Using a 4k monitor at a non-native resolution

[B3NDY]

So at the moment I have a single 780ti and I'm still running a cheap 1080p monitor so I was going to upgrade to a 1440p monitor and run at that resolution since that seemed like a reasonable jump in quality.

What I noticed was that a few 4k monitors such as the ASUS PB287Q are almost the same price so I was thinking why not get one of those so then I wouldn't have to buy yet another monitor when I get the GPU horsepower to drive 4k.

Now I know a single 780ti isn't really enough to drive 4k so I was planning on running the monitor at 1440p for now and then when I get either a second GPU or upgrade in some way that allows me to drive 4k then ill run it then.

My question is that if I run at 1440p or 1080p on a 4k monitor, will it look the same as running it at that resolution when it is the monitors native resolution or will it look kinda blurry because it won't be the 4k native resolution?

 

[jimmydalton]

Of course it will degrade in quality. However, assuming you use HDMI cable, the display is quite good at 1080p. You can also run games at 1080p without losing too much quality at the cost of more fps. Notice that desktop display looks worse at 1080p, but most games will look fine.

I have 900p native res HDMI monitor, but I run games at 720p, and it looks fine.

 

[B3NDY]

Of course it will degrade in quality. However, assuming you use HDMI cable, the display is quite good at 1080p. You can also run games at 1080p without losing too much quality at the cost of more fps. Notice that desktop display looks worse at 1080p, but most games will look fine.

I have 900p native res HDMI monitor, but I run games at 720p, and it looks fine.

So if I run the desktop at 4k so it wont look too blurry and text won't blur and then just run games at lower resolutions, will the games not be noticeably blurry and so I will kinda get the best of both by being able to have lots or desktop space while still being able to play games at the resolution I choose?

Also, if the resolution I play at is closer to the native 4k, will there be less blur or does that not really make a difference?

 

[jimmydalton]

I can say yes, according to my experience. However, I'm not sure with higher res, such as from 1440p to 1080p.

 

[B3NDY]

I can say yes, according to my experience. However, I'm not sure with higher res, such as from 1440p to 1080p.

Okay, well thanks for your help. I think I'll go ahead and get the 4k monitor!

 

[jimmydalton]

I can say yes, according to my experience. However, I'm not sure with higher res, such as from 1440p to 1080p.

Okay, well thanks for your help. I think I'll go ahead and get the 4k monitor!

You're welcome.
If you think the game is too blurry, try setting your display to the same resolution as your game.

 

[-Lone-]

Well, I don't know about monitors, but for my 4k UHD TV, whenever I go above or lower than it's native resolution, I get about 1 inch of the edge of the display off. Let's say I go up to 4096 x 2160 or down to 1920 x 1080, my display's edge gets cut off a bit. An example is if you have a picture frame, and the picture you have will be cut off by the edges because it is bigger than the frame, so you can only see what is in that frame. I hope you get what I'm trying to say. But then again you're talking about a monitor, I'm on a TV, so I'm not sure if it will be the same for the monitor. Hope that helped

Edit: Nevermind, now I know, it is the same on monitors