gaming at 4K = the future?

nightrider1470 · 10 Oct 2012 at 11:33

Just wondering with hints that the PS4 will support it and dsiplays starting to build their hardware around it.

Do current graphic card support this resolution? + powerful enough to game on High settings?

Yaayuh! · 10 Oct 2012 at 11:34

PS3 @ 4K?..... no.

PS4 @ 4K? Unlikely given the fact that the TV's won't be mainstream for quite a few years yet.

Gimpymoo · 10 Oct 2012 at 11:37

1080p is not even mainstream yet.

There are still a LARGE number of people with 576i televisions.

Raventu · 10 Oct 2012 at 11:37

Not for a while yet... and oh goodness please let it not be consoles first...
too many ports. Am I destined to hate gaming in the future due to everything on PC being badly ported from a console game?

spoffle · 10 Oct 2012 at 11:50

It wouldn't surprise me if PS4 had 4K support, but playing games in native 4K? No chance.

Current PC graphics cards are more than capable of playing at 4K and beyond.

I current play games at 1.5x that of 4K resolution across 3x 2560x1440 displays, and I haven't even got a top end graphics card.

agnes · 10 Oct 2012 at 11:54

Huge difference between displaying at 4k, rendering at 4k and upscaling at 4k.

Consoles, will upscale and display at 4k, render at much lower.

PC's can easily do all 3 these days at 4k and above.

Pottsey · 10 Oct 2012 at 11:58

mobiles are moving towards 4k with next gen mobile graphics chips supporting 4k. So it’s only a matter of time before consoles join the game.

If Sony have foresight a PS4 with 4k makes sense. Would be a notable advantage in a few years when 4k TV are mainstream.

Jokester · 10 Oct 2012 at 12:33

It'll be at least 10 years before 4k TVs are available in the mainstream, another 5-10 before they are common.

Witcher1979 · 10 Oct 2012 at 12:45

Gimpymoo said:
1080p is not even mainstream yet.

There are still a LARGE number of people with 576i televisions.

This ^^^

Hell can't even watch Sky or freesat in 1080p yet.

JeditOjanen · 10 Oct 2012 at 12:51

Jokester said:
It'll be at least 10 years before 4k TVs are available in the mainstream, another 5-10 before they are common.

Revise those estimates down by at least 50%. The first 4k TVs will be out by the end of next year, most new top-end TVs will be 4k by 2015 and you'll start seeing cheaper 4ks by 2017.

Jokester · 10 Oct 2012 at 13:03

JeditOjanen said:
Revise those estimates down by at least 50%. The first 4k TVs will be out by the end of next year, most new top-end TVs will be 4k by 2015 and you'll start seeing cheaper 4ks by 2017.

We'll see, there's no plans to start broadcast of 4k content at all at the moment, we're still transitioning over to digital and HD after years.

I wouldn't let 100" £20k specialist niche screens get you hopes up that in 5 years we will be anywhere near considering 4k screens as being mainstream.

Disco Boy · 10 Oct 2012 at 13:06

Is there actually a point in a 4k TV? You'd have to sit very close or have a very large screen to actually tell the difference...

WingZero30 · 10 Oct 2012 at 13:21

Jokester said:
It'll be at least 10 years before 4k TVs are available in the mainstream, another 5-10 before they are common.

This

Disco Boy said:
Is there actually a point in a 4k TV? You'd have to sit very close or have a very large screen to actually tell the difference...

and this.

V4NT0M · 10 Oct 2012 at 13:44

agnes said:
Huge difference between displaying at 4k, rendering at 4k and upscaling at 4k.

Consoles, will upscale and display at 4k, render at much lower.

PC's can easily do all 3 these days at 4k and above.

I guess it depends on your definition of easily. A setup that will run the newest games at 4k is not a cheap one.

PS4 will not run games natively at 4k, to optimize for 4k developers would have to dumb down their games and plenty of people don't even have HD sets yet. It's like the current generation, any game could have been made to run at 1080p but the vast majority of games are 720p or less.

1080p will be the resolution developers aim for.

I HOPE!

Dist · 10 Oct 2012 at 13:51

I'm still using my 1280x1024@60Hz CRT, so 4k would be a bit out of my reach even if it did start to get implemented

4K does seem like the natural progression of things, but I think it's a bit too early to think about seeing it in mainstream consoles or on monitors anytime soon.

Freddie1980 · 10 Oct 2012 at 14:18

From what I've seen you don't want to using 4K screens because the refresh rate is really low (something like 25hz which means 25 FPS...............so in actually fact that would be ideal for a console).

spoffle · 10 Oct 2012 at 14:44

Freddie1980 said:
From what I've seen you don't want to using 4K screens because the refresh rate is really low (something like 25hz which means 25 FPS...............so in actually fact that would be ideal for a console).

You think it'll stay like that? :eek:

The problem generally is bandwidth limitations, well previously, that's why it was 4k at a low refresh rate. Digital interconnects like display port now can easily support the bandwidth requirements for 4K at a higher refresh rate.

Yaayuh! · 11 Oct 2012 at 10:32

Freddie1980 said:
From what I've seen you don't want to using 4K screens because the refresh rate is really low (something like 25hz which means 25 FPS...............so in actually fact that would be ideal for a console).

Most I've seen had normal refresh rates and a Sony 4K TV with 100Hz base refresh rate.

There will obviously be a HDMI bandwidth issue, but HDMI bandwidth is generally rubbish, we need a new version or DisplayPort

ObixConstant · 11 Oct 2012 at 10:53

Isn't it just going to be very smart Upscalling. I was reading an article on engadget a few weeks ago explaining how it maintains the picture quality, even with the increase in resolution. It's definitely realistic for the PS4, but it won't come close to matching a similar offering on PC at the time.. you can be sure of that.

Duff-Man · 11 Oct 2012 at 10:57

Rossi~ said:
Most I've seen had normal refresh rates and a Sony 4K TV with 100Hz base refresh rate.

There will obviously be a HDMI bandwidth issue, but HDMI bandwidth is generally rubbish, we need a new version or DisplayPort

The "best" interface we have right now is DP1.2. I'll quote what I've written before on bandwidth / refresh limitations for high-res screens:

Displayport 1.2, with a quad-lane interface, can manage ~17Gb/s. That's enough for 120Hz at 2560×1600, or around 60Hz at "4k" resolution. To get 120Hz at "4k" you would need, at least, two DP1.2 connectors. The GPU would need to output (say) alternate frames from each displayport adaptor. Either that, or output half the image from one port and half from the other.

New standards are always on the horizon, but using an existing displayport interface, the obvious way to increase bandwidth is to use more multiple displayport adaptors. For 4k at 120Hz you would need at least two DP1.2 adaptors.

For "8k" (i.e. 4320p) you're looking at 4 adaptors for 60Hz, or 8 (!!) for 120Hz. But that's silly bandwidth - for 8K TVs at 120Hz we really need entirely new standards for data transfer. 8K is far enough into the future (for mass adoption anyway) that we shouldn't be considering it in terms of displayport 1.2.

Note that HDMI 1.4 (the latest and highest bandwidth spec of HDMI) has around half the bandwidth of DP1.2, and so would be capable of only around 30Hz on a 4k screen.