playing 1440p on a 4k monitor

[Alister Allen]

Hey,

I'm planning on building a pc. I want to game at 4k, however many demanding games will come out in the future that is hard to handle 4k at with the current GPU's. I am planning on buying a gtx 980 ti. So is it ok if i buy a 4k monitor, and then like on the demanding games i switch to 1440p to get 60fps? Will it look as good as the 1440p in the 1440p monitors? Please tell me, ive been looking for a answer to this for a while.

Thank you, I'm waiting

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

1440 on a 4k panel won't look as good as 1440 on a 1440 panel. Once you leave the 1:1 pixel mapping, you will introduce a slight blur, and lost detail. If you think that you will spend most of your time playing in 2560x1440, then buy a 2k monitor instead of a 4k.

2560 * 1440 = 3686400 (pixels)
3840 * 2160 = 8294400 (pixels)

8294400 / 3686400 = 2.25 (times more demanding than 1440)


~All the best!

 

[tical2399]

1440 on a 4k panel won't look as good as 1440 on a 1440 panel. Once you leave the 1:1 pixel mapping, you will introduce a slight blur, and lost detail. If you think that you will spend most of your time playing in 2160x1440, then buy a 2k monitor instead of a 4k.

2160 * 1440 = 3110400 (pixels)
3840 * 2160 = 8294400 (pixels)

8294400 / 3110400 = 2.66 (times more demanding than 1440)


~All the best!

1440p is 2560 x 1440

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

So it is, my mistake--will edit.

 

[chenw]

If going down to 1440p monitor is your main plan, then it is better to get an actual 1440p with 144hz monitor and DSR your games up to 4k if your GPU can handle it, rather than the other way round.

1440p monitor displaying a 4k image due to DSR will have blurring, but the blurring can be eliminated largely by using DSR's built in smoothing function. The blurriness of displaying a 1440p image on a 4k monitor you are at the mercy of the monitor's scaler. Though I don't think even 1080p image on a 4k screen is blur free (even though it should be).

I personally choose my monitor native resolution on the minimum resolution I am going to play games at, not normal or maximum, because of the above reason.

 

[jaymthespinoza]

What if someone wants to watch 4k content but wishes to play at 1440p until they get a better graphics card?

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

Here's the thing about monitors, and displays in general. Not all are made equal, but overscanning, underscanning or losing 1:1 pixel mapping is something you should avoid. Another thing is that it won't always look bad. If you're a videophile, yes- yes it will look absolutely terrible, and you will avoid it like the plague. But as for everyone else, no. A great way of knowing is if you are fine watching YouTube videos, or online streams in general. They are compressed and might show artifacts. If you are absolutely fine watching a video on a much lower resolution, 480 for instance. Then you will probably notice it, is it a problem? You'll only be able to tell after you experienced it. People who buy their new shiny 1080 TV's likely won't change it's picture settings, because well... They overscan by default. TV's are typically at 16:9 which is not 1:1 pixel mapping. Are people fine with it? Absolutely. If you avoid researching it, you won't be disappointed either. Because you'll never know what it would of looked like if you did it properly.