4k Gaming Monitors Questions

[LCDArcade]

I have always been a 1080p gamer for as long as I remember even with my top of line system I have now which uses a 980ti and a 6800k. Recently I've been thinking about getting a 4k gaming monitor since my interest was peaked after buying a 4k TV this past holiday but I had a couple of questions first.

Even today there are still no single cards capable of running games at 4k steady 60fps.

- With that in mind let's say I wanted to run my monitor nativity at 4k but play games at 1440p or something. Would that make the picture look worse if the game isn't running at the monitor's native resolution? For example running a game like Diablo3 at native 1080 and DSR scaling it up (which I've tried and it looks terrible).

- 144hz is great but most of the games I play right now in my current rig are not even capable of running at 144fps. IS there a benefit to look for a 144hz 4k monitor or is 60hz better?

- I play a lot of fighting games on PC like Killer Instinct and Street Fighter V, so 1ms response times are important. What monitor would you recommend for this.

[Wramp]

i would recommend you not go that route quite yet, and instead try something like The Asus ROG Swift PG279Q Link:PC Gamer's Best Gaming Monitors but there are some recommended 4K bad boys on there as well. GL in your hunt.

[Lathais]

I agree with Wramp. If you are really only planning on playing at 1440p, why not just get a 1440p monitor?

[Artorius]

I have always been a 1080p gamer for as long as I remember even with my top of line system I have now which uses a 980ti and a 6800k. Recently I've been thinking about getting a 4k gaming monitor since my interest was peaked after buying a 4k TV this past holiday but I had a couple of questions first.

The resolution increase is pretty meaningless unless you want to buy a high-DPI monitor (something in the 23.6"~32" range instead of a 40"+) to get better rendered fonts or need the extra real state for real work. With that said, what makes UHD ("4K" as you call it) meaningful in televisions is that now they've finally decided to use a wider colorspace and to increase the dynamic range.

The current consumer grade "4K" monitors we have in the market are all kind of lame 8bit sRGB monitors that are already kind of obsolete by design. The PC industry will simply follow the entertainment industry just like we did with the previous standard (sRGB 8it FHD) and UHD monitors that also are HDR10 and DCI-P3 compatible will become more common. (Mind you, we've already seen some of them in CES)

Windows isn't a color managed OS yet either (if you use a wide-gamut display and try to display something that is in sRGB it'll simply look more saturated than it should under Windows.) so the transition will be kind of a pain, but I'm hoping MS will figure out how to fix the issue in their end with one of Windows 10's big upgrades.

Even today there are still no single cards capable of running games at 4k steady 60fps.

Yeah this is somewhat true but depending on the size you can literally just turn AA and some other mostly irrelevant settings off which help a lot with the framerates. VEGA is also going to be released soon and hopefully there's a product in the lineup that is better than our current offerings. But even with something like a Titan XP you would already be able to get 50~60 FPS in most recent games.

- With that in mind let's say I wanted to run my monitor nativity at 4k but play games at 1440p or something. Would that make the picture look worse if the game isn't running at the monitor's native resolution? For example running a game like Diablo3 at native 1080 and DSR scaling it up (which I've tried and it looks terrible).

Yes it would because there would be scaling to fit the image. The best you can do to hope for a somewhat genuine experience is using a resolution that is a direct multiple of the native resolution so the monitor/GPU (depending on which one of the two is doing the scaling) can simply repeat each pixel N times and fill the empty slots. In the case of a UHD display (3840x2160) running things in FHD (1920x1080) would probably give you sharper results than running them in QHD (2560x1440) simply because when you run in FHD you can literally repeat each pixel 4 times. With QHD this isn't possible and the monitor/GPU would most likely do the upscaling using a billinear algorithm which is somewhat blurry by default.

To exemplify my point I'll use this 8bit art of Mario:



This one is a 150x150 art of Mario, and is representing FHD in my comparison. When it's displayed on a UHD monitor "with fidelity", getting each pixel repeated 4 times you get something that looks more or less like this:



And now we'll upscale a 200x200 art of mario shown below:



This 200x200 art of Mario represents QHD in my comparison, and in the upscaling logic pixels can't be simply repeated. The result after the upscaling to fit in a UHD monitor would look like something close to this:



And you can clearly notice that it doesn't look the same, it's somewhat blurry right?

Yeah, here the difference:



This comparison was made assuming the upscaling is "smart" enough to know when it can get better results simply repeating pixels instead of fabricating new ones though, some monitors might use the same scaling logic in every single scenario which would prove this point invalid. Meanwhile some high-end TVs can "fabricate" pixels well enough to make the original content look better than it previously was sometimes.

This is what waifu2x produces from the Mario art, it's almost as "good" as simply repeating frames:



It's also taking in consideration that I'm only trying to show how blurry things may look like. Repeating frames is always better in those extremely well defined 8bit arts, which isn't always true for more elaborate images that aren't that simple.

- 144hz is great but most of the games I play right now in my current rig are not even capable of running at 144fps. IS there a benefit to look for a 144hz 4k monitor or is 60hz better?

When you buy a monitor you generally can keep it for a long time, add this to the fact that almost any quality display nowadays is at least 120Hz for film playback reasons then I'd say yes. Movies/video content in general is always in 23.976fps, a 60Hz display will cause judder due to 3:2 pull-down. Anything that is multiple of 24 works but we've decided to use 120 to also make 3D possible, and then switched to 144Hz to eliminate judder in 3D content.

Even if you don't care about media consumption performance, and from your gaming PoV it doesn't seem to make much sense since you won't really be able to push 144 frames in UHD, I'd look at it as future-proofing myself. You literally won't have any reason whatsoever to buy another monitor in a long time unless it breaks. But I'd strongly recommend you to wait until we have real UHD monitors in the market, which will also make the 120Hz/144Hz options more common (I think there's only one available right now).

- I play a lot of fighting games on PC like Killer Instinct and Street Fighter V, so 1ms response times are important. What monitor would you recommend for this.

You know, when you increase the pixel count you generally increase signal processing lag (isn't the same as response time, but contributes to the total display lag) and I find it extremely unlikely that something that checks all the marks will show up in the near future. If you just want the UHD resolution for whatever reason and want it to be fast then there are a bunch of TN UHD monitors in the market that would do the trick. They're all 60Hz from what I remember though, if you want a 120Hz panel you'd need to go with a TV and then the signal processing lag would screw you. They also don't really tend to accept UHD@4:4:4@120Hz even when they always refresh at 120Hz. (Some make it possible for you to run FHD@4:4:4@120 if you want though, mainly TVs from Sony and from Panasonic).

Edit: Sorry for the long post, I just tend to get carried away when the subject is the one in question.

[Sturmbringe]

Don't buy a 4k TV for gaming. Here's why explained by Linus@NCIX TECH TIPS:



My own experience: Gaming on TV's with no GSYNC or FREESYNC tends to give you screen tearing issues. Also, as noted by Linus in the video, moving objects (think of GTAV for instance) tend to lag on TVs.

If you still want an awesome gaming experience, I recommend you buy an Acer Predator X34 34 inch 3440X1440 100Hz monitor which I own.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator.../dp/B016GNX4SE

[Denpepe]

just wait for this thing to come out http://www.anandtech.com/show/11014/...cip3-and-gsync

[Lilly32]

my Samsung HDR TV that I use as my monitor has a 240 refresh rate.

[Artorius]

my Samsung HDR TV that I use as my monitor has a 240 refresh rate.

No it doesn't. It's a 120Hz display at best, marketed as "240Hz turbo boost random edgy name smooth video" to deceive people.

[LCDArcade]

Thanks for all the tips/advice.

I'm still considering getting an Ultrawide monitor because I think they are freaking cool. Do all blizzard games support 21:9 resolutions?

[Artorius]

Thanks for all the tips/advice.

I'm still considering getting an Ultrawide monitor because I think they are freaking cool. Do all blizzard games support 21:9 resolutions?

I think Overwatch doesn't on purpose because it tries to be a competitive game (and it's not that it doesn't work, but you'll see less than someone playing in a normal 16:9 monitor because your FoV will be a 16:9 FoV zoomed in). The others should work fine.

[Devolved]

I had a 4k AMH409u (korean) died after 13 months just out of warranty, I wouldn't bother yet with 4k, not unless you have a beast of a system and can stand 60hz.

Just got a cf791 100hz 34inch curved ultrawide, it's like sex for the eyes.

[Deleted]

snip

And this is why you always wait for Artorius' reply before buying a monitor.

Thanks Art, even though I wasn't looking for a screen, your explanations are always a joy to read.

[Artorius]

And this is why you always wait for Artorius' reply before buying a monitor.

Thanks Art, even though I wasn't looking for a screen, your explanations are always a joy to read.

Thanks for the kind words, reading it after waking up put a smile in my face and you already made my day =)

[Deleted]

Personally I'm waiting for this baby to be released: Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ.
Although you'll need 1080 in SLI to be able to run 4k at 100+fps.

[DanielThomas]

Hello everyone!I'm Daniel, I have been using gaming monitors from couple of years. And I must tell you that Acer Predator and Asus MG278Q both are the best 4k Gaming Monitor. You can check out their reviews online.

[VooDsXo]

I have always been a 1080p gamer for as long as I remember even with my top of line system I have now which uses a 980ti and a 6800k. Recently I've been thinking about getting a 4k gaming monitor since my interest was peaked after buying a 4k TV this past holiday but I had a couple of questions first.

Even today there are still no single cards capable of running games at 4k steady 60fps.

- With that in mind let's say I wanted to run my monitor nativity at 4k but play games at 1440p or something. Would that make the picture look worse if the game isn't running at the monitor's native resolution? For example running a game like Diablo3 at native 1080 and DSR scaling it up (which I've tried and it looks terrible).

- 144hz is great but most of the games I play right now in my current rig are not even capable of running at 144fps. IS there a benefit to look for a 144hz 4k monitor or is 60hz better?

- I play a lot of fighting games on PC like Killer Instinct and Street Fighter V, so 1ms response times are important. What monitor would you recommend for this.

There is a 23" Asus 4k that is roughly $330~ on average, Idk if I'd opt for above 1440p yet just because the actual optimization of 4k is still in its infancy for video cards. That and generally speaking 1440p has a much larger range of variety and features available.

[kidstechno]

If you still want an awesome gaming experience, I recommend you buy an Acer Predator X34 34 inch 3440X1440 100Hz monitor which I own.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator.../dp/B016GNX4SE

Not everyone can afford a $1200 monitor brah. Just sayin'.

Regular 1440p monitors from Korea are 200-300$ if you want to go cheap without many options far as bezel or outputs
TN 1440p 144hz panels are probably around 400-600$ depending on sales and size (i.e. Dell S2716DG) as well as features (Freesync vs. G-Sync etc)
IPS 1440p 144hz panels are 649$+ with most of them around 700-800$ (Acer, Viewsonic)