Output 4k on a 1080p monitor

Sir_William707

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Mar 7, 2017
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Does increasing the resolution of a monitor beyond its native resolution damage it? I believe downsampling is what it is called. I have read that there is risk in theory, and that some people compare it to over clocking.

I've seen this type of setting in games, like Star Wars Battlefront. And I've also heard of going into your GPU control panel for it.

I'd like to try this out, especially for older games, but I don't want to hurt my monitor or GPU as well. Thanks!
 
Solution
There is DSR in the nvidia control panel and I believe that setting in battlefront is called super sampling they are very similar features. It certainly wont hurt the monitor, all that does is force the game engine to render at a higher resolution, it does not change the resolution of the monitor that is impossible. It is nothing like overclocking a monitor. It wont hurt the gpu either, though it will increase the load on the gpu and obviously decreases performance.

Using DSR or super sampling will make the image look a bit more crisp and cut down on aliasing. Though if you use DSR and set DSR smoothness too high it can make your image a bit blurry, if you set smoothness too low it will make the image too sharp and introduce aliasing.
There is DSR in the nvidia control panel and I believe that setting in battlefront is called super sampling they are very similar features. It certainly wont hurt the monitor, all that does is force the game engine to render at a higher resolution, it does not change the resolution of the monitor that is impossible. It is nothing like overclocking a monitor. It wont hurt the gpu either, though it will increase the load on the gpu and obviously decreases performance.

Using DSR or super sampling will make the image look a bit more crisp and cut down on aliasing. Though if you use DSR and set DSR smoothness too high it can make your image a bit blurry, if you set smoothness too low it will make the image too sharp and introduce aliasing.
 
Solution
In addition to what was said above, your monitor never sees the 4K image. The image is downsampled to 1080p by the GPU before being output; as far as the monitor is concerned it's no different than an image that was rendered in 1080p to start with. It definitely won't damage your monitor.
 
Thanks guys! I feel more comfortable fiddling with those settings now.

Just wondering though, on Lifehacker.com, there was an article that said, "Of course, this has downsides. It's very inefficient and will decrease performance quite a bit, and many consider it similar to overclocking—so it carries some risk of damage as well (at least in theory).

What do they mean by in theory?
 


The second part is just wrong. It will decrease performance in terms of framerate, the game engine is running at a higher resolution when you use one of those features so this will demand more from the GPU. However it is in no way similar to overclocking and there is no risk of damage, i'm not sure where whoever wrote that article is getting their information.