When will 1440p become the new 1080p?

[ZeRedz]

So I noticed that we've had 1080p as the standard for PC gaming for quite a while now and was wondering when 1440p is going to become the new standard resolution. Yes, I'm aware that there's a good amount of people gaming on 1440p monitors. 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

What defines a 'Standard Resolution For PC Gaming'?  PC games support a wide range of resolutions.  You don't even really hit a wall these days unless looking at alternate aspect ratios rather than resolutions.

That's the beauty of PC Games.  720p monitor?  1080p?  1440p?  2160p?  Your game does all of them!  Pick the one you want!

[ZeRedz]

Just now, CerealExperimentsLain said:

What defines a 'Standard Resolution For PC Gaming'?  PC games support a wide range of resolutions.  You don't even really hit a wall these days unless looking at alternate aspect ratios rather than resolutions.

That's the beauty of PC Games.  720p monitor?  1080p?  1440p?  2160p?  Your game does all of them!  Pick the one you want!

I guess what I meant to ask is when exactly is the majority going to shift to 1440p. As you know, a great majority of people game at 1080p so my question is, when is 1440p going to become the new 1080p?

[Tan3l6]

It's a slowly progressing tendency, maybe after next GPU generation.

Best to see the progression - https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

[YoungBlade]

If we consider the Steam Survey to be accurate, in October 2018, only about 4% of players had a 1440p display. Today, that number is just over 9% when combining 2560x1440p with 1440p ultra wide.

 

In about 3 years, we've seen adoption double. If that trend continues (which is a dubious proposition, but for the sake of argument, we'll consider it) then we'll reach 50% adoption around 7 or 8 years from now.

 

Actually, in the last month, 1440p adoption decreased. I'm guessing this is because a lot of gamers value refresh rate over resolution and so are purchasing 1080p 240Hz and 1080p 360Hz displays instead.

[MadAnt250]

9 minutes ago, ZeRedz said:

a great majority of people game at 1080p

Lol, I am not in that majority. Don't know if 1440p will ever become the norm, you will just have to wait and see what happens.

[Chris Pratt]

The answer is basically when you can drive 1440p like you can drive 1080p now. Though even that is no guarantee as they're making faster and faster refresh rate monitors.

 

The FPS tweakers pretty much drive the market here. Casuals like myself that only really care about 1440p at 60 FPS in AAA games have really been fine technologically for a while. It's the vast amount of people playing competitive games, where raw FPS is what matters most that have kept 1080p alive and kicking.

 

In other words, it has to get to the point where 1080p no longer offers a competitive advantage because the majority of graphics cards people are using can drive 1440p at the highest refresh (whatever that is at the time) anyways. Then, it's basically why not have better quality? Once that starts to happen, monitor manufacturers will stop producing 1080p, just as they've mostly stopped producing 720p, and that will push the final holdouts over the edge.

[jones177]

I don't think 1440p will ever be the standard.

 

720p and 1080p are television standards and 1440p is not.

 

Between 720p and 1080p I used 1280 X 1024, 1440 X 900 and 1680 X 1050. Non caught on and I don't expect 1440p to either.

 

I expect it will go straight to 4k. That is where the consoles have gone even though most of the time it is upscaled content. It is still designed to play on a 4k TV.

 

[YoungBlade]

18 hours ago, jones177 said:

I don't think 1440p will ever be the standard.

 

720p and 1080p are television standards and 1440p is not.

 

Between 720p and 1080p I used 1280 X 1024, 1440 X 900 and 1680 X 1050. Non caught on and I don't expect 1440p to either.

 

I expect it will go straight to 4k. That is where the consoles have gone even though most of the time it is upscaled content. It is still designed to play on a 4k TV.

 

Well, 1440p was a TV standard. It was just called 2k. There were even some Blu-rays released at 2k. Those are hard to find now, but for a few years they were readily available.

 

Regardless, I don't think the TV market matters too much here. 1366x768 was never a TV standard, and yet it's one of the most popular monitor resolutions on the Steam Survey today. It's usage compares to 1440p and it absolutely obliterates the 720p TV standard resolution. My dad's desktop monitor is 1366x768, as is my laptop.

 

People who buy monitors have different needs from people who buy TVs.

 

EDIT: I misremembered. "2k" was just a BS marketing term for 1080p.

[CTR640]

Looking at Sony's reason to not support 1440p natively in their tv's, I doubt it will shift faster.

 

But then again, that's indeed the beauty of PC gaming, You can choose any resolution and refresh rate you want/need.

[jones177]

2 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

Well, 1440p was a TV standard.

Link please.

 

 

[YoungBlade]

30 minutes ago, jones177 said:

Link please.

I guess I misremembered. I remember seeing 2k TVs being marketed, but I always assumed it was a step up from 1080p. It looks like "2k" was just marketing BS to sell more 1080p TVs after 4k came out: https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/2k-tv Thankfully, that term has since (mostly) died.

 

Either way, my main point still stands: resolutions don't have to be TV standards to be widely adopted in the PC space.

[Mark Kaine]

hopefully never, 1440p scales horribly. 

[Tan3l6]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

hopefully never, 1440p scales horribly. 

On FullHD or UHD? 

[Mark Kaine]

8 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

On FullHD or UHD? 

well its mostly 1080p i guess?

720p should scale properly, not sure about 4k, but the point is it scales horribly to the most used resolution, which just isnt ideal in a lot of situations.

[jones177]

32 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Either way, my main point still stands: resolutions don't have to be TV standards to be widely adopted in the PC space.

We shall see.

 

I don't really like 1440p.

I bought a 32" 1440p 144hz monitor to use for gaming but I made the mistake of sitting it beside my 32" 4k monitor and it did look bad. I also had a 3440 X 1440 monitor that was great for gaming but not for productivity.

 

I am a fan of 1600p(2560 X 1600) since it fixes all the things I don't like about 1440p but it never really caught on.