[Techspot] 4K Monitors: Can you actually see the difference?

[UaVaj]

I heard 4 way sli was barely any better than 3 way.

at lower resolution it is moot.
however at high resolution such as 4k (which is what we are discussing here).
there is a decent gain over that 4th card.

and also. it is game dependent. if there is a profile for it.


3dmark fire strike shows a 80% scaling on the 4th card
alien isolation shows 0% scaling on the 4th card
bf4 shows a 52% scaling on the 4th card
bioshock infinite shows 0% scaling on the 4th card
crisis shows a 63% scaling on the 4th card


source

 

[Vaporizer]

Is it possible to downscale to 1080p on a 4k display in demanding games (and have a better IQ than on native 1080p)?
On Games that run smoothly on 4k it would look better than VSR 1080p @4k (downsampling) ?
Therefore on all other Games, Desktop and Picture Gallery one would Profit from the native 4k.
In this case a purchase of a 4k monitor would directly improve the image quality and for the games that require 60FPS you could downscale to fullHD without loss of image quality?
What do you think?

 

[zlejedi]

It sure is nice but nowhere near worth sacrificing blur reduction and 100+ Hz rate.

Hopefully by the time Oled 4k monitors hit we will have solution for VRR strobing

 

[Techhog]

Is it possible to downscale to 1080p on a 4k display in demanding games (and have a better IQ than on native 1080p)?
On Games that run smoothly on 4k it would look better than VSR 1080p @4k (downsampling) ?
Therefore on all other Games, Desktop and Picture Gallery one would Profit from the native 4k.
In this case a purchase of a 4k monitor would directly improve the image quality and for the games that require 60FPS you could downscale to fullHD without loss of image quality?
What do you think?

In an ideal scenario, 1080p would look native on a 4k display. In reality, it'll look worse.

 

[tential]

I agree mysticjbyrd. I doubt we'll see much 4K gaming beyond like games with very very basic textures.

 

[Seba]

Contrary to article's title, they do not make visual tests (using human subjects), just use some math formula.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

at lower resolution it is moot.
however at high resolution such as 4k (which is what we are discussing here).
there is a decent gain over that 4th card.

and also. it is game dependent. if there is a profile for it.


3dmark fire strike shows a 80% scaling on the 4th card
alien isolation shows 0% scaling on the 4th card
bf4 shows a 52% scaling on the 4th card
bioshock infinite shows 0% scaling on the 4th card
crisis shows a 63% scaling on the 4th card


source

That's interesting. Some games see no benefit at all, while others have decent scaling. thx

 

[Madpacket]

Moar pixels is nice but secondary to contrast ratios or fluidity.

 

[biostud]

Moar pixels is nice but secondary to contrast ratios or fluidity.

And more detailed/advanced graphics.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

HDR > 4k ?

 

[Irenicus]

Which is why it sucks that we'll have to choose between 120hz 4K and 4K 60 Hz HDR.

But oh well, we'll see how it goes anyway. Maybe this display port standard won't last too long. Hopefully.

I still don't get why 4k hdr is locked to 60Hz, I get there is not enough bandwidth on displayport 1.3 to go all the way to 120Hz with HDR, but what about 80Hz? 90Hz? What is the actual Hz limit with HDR on, it has to be more than just 60Hz.

 

[tential]

I still don't get why 4k hdr is locked to 60Hz, I get there is not enough bandwidth on displayport 1.3 to go all the way to 120Hz with HDR, but what about 80Hz? 90Hz? What is the actual Hz limit with HDR on, it has to be more than just 60Hz.

I completely agree. That's what bothers me. Why not just slightly above? I doubt I even need 120 hz but an improvement would be nice a lot of people like 75 hz even or around there like you stated.

I guess it's a simple number but feels like a lost opportunity to me.

Either way, it's the only option so I'll probably get it.

 

[moonbogg]

I'm sure you can tell the difference from a denser pixel pitch, but you'll also notice the laggy gameplay a lot more (if you game). If you don't game, then well, you need to leave. Go home.

 

[Headfoot]

IMO the solution to the vastly increased demand of 4k in the near term is FreeSync / GSync or other similar adaptive sync tech. This really buffers out the swings in framerates you get in high demand scenarios. If you're the kind of gamer that can tell the difference between 60 FPS average, and 60 FPS vsync capped minimums, FreeSync makes 60 FPS average (minimums around high 30s, maxes up to the 70-80s) look like vsync capped, at least 90% of the way. In some games 60 FPS FreeSync somehow looks smoother than 60 FPS VSYNC capped (Fallout 4) though I couldn't explain to you why.

Since its pretty difficult if not impossible to run 4k capped at 60 with >60 FPS minimums, seems the only way for gamers like myself is to go adaptive sync.

Which sucks now, because most TVs don't support it. I'm excited to see how the FreeSync over HDMI goes, might get some mass market adoption in the TV market

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

That seems really optimistic, considering the fact that the current generation consoles cant even manage 1080p smoothly.

That's a pretty broad thing to say. It's not like the current game consoles don't have enough horsepower to run something like Minecraft at 4k. They probably could. Nintendo games (mostly 2D-ish) probably could also run at 4k as well.

Games with PC levels of details -- obviously, it's going to be a while for 4k on consoles.