaming in 4K. My understanding is that with these single scalar 4K monitors, you can just turn the resolution down to 1080p (or 1440p maybe), but in none of the reviews I've seen does anyone actually do this.
Has anyone tried? What do the results look like? Any gotchas, or should I just spring for the monitor and expect everything to work fine?

 

[Rakehellion]

You can turn the resolution down on any monitor. It will look just fine.

 

[Denithor]

Uh, no? Running an LCD screen of any kind at non-native resolution usually results in lots and lots of jagged edges and other assorted visual defects.

 

[mmaestro]

Rakehellion: Kinda yes and kinda no. So on the dual scalar 4K monitors, you could set the resolution to 1080 in Windows and run everything at that resolution no problem, but if you had Windows in 4K, and told a game to render in 1080, that would break things because the GPU was treating the single 4K monitor as 2 monitors stitched together. While a single scalar monitor doesn't have that aspect, the Displayport connection is still using multistream to push that many pixels, which is why I'm wondering. I could just switch Windows' resolution every time I want to game, I suppose, but that's a clunky solution I'd rather avoid.

Denithor: Often true, but that's because the pixels for the actual resolution and resolution the game is rendering at don't match up. 1080 on 4K would just have each pixel of the 1080p image pushed match up exactly to 4 pixels on the 4K display, hopefully meaning you don't see any jaggies. But I'd love to see someone who's actually done so talk about it rather than speculate.

 

[motsm]

I haven't heard of any 4K monitors that will display a lossless 1080p signal, and I have no idea why that is. I believe some TV's will do it properly.

I haven't seen what the scaled result looks like though, I imagine with the PPI of a 4K monitor, the filtered image could look a lot better than typical monitor scaling.

 

[cbrunny]

Well, it seems to me this is at least in part a question of pixel density. What's the size of the 4k monitor you want? Whatever it is, it has a particular pixel density (obviously) that is relative to it being a 4k monitor (also very obvious). So, if you move to 1080p, you are in effect using four pixels together as one, as you've indicated (I think. Correct me if this is wrong but I don't see how else it could work). If the screen size is reasonably large and you sit reasonably close, you will see jaggies as a result of poorer pixel density. If the monitor is a large size, this will be very noticeable. The larger the monitor and the closer you sit, the more noticeable it becomes.

Whether or not you'll see jaggies for any other reason - no idea. My guess is yes, but it really is just a blind guess.

 

[mmaestro]

cbrunny, I was looking at the Samsung U28D590D, which is 28". I tend to be pretty sensitive to seeing pixels in text/static images, and we briefly had a Dell demo 4K unit (32") at work, and the clarity was stunning on the desktop. I know I won't notice the jaggies as much gaming, even at 1080, because I tend to see that stuff less when there's a lot of motion (although I haven't done gaming on a 28" monitor as close as I'd be ever, so I may be wrong on that). I'm really most wondering about performance, though. Like I said, my understanding is that it _should_ work, running games at 1080p. But 4K is still very much in the early adopter bracket, so I was hoping someone could confirm that.

 

[Deders]

Crisper text is totally where it's at (ignore me I'm drunk)

 

[Elfear]

I have the monitor you're looking at and at 1080p it's not quite as crisp as 4k but still looks very good IMO. I've seen a lot of other monitors run at non-native resolutions (blurry, nasty text) and the Samsung seems to have a better scalar.

 

[toyota]

You can turn the resolution down on any monitor. It will look just fine.

lol NO it wont. and if it does then your opinion on any image quality topic is useless.

 

[toyota]

cbrunny, I was looking at the Samsung U28D590D, which is 28". I tend to be pretty sensitive to seeing pixels in text/static images, and we briefly had a Dell demo 4K unit (32") at work, and the clarity was stunning on the desktop. I know I won't notice the jaggies as much gaming, even at 1080, because I tend to see that stuff less when there's a lot of motion (although I haven't done gaming on a 28" monitor as close as I'd be ever, so I may be wrong on that). I'm really most wondering about performance, though. Like I said, my understanding is that it _should_ work, running games at 1080p. But 4K is still very much in the early adopter bracket, so I was hoping someone could confirm that.

jaggies are only part of it as it will be quite blurry compared to native resolution. the further you go below native resolution the worse it will look.

 

[Throckmorton]

What you want is pixel doubling, so each pixel of the image is shown as 4 pixels on the screen.

BUT THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE. Nvidia and AMD don't support it in their drivers and have stated that they will not. Why? I have no idea.

 

[TrulyUncouth]

You are asking for an opinion on something that many people feel strongly about. You will hear from both sides saying DEFINITELY that they are correct and you 100% will/won't have acceptable image quality. For me personally, I would worry about 1080p at 28/32 inches period simply because even native 1080p at 28 inches doesn't look great.

With that said, I do play some games at 108p on my 27inch 1440p monitor and once you get in game its typically hard to tell unless you are looking at something very far away in game and can tell the pixelation. Some games might be more affected and it comes down to your ability to perceive it.

I would look upon people with very strong opinions with some strong doubt. Good luck.

 

[AdamK47]

TN, even at 4K, is still a TN. I'd stay away from it. Do yourself a favor and get an IPS or VA monitor of lower resolution at similar screen size.

 

[TrulyUncouth]

TN, even at 4K, is still a TN. I'd stay away from it. Do yourself a favor and get an IPS or VA monitor of lower resolution at similar screen size.

I think you should read the reviews for this particular monitor- it is definitely atypical for TN's. I've seen more than a few reviews and all of them are extremely glowing about its color/IQ and its input lag is pegged at basically zero. If I weren't wasting too much money on tablets I'd have one of these in a heartbeat to replace my 27 inch 1440p IPS.

This is an example of the "People with strong opinions" I was talking about in my last post.

 

[h9826790]

I did it on my 4K TV. Since it's a TV, and there are lots of post processing by the TV itself. The image is actually very good when gaming at 1080P. However, in general, for a monitor, you will get worse image.

 

[KingFatty]

Do the 4K displays add much of a delay/lag/latency when they do the post-processing by the TV when receiving a 1080p gaming signal? Do the 4K displays maybe have a "gaming" mode that makes it faster at 1080p?

 

[h9826790]

Yes, if you turn everything on, you can definitely feel the input lag.

However, once switch to game mode, the input lag is gone and I can play game on it with zero problem. Or, I can leave it in normal mode, but manual switch off most of unnecessary function but only switch on few core functions to improve the picture. In this case, I can have even better picture with undetectable input lag.

 

[mmaestro]

Thanks, everyone, for your input. Especially Elfear because you've done what I was asking about. Looks like it's probably something worth doing, for my use case, anyway.

 

[know of fence]

Anyone can simulate the effect of scaling, take any small picture in your picture editor of choice pick [Picture] - [Change Size] - [Double]. Assuming the PPI of your new monitor is bigger or the same this is what your picture will look like.

I used the freeware Irfanview, which even allows you to change the scaling method(resize, no filters), to resize a 960x540 screenshot to 1920x1080.

Click into the right corner of image to see full size. http://imgur.com/a/VdXO9

 

[KingFatty]

Anyone can simulate the effect of scaling, take any small picture in your picture editor of choice pick [Picture] - [Change Size] - [Double]. Assuming the PPI of your new monitor is bigger or the same this is what your picture will look like.

I used the freeware Irfanview, which even allows you to change the scaling method(resize, no filters), to resize a 960x540 screenshot to 1920x1080.

Click into the right corner of image to see full size. http://imgur.com/a/VdXO9

The problem is we don't yet know how the monitor will decide to scale things.

Two monitors can receive the very same input image that is low resolution, say 1080p, but those monitors can scale it up to 4K in two different ways where one looks better than the other, because they are adding additional information 'between' the lines.

This problem is because the 4K monitors do more than just double the height and width. Put another way, do you know what technique IrfanView used to upscale? Maybe they did simple pixel doubling, but unlikely.

 

[3DVagabond]

I think you should read the reviews for this particular monitor- it is definitely atypical for TN's. I've seen more than a few reviews and all of them are extremely glowing about its color/IQ and its input lag is pegged at basically zero. If I weren't wasting too much money on tablets I'd have one of these in a heartbeat to replace my 27 inch 1440p IPS.

This is an example of the "People with strong opinions" I was talking about in my last post.

What reviews are you referring to? TFT shows input lag being pretty severe.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/samsung_u28d590d.htm

 

[know of fence]

The problem is we don't yet know how the monitor will decide to scale things.

Quality wise it doesn't matter, you can't tell which scaler/sampler was and the algorithms should have an easy time with 1-to-9 or 1-to-4 scaling. I used the fastest called (Resize), but there are 6 more available with names like Resample (B-Spline). Also speed should be faster with 1-to-4 pixel up-sampling and scaler input lag slower.
Scaling is every TVs primary mode of operation, how could they possibly screw it up...

 

[Atreidin]

This topic keeps coming up, with people who say "yes it should look identical to native 1080p" but have either never done it themselves or can't tell the difference because of vision problems. It will look worse than native 1080p. Maybe you won't care, though. This is something you need to see for yourself.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

If you set scaling to the gpu in nvidia control panel it should still send a 4K signal to the screen right? that way the screen scaler shouldn't do anything. There might be extra latency though.

Maybe it'll still look worse if 4 pixels are more square shaped than a bigger single pixel?

Anyway, who has a 4k screen and is willing to test?