Anyone went 1440p/4k and is unimpressed?

[regulus]

I finally gone and bought a 4k TV. I wasn't looking for a 4k TV specifically but I managed to snag a great deal on a 40' one and brought her home.

Excitedly I hooked it up to the PC and fired up The Witcher 3. It didn't want to load ...

Ok never you mind, I loaded GTAV and went to the settings and pushed it to 4k. Now, I have a 980GTX, not space alien technology but I would've expected it to run better than it did. I had to turn a heap of settings down and while there was a noticeable difference in resolution, hardly enough to warrant the hype. I changed it to 1440p and it ran much better with settings a bit higher. I couldn't see much, if any difference over 1080p.

The same case for a few other games. 4k and it turns to a crawl. I tested for about an hour, gave up and went back to 1080p. If I bought this for 4k specifically I would've felt really really done over.

Anyone else find the same thing?

 

[James J]

Sadly you picked two of the most demanding PC titles to try and play at 4k, so no wonder you are unimpressed, especially with a single GPU. Try something that runs well at those settings like alien isolation and enjoy

 

[Malevolence]

Look at my sig., I game at 1680x1050.

 

[ricky1981]

I don't think 4k adds much over 1080p, once you get past the initial few minutes of "ooo that's pretty", it looks impressive in screenshots but I'd rather put the money towards more games (or a Wii U ) than the extra horsepower needed for 4k gaming.

Most games seem to be designed around 1080p so you get a better experience by running max settings at 1080p then running medium (or lower) settings at 1440p or 4k.

I've also found that running the type of rig necessary for 4k gaming (typically SLI/Crossfire) is a bit of a pain and recently sold my second 970 as it just wasn't worth the hassle for some extra pixels.

 

[regulus]

Sadly you picked two of the most demanding PC titles to try and play at 4k, so no wonder you are unimpressed, especially with a single GPU. Try something that runs well at those settings like alien isolation and enjoy

Just remembered I bought that on the Steam summer sale.

Had a go and if I'm completely honest, I didn't see any difference over gaming at 1080p. In theory I should've as there's more pixels around, but it just weren't making me go WOW! But you're right, it did run much much better.

On the Windows desktop there's a good difference and going back to 1080 as my desktop resolution made my eyes hurt for a second. So yea, that might be worth keeping at 4k but as far as gaming goes, I'll stick to my trusty 27' and stick the TV in one of the rooms.

 

[NexusK]

It also depends on how far you are sitting from the TV. I can notice the difference between 1080p and 1440p on the monitor but cant notice much difference between 1080p and 4k on the TV, not that 4k is playable in many games for me anyway.

 

[neoglow]

Unfortunately it's not as simple for PC Gaming, you need a serious rig to play demanding games at 4k smoothly. One day consoles will be 4k as standard and games will be designed to run on their hardware but it dosent help when Nvidia and AMD say their latest GPUs are 4k ready people run out to get a 4k panel only to be disappointed. I regularly downsample my games on a 1080 panel and aim for 4k (which it essentially the same as you using a 4k resolution on a 4k panel) and performance really drops off at 4k on my rig (2x 980s SLI).

Google for 'standard' 16:9 or 16:10 (depending on your panel model) resolutions and try ones lower down than 4k. Oddly many games I downsample seem to work pretty well at 3200x1800.

 

[savagesam117]

I had a 4k monitor and when watching 4K films it looked awesome, so much sharper but games I couldn't tell much difference as I didn't have the gpu power to run it with any settings turned up. Went back to 1080p and now a happy gamer again

 

[Heisenberg]

A 1440p monitor is the sweet spot for me. 4K is too demanding to run without a supercomputer. Also putting the res to 1440p on your 4k set won't look as good as native 1440p. High resolution monitors are great as you sit closer to them. You would have been better with a more expensive 1080p TV.

 

[mid_gen]

I run a 30" Dell U3014 at 2560x1600. I have a pair of 280x which are just about enough to run most things at that res. Big screen, lotsa pixels, looks great (I'll take the vibrance of a high-gamut display over silly refresh rates any day).

1080p is about 2 million pixels.
2560*1600 is double, about 4 mil
4k is double *again*, 8 million

 

[Nemeses]

What is it like as a 4K TV?

 

[MatTheCat]

The same case for a few other games. 4k and it turns to a crawl. I tested for about an hour, gave up and went back to 1080p. If I bought this for 4k specifically I would've felt really really done over.

Anyone else find the same thing?

I have never tried 4K but have learned the principle of placing high quality settings and good performance firmly ahead of high resolution years ago, back when 1080p was the new 'must have' thing on the block, even though it crashed previously high frame rates down into the teens. The remedy of course was for a £1000 gaming PC tech spend, on a big pile of overpriced components that would prove themselves to be 'average' within a couple of years of purchasing them.

This is a forum full off extremist gaming tech consumers who fall for every bank account raping, credit card maxing 'reason' to upgrade that they come across. One should take opinions such as:

• "once you have tried 4K, you just can't go back"
• "my GTX 980 plays everything great at 4K"
• "You need to go Sli"
• "My Sli configuration works flawlessly"
• "you need Titans"
• "Worth every penny!"
• "Who needs two kidneys anyway!"

With a huge grain of salt. They have raped their bank accounts and/or maxed out their credit cards chasing their hollow 4K über gaming PC dreams, and want you to make the same mistakes that they have in order to justify themselves.

Right now, chasing the 4K dragon entails inordinate amounts of expense, headaches, frustration, and dissatisfaction with the end result, the cost of achieving it, and the relatively short time in which steadily progressing graphics standards will render any SLI Titan X system as obsolete for high end 4K gaming in 18 months from now or less. There are even well optimised stunning looking games around right now, which a dual Titan X will not max at 60fps, at 4K.

Oddly many games I downsample seem to work pretty well at 3200x1800.

When I 'downsample' games from a higher res down to 1080p, all I noticed is my GPU getting maxed out, blurrier textures, and more frequent frame rate crashes.

Why do people do this, or is it 'different' for others?

 

[bakes0310]

Some good post in here, infact its one of the few where 4k aint made out to be the next amazing thing that we all should get. I did really want a 4k monitor next year, but maybe im better off keeping my lg 3440x1440. I love this monitor I think its great and was a nice difference going from 27" 2560x1440 to 34" and super wide.
Ive never had a 120hz/144hz so I don't know if I would like it, but ive never had a problem in all my years of gaming at 60hz.
If ocuk were closer I would go and see for myself what 4k and 144hz is like and make my decision with my own eyes. But then again I really think I would miss super wide.
I upgrade quite often about once or every other year, and I honestly cant remember when I bought something that was a night and day difference. maybe it was going from a HDD to SDD but then it wasn't huge.

 

[jdfoxx]

Would it be possible to use a 4k TV for 4k gaming?

 

[savagesam117]

Would it be possible to use a 4k TV for 4k gaming?

Yeah if the TV has a HDMI 2.0 port or display port. Otherwise you'll be running at 30hz. Which for me is not playable. I don't even like 60hz anymore.

 

[NZXT30]

you picked up a budget 4k tv to play pc games no wonder you were left unimpressed. your ips monitor will be better for that. Try a 4k ips monitor

 

[SpudMaster]

Maybe you should compare a 27" 4k screen with a 27" 1080p rather than a 40" 4k with a 27" 1080p

 

[Glanza]

1440p 144hz don't regret one bit. 4k I just can't see the appeal currently.

 

[SonniLombardi]

Look at my sig., I game at 1680x1050.

I got pretty much same rig as you but game at 1080p nicely maxed mostly.

 

[squarepusher]

1440p is the sweet spot for me. I notice a huge difference over 1080p playing on a 27inch.