Resolution scaling?

[Shaqo_Wyn]

Can anybody explain resolution scaling to me in simple terms?

 

I gathered that it's the following: the GPU renders the video at a higher resolution than the monitors native resolution and then scales it back down to the monitors native resolution for a sharper image.

 

After reading this thread of two people going at it on the topic, I'm a bit confused and have some questions.

All my question are based on a 23" 1080P monitor.

 

1. Which of them is right or are they both wrong?

 

2. What resolution would I be running at on the different percentages of resolution scaling? Say 100%, 150%, 200%, 300% and 400%.

 

3. Provided you have the GPU power to push 400% scaling (if that is indeed UHD resolution scaling) at idk a nice 60 fps, how would this compare to having an actual 4K monitor?

 

Bonus question: which 4K monitor would you recommend?

 

Thanks in advance! 

[oktob3r]

i'm not familiar enough with scaling to comment, but i'll say honestly 4k really isn't justifiable from a price standpoint yet, it's very expensive and framerate although not horrible will probably be about 30fps tops

[Shaqo_Wyn]

i'm not familiar enough with scaling to comment, but i'll say honestly 4k really isn't justifiable from a price standpoint yet, it's very expensive and framerate although not horrible will probably be about 30fps tops

 

Yeah, I'm not planning on going 4K any time soon. Just wondering, I'm fine going with 1080p for now. Maybe, 1440p in the near future.

[thekeemo]

itll look a bit better than rendering at 1080 its mainly for removing jaggies

[I/O]

i'm not familiar enough with scaling to comment, but i'll say honestly 4k really isn't justifiable from a price standpoint yet, it's very expensive and framerate although not horrible will probably be about 30fps tops

I consider 30fps unplayable on a PC.

[Shaqo_Wyn]

itll look a bit better than rendering at 1080 its mainly for removing jaggies

 

Really? All the fps resolution scaling gobbles up and it only looks a bit better?  :mellow:

[thekeemo]

Really? All the fps resolution scaling gobbles up and it only looks a bit better?  :mellow:

yea

[typographie]

3. Provided you have the GPU power to push 400% scaling (if that is indeed UHD resolution scaling) at idk a nice 60 fps, how would this compare to having an actual 4K monitor?Thanks in advance! 

 

Scaling down from 3840x2160 would result in much reduced aliasing on the edges of objects, but you'd be missing all the hardware-based benefits of a true 4K monitor. That is, the pixel density of having 3840x2160 (= 8.29 million) real pixels crammed into a 28-30" display. You may be rendering at 3840x2160, but you're still seeing the resultant image interpolated to 1920x1080 pixels.

 

I think the GPU horsepower requirements of hitting 60 FPS would be the same, though. 3840x2160 is 3840x2160 as far as your GPU is concerned. The added process of scaling it down might even introduce some extra latency on top of just rendering at 4K native.

[Shaqo_Wyn]

Scaling down from 3840x2160 would result in much reduced aliasing on the edges of objects, but you'd be missing all the hardware-based benefits of a true 4K monitor. That is, the pixel density of having 3840x2160 (= 8.29 million) real pixels crammed into a 28-30" display. You may be rendering at 3840x2160, but you're still seeing the resultant image interpolated to 1920x1080 pixels.

 

I think the GPU horsepower requirements of hitting 60 FPS would be the same, though. 3840x2160 is 3840x2160 as far as your GPU is concerned. The added process of scaling it down might even introduce some extra latency on top of just rendering at 4K native.

 

Thanks. Any input on question 1 and 2?

[typographie]

Thanks. Any input on question 1 and 2?

 

It looks like they're arguing about what the percentage means from the BF4 resolution scale slider. That's what you're referring to, right?

 

Its hard to say what specifically what DICE intends that percentage to mean but my impulse is that they probably mean 100–200% of the total pixels. If that's the case, I think 3840x2160 would be 400%, as 4K is quadruple the number of pixels versus 1080p. 200% should be a little over 4 million pixels, which would probably be some 16:9 mutation of 2560x1600.

 

The game would render at some fairly bizarre and non-standard resolutions to fill in all of the values in between 1080p and 4K, so I can really only say 150% would be 3,110,400 pixels. That'd be somewhere near but not quite 1440p.

[Shaqo_Wyn]

It looks like they're arguing about what the percentage means from the BF4 resolution scale slider. That's what you're referring to, right?

 

Its hard to say what specifically what DICE intends that percentage to mean but my impulse is that they probably mean 100–200% of the total pixels. If that's the case, I think 3840x2160 would be 400%, as 4K is quadruple the number of pixels versus 1080p. 200% should be a little over 4 million pixels, which would probably be some 16:9 mutation of 2560x1600.

 

The game would render at some fairly bizarre and non-standard resolutions to fill in all of the values in between 1080p and 4K, so I can really only say 150% would be 3,110,400 pixels. That'd be somewhere near but not quite 1440p.

 

Yes.

 

Now I get it. Thank you.

 

Hmm, (3840 x 2160) / (1920 x 1080) = indeed 4 or 400%. This is how I should be looking at it then, right?

[ACatWithThumbs]

Really? All the fps resolution scaling gobbles up and it only looks a bit better?  :mellow:

It looks a lot better but it's also extremely taxing that's why you should only use it in non demanding games.

1080p:

4K:

[typographie]

Hmm, (3840 x 2160) / (1920 x 1080) = indeed 4 or 400%. This is how I should be looking at it then, right?

 

Yup. At least, that's how I'm looking at it.

 

By the way, since the default is 100% resolution scaling on any display, I assume that all of these figures would change if you were gaming on a non-1440p monitor. If you had a 4K monitor and set it to 200%, you'd be rendering 16.5 Megapixels.