Will a 1440p scale perfectly to 1080p?

[jkteddy77]

My big issue here is that I want to game acros 2x 1080p and 1x 1440p (all 27") in 5760x1080p. What I want to know is if a 1440p will scale down to 1080p perfectly and fill the screen.

When I tried to run my 1080p down to 1600x900p to match my other one, it creates black boxes and would not fill the screen.

With AMD's Mixed Eyefinity out now, could I just create a separate profile taht would downscale th 1440p to 1080p and fill the screen completely, and then have a setup of that and the other 2x native 1080p screens in an Eyefinity setup so I could just switch back and forth for gaming?

This idea still kind of scares me since playing with Eyefinity in CCC 14.9 did this to my monitor's identity numbers :/
http://i.imgur.com/oZgsGl4.png?1
Anyone know how I can get these to match, or at least have Windows recognize my bottom 1080p as "1", it is my primary.
This mismatch also has Windows thinking my 900p monitor can output 1080p and i get input errors :/ I even system restored, reinstalled drivers, and cleaned my program files and registry. My monitor numbers are still stuck like this

Anyways, would 1080px1440px1080p eyefinity run at 5760x1080p look normal?
I know the 1440p will look a tad blurry, but I just want to know if it will scale and fill the screen.

 

[i7Baby]

Just try it.

 

[jkteddy77]

Just try it.

just try it?

It's a $700 investment I don't want to make if it's going to be more hassle than effective.
Do you know if a 1440p set to 1080p would scale and fit all of a 1440p screen? and would I then be able to take that and pair it with 2 native 27" 1080p's?

I don't want to try it and then find out Eyefinity isn't even an option and I just wasted money on secondary monitors Ican't game on...

 

[gaborbarla]

I personally wouldn't bother, I actually converted down from 3x24" Eyefinity setup to something similar to what you want 27"1440p and 2x24" 1080p. Now I dont use surround gaming at all anymore.

I spent a lot of my time adjusting games to work properly with the eyefinity setup. It was normally very easy to get them to work, though often you needed to download a third party app. (you just use windows+p and select one of the profiles there to change from eyefinity to multi monitor setup.). Change the resolution in the game to 5760x1080 and off you go.
My issue was that most games don't scale correctly and create a very serious fisheye effect on the side monitor. I spent a large amount of time fiddling with vertical and horizontal FOV settings and it very rarely solved the problem. Over all I basically always got motion sick after about an hour of using it so I gave up on it. It looks spectacular at first but it is much less practical than it sounds. In battlefield 3 and 4 for example you can sometimes spot a guy on your left, that otherwise you wouldn't see, but then you have to actually glance there and your focus is off the center screen. Then you need to learnt to be able to move the focus from the left screen to the center screen as you can only aim on the middle screen. Due to the unsupported aspect ratio in diablo 2 you could see into parts of the game where you not supposed to be be able to and there are black areas in the backdrop which kind of ruined the effect. But fish-eyeing (things appearing much closer in the side monitors) is the biggest issue at the moment, that I couldn't fix in most games.

I believe that soon enough our screens will be wrap around monitors that will be one seamless display. Until then I am not using surround gaming. In your case if you can get the 1440p working for the main screen and 1080p on the sides, there will be a change of quality between the screens which does take a bit away from the experience, but I would rather just go for a 120hz monitor as it seems to make a much bigger difference for me in overall experience.

Also you card will struggle at times with 2x1080p and 1x1440p monitors all at once and you probably will need another one. Hope this helps.
Gabor

 

[jkteddy77]

I personally wouldn't bother, I actually converted down from 3x24" Eyefinity setup to something similar to what you want 27"1440p and 2x24" 1080p. Now I dont use surround gaming at all anymore.

I spent a lot of my time adjusting games to work properly with the eyefinity setup. It was normally very easy to get them to work, though often you needed to download a third party app. (you just use windows+p and select one of the profiles there to change from eyefinity to multi monitor setup.). Change the resolution in the game to 5760x1080 and off you go.
My issue was that most games don't scale correctly and create a very serious fisheye effect on the side monitor. I spent a large amount of time fiddling with vertical and horizontal FOV settings and it very rarely solved the problem. Over all I basically always got motion sick after about an hour of using it so I gave up on it. It looks spectacular at first but it is much less practical than it sounds. In battlefield 3 and 4 for example you can sometimes spot a guy on your left, that otherwise you wouldn't see, but then you have to actually glance there and your focus is off the center screen. Then you need to learnt to be able to move the focus from the left screen to the center screen as you can only aim on the middle screen. Due to the unsupported aspect ratio in diablo 2 you could see into parts of the game where you not supposed to be be able to and there are black areas in the backdrop which kind of ruined the effect. But fish-eyeing (things appearing much closer in the side monitors) is the biggest issue at the moment, that I couldn't fix in most games.

I believe that soon enough our screens will be wrap around monitors that will be one seamless display. Until then I am not using surround gaming. In your case if you can get the 1440p working for the main screen and 1080p on the sides, there will be a change of quality between the screens which does take a bit away from the experience, but I would rather just go for a 120hz monitor as it seems to make a much bigger difference for me in overall experience.

Also you card will struggle at times with 2x1080p and 1x1440p monitors all at once and you probably will need another one. Hope this helps.
Gabor

Thanks for your insight!
I actually plan on the 1440p to be 120-144hz once Freesync comes out. I do plan on gaming a lot on one 1440p, but I love side monitors for real estate and would use Eyefinity in racing or 3rd person games a lot more (my freind has eyefinity, I have experience with it)

so you use Fit eyefinity in CCC? How do you play 5760x1080p across 24"1080p -27"1440 - 24"1080p?
Does eyefinity make an odd resolution, then you just manually set it to 5760x1080p in your games or?
Surely the 27" is larger than the 24", do you play them with black bars on the edges of the monitor?
I have had tons of trouble trying to get Eyefinity to not pick out odd resolutions like 3520x850p when testing my current monitors.
I'm worried that I won't be able to get the them to react well with each other, but if you can do it with 24-27-24, i think i could with 2x 27"1080p and 1x 27"1440p

I know the fisheye effect you speak of. In 1st person shooters, I don't see Eyefinity being a daily driver, that's why I want a high refresh ate 1440p for Battlefield 4, and 1080p for other kinds of games I play
Titanfall actually looks really good in eyefinity, I felt that scales well.
You said you had some issues in many games, and you needed third party apps? what do you mean by that? like you needed 3rd party multiple monitor software or something else?

Also, I don't know if I need a second card right away. on my friend's monitors, my i7 and r9 290 in BF4 ran all ultra with no MSAA and maybe post processing turned down at 60+ in 5760x1080p. Only a few games I couldn't run near ultra were Crysis and Metro (had to run those medium settings).
I do plan on a second when they drop under $250 though so I can run 1440p at a high refresh rate (I think 4K is still a bit away until it is a practical resolution for gaming) Even now, single 1440p would run roughly 70-100 in 1440p with all ultra no AA (that's how 135% res scale runs ingame, which is virtual 1440p)

And just out of curiosity, what card/cards do you use for this type of setup?
You play BF a lot? JRK-77 on Origin, hit me up sometime. Always love to have more people to squad up with.

 

[gaborbarla]

> so you use Fit eyefinity in CCC? How do you play 5760x1080p across 24"1080p -27"1440 - 24"1080p?

I didn't actually I had 3x24" 1080p montors, so I don't really have experience with mixing resolutions.

>Does eyefinity make an odd resolution, then you just manually set it to 5760x1080p in your games or?

Basically, Eyefinity creates one wide screen monitor out of your 3 monitors. So your windows start button ends up on your far left screen and the desktop stretches over 3 screens. When you maximize your browser for example it takes up all 3 screens. In other words this mode is very useless in normal desktop enviroment but luckily it is easy to switch beetween modes using WIN+P key and put windows back into triple desktop setup.
The the games themselves recognise that you have a 5760x1080 (without the p, 1080p refers to 1980x1080) monitor.

> Surely the 27" is larger than the 24", do you play them with black bars on the edges of the monitor?

I didn't try multi monitors once I replaced my center 24" with a 1440p QNIX 27" screen. The resolution difference and the size difference as you say, would make it quite a funny setup. But I think it would probably work.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-eyefinity-3-panel-mixed-resolution-review,1.html

In the past all 3 monitors had to run in the same resolution for eyefinity to work, this is no longer true. But if 1440p is too much for your PC, you simply would change your 1440p resolution to 1080p (should not have any black bars) and then play. The 1080p will look a bit crappier on a 1440p due to scaling issues.

I used Eyefinity on 3x24" monitors so I didnt struggle with different sizes.

>Also, I don't know if I need a second card right away. on my friend's monitors, my i7 and r9 290 in BF4 ran all ultra with >no MSAA and maybe post processing turned down at 60+ in 5760x1080p. Only a few games I couldn't run near ultra >were Crysis and Metro (had to run those medium settings).
>I do plan on a second when they drop under $250 though so I can run 1440p at a high refresh rate (I think 4K is still a bit >away until it is a practical resolution for gaming) Even now, single 1440p would run roughly 70-100 in 1440p with all >ultra no AA (that's how 135% res scale runs ingame, which is virtual 1440p)

You can try it and see, and perhaps reduce visual quality. If you run eyefinity in full resolutions you will have 2x1080p + 1x1440p = 7963200 pixels. That is a lot of pixels and just shy of 4K is 8294400 pixels. About 4% less pixels than 4K so for all intents and purposes your card will be taking 4K strain.

It also depends on what you think of as playable. I play BF4 with a 780ti on my 1440p monitor which is overclocked to 120Hz. As soon as framerates drop to 60-80 I really start noticing it, so I rather reduce the game to lower settings to keep it above 110 frames per second.

Freesync and 120Hz is two different things. Freesync and Gsync solve tearing of the screen due to vsync being turned off. 120Hz actually can enable your monitor to display more than 60 frames (120) and your apparent smoothness if your graphic card can pump out enough frames will become much better. It is currently rare and expensive to find 1440p at 120Hz (the asus ROG Swift for example) or you can get a Qnix like mine which often allows for serious overclocking beyond 120Hz. Mine goes to 136Hz and looks amazing in BF4. Above 120Hz tearing actually becomes mostly irrelevant as long as your graphics card can hold up 120FPS+.

Gabor

 

[jkteddy77]

> so you use Fit eyefinity in CCC? How do you play 5760x1080p across 24"1080p -27"1440 - 24"1080p?

I didn't actually I had 3x24" 1080p montors, so I don't really have experience with mixing resolutions.

>Does eyefinity make an odd resolution, then you just manually set it to 5760x1080p in your games or?

Basically, Eyefinity creates one wide screen monitor out of your 3 monitors. So your windows start button ends up on your far left screen and the desktop stretches over 3 screens. When you maximize your browser for example it takes up all 3 screens. In other words this mode is very useless in normal desktop enviroment but luckily it is easy to switch beetween modes using WIN+P key and put windows back into triple desktop setup.
The the games themselves recognise that you have a 5760x1080 (without the p, 1080p refers to 1980x1080) monitor.

> Surely the 27" is larger than the 24", do you play them with black bars on the edges of the monitor?

I didn't try multi monitors once I replaced my center 24" with a 1440p QNIX 27" screen. The resolution difference and the size difference as you say, would make it quite a funny setup. But I think it would probably work.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-eyefinity-3-panel-mixed-resolution-review,1.html

In the past all 3 monitors had to run in the same resolution for eyefinity to work, this is no longer true. But if 1440p is too much for your PC, you simply would change your 1440p resolution to 1080p (should not have any black bars) and then play. The 1080p will look a bit crappier on a 1440p due to scaling issues.

I used Eyefinity on 3x24" monitors so I didnt struggle with different sizes.

>Also, I don't know if I need a second card right away. on my friend's monitors, my i7 and r9 290 in BF4 ran all ultra with >no MSAA and maybe post processing turned down at 60+ in 5760x1080p. Only a few games I couldn't run near ultra >were Crysis and Metro (had to run those medium settings).
>I do plan on a second when they drop under $250 though so I can run 1440p at a high refresh rate (I think 4K is still a bit >away until it is a practical resolution for gaming) Even now, single 1440p would run roughly 70-100 in 1440p with all >ultra no AA (that's how 135% res scale runs ingame, which is virtual 1440p)

You can try it and see, and perhaps reduce visual quality. If you run eyefinity in full resolutions you will have 2x1080p + 1x1440p = 7963200 pixels. That is a lot of pixels and just shy of 4K is 8294400 pixels. About 4% less pixels than 4K so for all intents and purposes your card will be taking 4K strain.

It also depends on what you think of as playable. I play BF4 with a 780ti on my 1440p monitor which is overclocked to 120Hz. As soon as framerates drop to 60-80 I really start noticing it, so I rather reduce the game to lower settings to keep it above 110 frames per second.

Freesync and 120Hz is two different things. Freesync and Gsync solve tearing of the screen due to vsync being turned off. 120Hz actually can enable your monitor to display more than 60 frames (120) and your apparent smoothness if your graphic card can pump out enough frames will become much better. It is currently rare and expensive to find 1440p at 120Hz (the asus ROG Swift for example) or you can get a Qnix like mine which often allows for serious overclocking beyond 120Hz. Mine goes to 136Hz and looks amazing in BF4. Above 120Hz tearing actually becomes mostly irrelevant as long as your graphics card can hold up 120FPS+.

Gabor

Hmm... as far as I've seen almost every G-Sync model has also been 120-144hz as well though, even 1440p models.
Would you advise with waiting for 1440p monitors with Freesync technologies or should I just get a Korean 1440p and try and OC it? I do need a monitor with Dispaly Port if I want to run 4 monitors on my r9 290 though :/ and I would prefer to get a freesync over a 3 year old Korean monitor model.

Also you run 60-80 with all ultra settings with 4xmsaa too with a single 780ti? I'm trying to gauge what I would need for horsepower here. I get about 45-70fps with my 290, averaging roughly 50-65fps with all Ultra settings and 4xmsaa in 135% resolution scale. A second 290 might be a very cost effective option and allow me to beat any single gpu on the market for another $250.

 

[gaborbarla]

Hmm... as far as I've seen almost every G-Sync model has also been 120-144hz as well though, even 1440p models.
Would you advise with waiting for 1440p monitors with Freesync technologies or should I just get a Korean 1440p and try and OC it? I do need a monitor with Dispaly Port if I want to run 4 monitors on my r9 290 though :/ and I would prefer to get a freesync over a 3 year old Korean monitor model.

Also you run 60-80 with all ultra settings with 4xmsaa too with a single 780ti? I'm trying to gauge what I would need for horsepower here. I get about 45-70fps with my 290, averaging roughly 50-65fps with all Ultra settings and 4xmsaa in 135% resolution scale. A second 290 might be a very cost effective option and allow me to beat any single gpu on the market for another $250.

I found some of the current gaming monitors to have bad picture quality due to having the old but fast TN technology panels. I am very happy with my IPS "korean" monitor with a tip top samsung panel which came out about 1.5 years ago and there are newer versions also with 10 bit colour panels. I have seen ASUS Rog swift with very bad backlight bleed problem for $999 and bland colours compared to my screen, I have no Backlight bleed, no perceivable blurring in black areas, no dead pixel problems, amazing colour and resolution and massive overclock capability.

I dont think I said I run Ultra settings. I don't even try Ultra settings because the game becomes massively unplayable with all the motion blur that ultra enables and occasional slowdowns. I use settings that make the game smooth and clear for multiplayer.
I use a reference cooler MSI 780ti with about 15% OC. That enables me to run BF4 on a medium to high setting, with no AA (I think it still looks better than 1080p with AA) and get mostly over 120FPS with occasional times below that but never really below 85.

 

[jkteddy77]

Hmm... as far as I've seen almost every G-Sync model has also been 120-144hz as well though, even 1440p models.
Would you advise with waiting for 1440p monitors with Freesync technologies or should I just get a Korean 1440p and try and OC it? I do need a monitor with Dispaly Port if I want to run 4 monitors on my r9 290 though :/ and I would prefer to get a freesync over a 3 year old Korean monitor model.

Also you run 60-80 with all ultra settings with 4xmsaa too with a single 780ti? I'm trying to gauge what I would need for horsepower here. I get about 45-70fps with my 290, averaging roughly 50-65fps with all Ultra settings and 4xmsaa in 135% resolution scale. A second 290 might be a very cost effective option and allow me to beat any single gpu on the market for another $250.

I found some of the current gaming monitors to have bad picture quality due to having the old but fast TN technology panels. I am very happy with my IPS "korean" monitor with a tip top samsung panel which came out about 1.5 years ago and there are newer versions also with 10 bit colour panels. I have seen ASUS Rog swift with very bad backlight bleed problem for $999 and bland colours compared to my screen, I have no Backlight bleed, no perceivable blurring in black areas, no dead pixel problems, amazing colour and resolution and massive overclock capability.

I dont think I said I run Ultra settings. I don't even try Ultra settings because the game becomes massively unplayable with all the motion blur that ultra enables and occasional slowdowns. I use settings that make the game smooth and clear for multiplayer.
I use a reference cooler MSI 780ti with about 15% OC. That enables me to run BF4 on a medium to high setting, with no AA (I think it still looks better than 1080p with AA) and get mostly over 120FPS with occasional times below that but never really below 85.

Hmm, very fast. 15% OC is a lot.

I would definitely shoot for a pls or ips display, no doubt... I'm not getting a TN panel, but I need a monitor with a Display Port so I can use all 4 monitors on my 290.
Thinking of this panel:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/First-FSM-270YV-LED-DP-HDMI-27inch-2560x1440-S-IPS-Monitor-Free-shipping-/221127224470?pt=Computer_Monitors&hash=item337c35ac96
It has a S-IPS and
but again, the Qnix and X-Star 2710 are still the only panels that really OC stable to 120hz :/