quick question regarding 1080/1440p on a 4k monitor

garyfl

garyfl

garyfl

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So I'm looking to get a 4k monitor near Xmas, I know gaming isn't up to scscratch on them atm and I'm reluctant to spend money on like 3 gpus, so I'd use it for my audio production.

The 4k would be perfect for that desktop environment, but my question is this - are you able to run 1440 or 1080p natively on them ? And do they work well ? Then obviously as gfx cards get more feasable I can crank up the res.
 
1080 looked crap on my 4k screen, 1440 a little better but still had jagged edges on things like videos etc, why not buy a cheap second 290 and then play games and use the desktop at 4K? I had 2 290's running 4K and gaming was fine, don't be put off by people telling you that you need 3 £500 cards to run it, you don't. :)
 
I dunno, i dont pay for the electric but i still feel tight, what id actually be going for is sli 970
 
Clov!s said:
1080 looked crap on my 4k screen, 1440 a little better but still had jagged edges on things like videos etc, why not buy a cheap second 290 and then play games and use the desktop at 4K? I had 2 290's running 4K and gaming was fine, don't be put off by people telling you that you need 3 £500 cards to run it, you don't. :)
Click to expand...

OP, sorry to 'jack your thread, but I have a Tri-X 290 as well and am planning to get a 4k screen (mainly as its only a few quid more than 1440p...!).

@ Clov's - I'm (hopedfully) getting a 4k screen within the next 2 weeks, but I'm only going to have a single 290 for what looks like a few months. My plan was to desktop at 4k and just game at 1440 until I can either get a stonking deal on another 290 (would have to be another tri-x as my OCD will not allow it) or get a new card/two after Xmas.

You said 1080p looks crap, but is that just to you playing at 4k for a while? Does it not just look like 1080p on a 28inch monitor (or 1440p)? Or is it something with some scaling issues or whatever?

Thing is I can either have another GPU or a new screen this time round. A new GPU wont gain me anything, as I'll still have a 1080p monitor and my single 290 already gets me max settings. A 4k screen would at least grant me some more real estate, but if I can't game at 1080 with it looking worse than I might have to rethink the entire plan!

Thanks!
 
1080/1440 doesnt look crap on a 4K monitor, 1080 looks just how it would normally look on a 28" screen - a little stretched but no big deal. 1080 is more suited for 23/24" screens as we know. 1440 looks fine on a 28" screen. Neither 1080/1440 look as good as 4K.
Saying all of this if you bought another 290 Tri-X (which is a cracking card) overclocked them a little it'll be more than enough to run all of todays games in 4k. No-one needs 3 GPU's for 4K
 
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1440 is fine on my 4K Samsung

Here's a 100% screen grab of this post

Easy to switch to 4K for Grid2 which looks awesome

 
No, I don't think any 4K monitors can run those resolution natively. they can run them, but it won't be native.

I agree with Clov!s, 1440p and 1080p look worse on a 4K screen than on a 1080p (or 1440p) screen.
I've got a 1080p screen sat next to my 4K screen and the difference even on the desktop is noticable. I'd rather use a 1080p screen at 1080p than a 4K screen at 1080p.
I also find 4K to be too high for a 28" monitor as all the text is too small. I have to increase the resolution scaling to make it usable, but that's losing screen real-estate.

I think the reason 1080p and 1440p look so bad on a 4K is down to the pixels. At 1080p it basically means using 4 pixels in a square to represent the same thing as 1 pixel on a 1080p screen. Which seems fine in theory, but for me it just doesn't work, maybe it's the spacing between pixels that look wrong when it supposed to be 1 pixel but is 4 with spacing involved. Not sure, just guessing here.
but with 1440p the scaling doesn't even work so well. You're trying to stretch 1 pixel on a 1440p screen to cover 1.333 pixels on a 4K screen, which it can't do, so will either have to use 1 or 2 pixels. Neither of which quite working.

I'm now starting to wish that I'd gone with the Swift instead of my 4K monitor. So maybe a nice 1440p monitor is worth considering instead of a cheap 4K monitor?
Hopefully you'll be able to run at 1440p ok and it'll give you a 33% larger resolution.

EDIT: As an experiment,why not try reducing your resolution on your 1080p monitor and seeing what you think. If you can go down to 960*540 or 1440*810.
 
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1080p and especially 1440p look worse on a 4K screen (ignoring 1:1 mapping) - depending on the panel most handle 1080p fairly well as its a round division of the number of pixels its not perfect as there is a slight softening of the image but usually its pretty good, 1440p will have some pixel boundary issues - given the density of pixels it has to work with it won't look totally rubbish but you will see some oddities especially on smaller text.

(Some of the 4K panels have "clear vision" or variants of the feature which does significantly reduce the problems of for instance trying to map 2560x1440 over 3840x2160 though it slightly changes the fidelity of the image in doing so and isn't perfect even then).

Suffice to say my 4K panel is being put to one side for the swift (which will be replacing my XL2420T entirely) - still keeping the 4K panel as its very useful to have but sure doesn't fulfil my needs personally at this time.


EDIT: Its a horrid picture but this is one I took quickly before to show someone else http://aten-hosted.com/images/4k1.png 1920x1080 on a 4K panel on the left, native 1920x1080 on the right as you can see there is some smoothing/softening but nothing dramatic.
 
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I'm looking at finally moving from a 1200p 27in monitor and I'm having a similar dilemma to the OP. My hardware just isn't capable of gaming at 4k yet, to add another 290 would mean a new PSU... It just doesn't sit right buying a 1440p when for similar money I could get a nice, shiney, future proof 4k bad boy. Also, would the jusmp to 1440p be worthwile? But if by running at a lower resolution than its native drastically reduces image quality (other than the obvious drop in res) that would annoy me every day i'm gaming on it... What to do....
 
I know what you mean about future proofing, but by the time 4K becomes the norm I'd guess there will be a bigger choice of monitor available and hopefully FreeSync compatible ones at 4K and maybe even 120/144Hz or more too.

Early adoption isn't always the best way forward.
 
I don't consider the current 4K panels future proof as such (though the samsung has a lot of positive reports which ironically is the only one I've not been able to try) - I think the next round of 4K panels will be a big step forward over the current ones.
 
Pooh said:
1440 is fine on my 4K Samsung

Here's a 100% screen grab of this post

Easy to switch to 4K for Grid2 which looks awesome

Click to expand...

You know a screen grab will just show the resolution you're running it? It won't show how the resolution is on a display with a higher native resolution. So effectively it's just a screen grab of 2560x1440.
 
Rroff said:
I don't consider the current 4K panels future proof as such (though the samsung has a lot of positive reports which ironically is the only one I've not been able to try) - I think the next round of 4K panels will be a big step forward over the current ones.
Click to expand...

There isn't really such a thing as future proof anyway, especially when it comes to monitors, and there's no irony about that situation at all!
 
OP, you'll probably find UHD with lowered settings to be better looking than a lower res with higher settings. It of course depends on the settings, but you can at least get away with using less AA due to the smaller pixels, which can mitigate some of the performance fall off. But as it stands, the performance fall off isn't so big that to run at 3840x2160, up from 2560x1440, you'd have to turn the settings down so much that the game would look poo.
 
I agree with Clover and Google. 1080 or 1440 does not look good on a 4K screen. Owner of a ASUS PB287, anything but its native 3840x2160 resolution didnt look good.
 
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