Any benefit to displaying 2k or 4k resolution on a 1080 monitor

[steelo]

Hi everyone,

 

I read a few articles online about how through down sampling (I believe that's what it was called) you can display 2k or 4k resolution on a 1080 monitor (kind of) They claim that it will produce a 'richer' sharper image, especially during gaming. I'm just curious if this is in fact true and worth the cost in performance. I understand that trying to display a higher resolution than the monitor can support will probably make the display look worse and that a 1080 monitor isn't magically going to gain more pixels. However, will it eliminate some of the pixelation in games?

 

If I have a GPU that can handle down sampling from 2k or 4k to 1080p, is there any benefit? 

[Midnitewolf]

Well I honestly don't have any technological knowledge about this, but I do know that when I view a youtube video of a game uploaded at 4k on my 1080p monitor is has a much sharper image quality than watching a youtube video of the same game uploaded at 1080p so there might be some truth behind down sampling to get a better quality picture.  

[minibois]

14 minutes ago, steelo said:

If I have a GPU that can handle down sampling from 2k or 4k to 1080p, is there any benefit? 

If I were you, I would honestly just try it out.

Personally I don't like non round multiplications (e.g. 1440p on a 1080p is a 1.33 times multiplier if memory serves me right, whereas 2160p is 2x in both width and height), but your mileage may vary.

 

The name Nvidia gives this technology is DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution). When you try to display a 2160p image on 1080p, it's kind of a similar effect as using Anti-aliasing. You are taking a large picture and pushing it into a smaller image. That reduces certain artifacts, like 'jaggies' in the same way Anti-aliasing removes them. AA uses a different way of achieving this though

[aisle9]

DSR works by rendering the image at a higher resolution (be that 2K or 4K), then samples the improved image back to 1080p. It's anti-aliasing on steroids. It's not going to magically give you 4K quality, but it will dramatically smooth out the image you see at the expense of framerate. If you've got, for example, an RTX 2070 and a 1080p 60Hz monitor, DSR is totally worth it because that 2070 is way overpowered for your display.

[steelo]

4 minutes ago, minibois said:

If I were you, I would honestly just try it out.

Personally I don't like non round multiplications (e.g. 1440p on a 1080p is a 1.33 times multiplier if memory serves me right, whereas 2160p is 2x in both width and height), but your mileage may vary.

 

The name Nvidia gives this technology is DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution). When you try to display a 2160p image on 1080p, it's kind of a similar effect as using Anti-aliasing. You are taking a large picture and pushing it into a smaller image. That reduces certain artifacts, like 'jaggies' in the same way Anti-aliasing removes them. AA uses a different way of achieving this though

Thanks, I will be getting a RX5700 in the next few days...I believe AMD refers to it as virtual super resolution? Do you believe this GPU is powerful enough to downsample, say 2k to 1080 (to give it a round number) and maintain 60 fps?

 

I could try it on my current RX570 just to see if the images look clearer but the frame rates might be ugly...LOL

[minibois]

3 minutes ago, steelo said:

Thanks, I will be getting a RX5700 in the next few days...I believe AMD refers to it as virtual super resolution? Do you believe this GPU is powerful enough to downsample, say 2k to 1080 (to give it a round number) and maintain 60 fps?

 

I could try it on my current RX570 just to see if the images look clearer but the frame rates might be ugly...LOL

Yep, Virtual Super Resolution. Can be enabled in the Radeon Settings panel. I kinda glanced over part of your post where you mentioned '1080' and my mind immediately thought you had a GTX 1080  

The 5700 non-XT is powerful enough for 60fps gaming at 1440p. 4K might be difficult at Ultra, but it depends on the game.

 

Just so we're on the same page.. When you say 2K, do you mean 2560x1440? Because that would not be a round number. 2560 / 1920 = 1.33 repeating. 1440 / 1080 = same.

With a round number I meant 2 times the width, 2 times the height. So 3840x2160 ('4K'/'UHD'). 

As I said though, your mileage may vary, but personally I always prefer round numbers when scaling up or down.

[steelo]

11 minutes ago, minibois said:

Yep, Virtual Super Resolution. Can be enabled in the Radeon Settings panel. I kinda glanced over part of your post where you mentioned '1080' and my mind immediately thought you had a GTX 1080  

The 5700 non-XT is powerful enough for 60fps gaming at 1440p. 4K might be difficult at Ultra, but it depends on the game.

 

Just so we're on the same page.. When you say 2K, do you mean 2560x1440? Because that would not be a round number. 2560 / 1920 = 1.33 repeating. 1440 / 1080 = same.

With a round number I meant 2 times the width, 2 times the height. So 3840x2160 ('4K'/'UHD'). 

As I said though, your mileage may vary, but personally I always prefer round numbers when scaling up or down.

Just so I understand...1080=1920x1080, 2k=2560x1440, 4k=3840x2160?

 

I've always assumed 2k is twice the resolution of 1080, 4k being 4x the resolution but I haven't put a lot of thought into in in the past...LOL

 

So I'm better off trying to downsample from 4k to 1080 rather than 2k to 1080?

 

 

[minibois]

14 minutes ago, steelo said:

Just so I understand...1080=1920x1080, 2k=2560x1440, 4k=3840x2160?

 

I've always assumed 2k is twice the resolution of 1080, 4k being 4x the resolution but I haven't put a lot of thought into in in the past...LOL

 

So I'm better off trying to downsample from 4k to 1080 rather than 2k to 1080?

The K-terms are super confusing.. I blame 4K!

The K-terms are - depending on who you ask - unofficial terms to refer to different classes of monitor resolution. It being the (rough) amount of of horizontal pixels. 

When people say '4K', they usually mean 3840x2160, some people refer to 4096x2160. Those are both kind of roughly 4000 pixels wide.

2K is a term I personally kinda of dislike, because to be honest.. 1920x1080 is closer to 2000, than 2560x1440! But I have accepted that most people when they say 2K mean 2560x1440..

 

But why I blame 4K: 3840x2160 is both twice as wide and twice as tall as 1920x1080. So some people think "Oh, so 4K means 4 times the pixels of 1920x1080!, that mean 2K = 2 times the pixels!"

[steelo]

6 minutes ago, minibois said:

The K-terms are super confusing.. I blame 4K!

The K-terms are - depending on who you ask - unofficial terms to refer to different classes of monitor resolution. It being the (rough) amount of of horizontal pixels. 

When people say '4K', they usually mean 3840x2160, some people refer to 4096x2160. Those are both kind of roughly 4000 pixels wide.

2K is a term I personally kinda of dislike, because to be honest.. 1920x1080 is closer to 2000, than 2560x1440! But I have accepted that most people when they say 2K mean 2560x1440..

 

But why I blame 4K: 3840x2160 is both twice as wide and twice as tall as 1920x1080. So some people think "Oh, so 4K means 4 times the pixels of 1920x1080!"..

Darn it, you caught my post before I could edit it so I don't appear to be an idiot...LOL. So, really 2k is 1.33 times 1080 resolution and 4k is 1.33 times 2k resolution? 

 

Am I better off trying to downsample from 4k to 1080 rather than 2k to 1080 (to give it an even multiplier)?

[minibois]

1 minute ago, steelo said:

Darn it, you caught my post before I could edit it so I don't appear to be an idiot...LOL

I edited the quote in my post, the past can stay in the past 

Personally I don't like trying to display 2560x1440. Just didn't look that good. I played certain games like that and did not like how it looked. You can certainly try it out yourself though.

Oh and I forgot to finish my previous post it seems..

 

Why I blame 4K for the confusion: people think "3840x2160 = 4 times the pixels, so what people refer to as '2K' (2560x1440) surely means 2 times the pixels!"

[steelo]

3 minutes ago, minibois said:

Why I blame 4K for the confusion: people think "3840x2160 = 4 times the pixels, so what people refer to as '2K' (2560x1440) surely means 2 times the pixels!"

That's EXACTLY what I (the average consumer idiot) believed! I'm sure this was a ploy by the big tech companies in their naming conventions...LOL

 

Anyways, thanks for clarifying this for me!

[Alex Ushigome]

59 minutes ago, steelo said:

Hi everyone,

 

I read a few articles online about how through down sampling (I believe that's what it was called) you can display 2k or 4k resolution on a 1080 monitor (kind of) They claim that it will produce a 'richer' sharper image, especially during gaming. I'm just curious if this is in fact true and worth the cost in performance. I understand that trying to display a higher resolution than the monitor can support will probably make the display look worse and that a 1080 monitor isn't magically going to gain more pixels. However, will it eliminate some of the pixelation in games?

 

If I have a GPU that can handle down sampling from 2k or 4k to 1080p, is there any benefit? 

It's called DSR, and I recommend keeping it off on the desktop, as it looks horrendous, or set to 4x in games, because it does make it look sharper. I only recommend using it if your hardware can run 2160p at whatever framerate your monitor is (60hz, 144hz, 240hz), as it isn't worth the hit to performance if you drop below 140fps in my opinion.

[steelo]

21 minutes ago, Alex Ushigome said:

It's called DSR, and I recommend keeping it off on the desktop, as it looks horrendous, or set to 4x in games, because it does make it look sharper. I only recommend using it if your hardware can run 2160p at whatever framerate your monitor is (60hz, 144hz, 240hz), as it isn't worth the hit to performance if you drop below 140fps in my opinion.

Thanks, I'm hoping my RX5700 will have the horsepower to maintain 60 fps (my monitor is only 60hz) downscaling from 4k to 1080. Now, that brings up another question...is it more beneficial to display higher graphic detail settings in games or downscaling from 4k-1080?