2k on a 1080p display - Will it damage it?

[XDroidie626]

Okay so I reinstalled Windows 10 yesterday on my desktop and after installing latest Nvidia drivers I found out that the display settings will allow the screen to run at 2k even though the display is only rated to run at 1080p
So is this some sort of upscaling or is my display some sort of wizard?

Will running it like this also damage the display?

 

Thanks!

[PlayStation 2]

It won't damage your screen since it just renders the game and the GPU downscales it to 1920x1080

[Tedster]

Try it and see if it works. Your screen might be lying.

If it works, then your display controller is doing some downscaling. You might hurt it. I don't believe there's a way to really tell whether you're damaging it until after it breaks.

 

If you're using something like DSR on your videocard then there's still only a 1080p signal being sent to the screen.

[pwn_intended]

Define 2k. As in what is the actual resolution reported.

Because 1080p is technically 2k.

 

Sounds like Nvidia super resolution to me, the monitor itself is actually still only running at its native resolution, the GPU just renders a larger area, and then downsamples it.

[Techicolors]

did you enable DSR? if so, it is basically NVIDIA's supersampling technique. so it renders the image at a higher res then downscales to native res. 

AMD has the same thing. think it's called virtual resolution 

[Enderman]

it will not damage anything

 

it will make everything look worse and give you less fps in games though

[TomvanWijnen]

Sometimes Windows lets you select resolutions that are (much) higher than the actual resolution of the monitor. This is probably what's happening for you. You can try it, it most likely won't break anything, but it won't work or look terrible.

[XDroidie626]

I havent enabled anything at all, it says it can run upto 4k although it doesn't render correctly goes all strange.

I have done this all through the Windows display settings ill try get a screenshot up of what its displaying.

[Enderman]

how would it make it look worse? DSR makes it sharper if anything

because 1440p does not fit inside 1080p

the pixels are not aligned, that means that the pixels on your 1080p screen will be an average of all the nearby pixels on the 1440p screen

 

this makes it looks blurry, not sharper

you cannot see something higher than 1080p on a 1080p screen, its impossible

[XDroidie626]

because 1440p does not fit inside 1080p

the pixels are not aligned, that means that the pixels on your 1080p screen will be an average of all the nearby pixels on the 1440p screen

 

this makes it looks blurry, not sharper

you cannot see something higher than 1080p on a 1080p screen, its impossible

Agreed, I thought Super/Uber Sampling was supposed to be the solution to this? 

[Techicolors]

Agreed, I thought Super/Uber Sampling was supposed to be the solution to this? 

 

it technically is.. supersampling raises the res then downscales it to the default res. essentially it's like if you're running at 2k, but you're not.. the extra pixels from 2k can then be used in the 1080p image to apply better AA 

ubersampling renders the image several times 

Edited November 30, 2015 by Technicolors

[Enderman]

Agreed, I thought Super/Uber Sampling was supposed to be the solution to this? 

 

why do people use DSR then?? 

 

DRS or supersampling is the same thing, but the reason people use it is not to get a "sharper" image but rather to have a smoother image

sharp lines and angles get blurred, similar to what antialiasing does

it makes unnaturally sharp images and shapes look more natural, close to what a higher resolution screen does

 

the thing is, DSR only works in games, so it doesnt affect the desktop or text or other stuff that you DO want to be sharp

changing your monitors resolution will apply to EVERYTHING, not just games

and trust me, it is a pain reading blurry text on a screen...

[Falkentyne]

DSR and Supersampling are not the same thing, even though the same method is used internally by both, the output back to the game or display driver is different.

4x Supersampling and DSR will only have the same image quality if you are downsampling 3840x2160 from 1920x1080.  To the video card, there is no difference in rendering power being used, but the output is different.

 

4x Supersampling a 1920x1080 resolution only works in games (if they support driver level antialiasing in the first place), and 4x SSAA takes a 1920x1080 source resolution, the video card processes the resolution data as if its 3840x2160, images and polygons and texture data are processed with much more pixel data, then the output is sent back to the game as a 1920x1080 direct resolution.  This causes the game hud and scaling to be completely unchanged, models are still the exact same size and so forth, but the aliasing quality on textures and all objects is much more accurate, as the video card calculated a much higher pixel count internally to render the image, thus removing many of the inaccurate calculations which cause aliasing and shimmering to appear.  It's still there of course, but it's much harder to notice as the output to 1920x1080 is far more accurate.

 

DSR'ing a 1920x1080 resolution to 3840x2160 is still 4x supersampling, but the difference is the OUTPUT is seen as a 3840x2160 resolution to the game, or windows itself, with the monitor receiving a 1920x1080 signal.  This causes everything to be resized and scaled as if it were actually 3840x2160, which can give you more real estate and view to work with (unlike 1920x1080 4xSupersampling AA), but can cause objects to be smaller and the hud to be much smaller than you would like, unless your game or application has a setting for scaled hud.

 

The big difference is that DSR tricks the driver into accepting the higher resolution as it's set as a resolution instead of an internal game rendering option (Anti-aliasing) so games that don't support Anti-aliasing will always support DSR.  that's the main difference.  ideally it's better to use Supersampling instead of DSR, if the game supports it, as you keep a properly scaled hud that way and increase image quality without any distortions.

 

Also note that there is no exact resolution that 2x Supersampling translates to.