Running 1080p games on 4k monitor

Seb Smith · 21 Dec 2019 at 11:02

Hi Everyone,

I've recently got into PC gaming and want some advice. I bought a bundle off my friend, it consisted of a PC, monitor and everything i need for now.

The PC has a GTX 970 GPU, Intel i7 4790k CPU and an acer predator 4k moniotor (XB281HK).

i'd like to run games at 1080p and higher frame rate however the picture quality isn't great. At 4k its beautiful but frame rates are inconsistent. I mainly play Apex and a few other titles. Is there anything I can do to run at 1080p without butchering the quality?

I am new to all this so any help would be great.

Thanks

Mcnumpty2323 · 22 Dec 2019 at 00:48

1920 x 1080 is going to look rough
Because it's a 28 inch monitor
Personally 24 inch is the biggest screen 1080p
Should be seen on
Try setting 2560 x 1440 resolution and see if that helps
A gtx970 should cope with 1440p though depending on the game might need to turn down some settings

Seb Smith · 22 Dec 2019 at 11:46

I thought as much to be honest. A 24" monitor is on the list of future purchases.
Thank you for responding

Chris Beard · 23 Dec 2019 at 22:25

Radeon image sharpening would solve this issue - rendering at a lower resolution and then upscaling to 4k.

I don’t know the Nvidia equivalent, sorry.

Edit: you could also run in Window mode - that would be like using a 24” monitor!

Mcnumpty2323 · 23 Dec 2019 at 23:24

Chris Beard said:
Radeon image sharpening would solve this issue - rendering at a lower resolution and then upscaling to 4k.

I don’t know the Nvidia equivalent,

Edit: you could also run in Window mode - that would be like using a 24” monitor!

It's called nvidia DSR chris

Never tried it so no idea of how much performance hit it causes
But you are right it's worth trying anyway

Chris Beard · 23 Dec 2019 at 23:26

Mcnumpty2323 said:
It's called nvidia DSR chris

Never tried it so no idea of how much performance hit it causes
But you are right it's worth trying anyway

If it’s like Radeon Image Sharpening it should significantly improve performance!

Mcnumpty2323 · 23 Dec 2019 at 23:35

Chris Beard said:
If it’s like Radeon Image Sharpening it should significantly improve performance!

Kind of got the feeling it improves image quality
Not performance /fps
Pretty sure you take a fps hit using it
Never tried Radeon version as my last amd card was a 7970
Great card in its day

Chris Beard · 24 Dec 2019 at 00:41

You’re right! I’m thinking of Trixx boost that utilises Radeon Image Sharpening.

it’s for exactly this use case.

i can’t find an Nvidia equivalent

Mcnumpty2323 · 24 Dec 2019 at 01:37

As said could try DSR upscale to 4k

Or try 2560 x 1440
If that doesn't look too bad then the gtx970 is still a card capable of decent 1440p play
Might need to lower some settings but I remember playing witcher 3 on a gtx970 at 1440p pretty well

Chris Beard · 24 Dec 2019 at 01:51

Also could turn on integer scaling and game @1080p. Should scale perfectly

b00merang69 · 24 Dec 2019 at 02:04

DSR is basically what the SuperSampling was in the past, the game will render at the RES internally but output to a lower RES monitor like 1440p on a 1080p monitor to make it look little better or remove a CPU bottleneck.

The Frames hit will be nearly the same as if you were at 1440p on a 1440p monitor.

Smoothness is a separate setting related to it and right bellow it in the NVCP but I leave it default 33%

Chris Beard · 24 Dec 2019 at 08:45

b00merang69 said:
DSR is basically what the SuperSampling was in the past, the game will render at the RES internally but output to a lower RES monitor like 1440p on a 1080p monitor to make it look little better or remove a CPU bottleneck.

The Frames hit will be nearly the same as if you were at 1440p on a 1440p monitor.

Smoothness is a separate setting related to it and right bellow it in the NVCP but I leave it default 33%

huh - Trixx boost does the opposite; render at a lower rea than the monitor and then upscale to improve performance.

Seb Smith · 24 Dec 2019 at 10:05

Cheers guys, I've got a few things to try there.

b00merang69 · 24 Dec 2019 at 14:05

Chris Beard said:
huh - Trixx boost does the opposite; render at a lower rea than the monitor and then upscale to improve performance.

And look like poop, I advise you look up SuperSampling to learn what it is, some games still do this but call it (insert word here) Scaling < I cannot remember the name/term, you will see two RES option in the game menus.