Gaming 2560x1440 on a 4k display

[Unexplainable Lag]

I'm looking for some opinions please from people that have actually experienced playing games at downscaled 2560x1440 on a native 4k display. I've been reading so many articles, reviews, threads and posts over the past week that my head is spinning.
I swear the consensus is perfectly split:

33% say: "1440 on a 4k panel will look just fine, no noticeable difference to native 1440."
33% say: "it's blurry and doesn't look as good as native 1440 maybe more like a really nice 1080 display."
33% say: "1440 on a 4k display looks like trash, absolute crap, native 1080 looks better, it's unplayable!"
...and then some random dude (the final 1%) comes along and tells me: "I bet none of these people has ever tried it, I bet they're just repeating stuff they read somewhere". Ahhh! 

I understand that 2560x1440 doesn't divide evenly so the image pixels will overlap or be split, I'm sure this has a name but I don't know it, but this means what exactly? I currently downsample games from 1440 or 4k to a native 1080 display with no noticeable negative effects, isn't this the same thing?

[r2724r16]

The image will be blurry, which is not a good thing when gaming.

[Firewrath9]

I can relate with person #2. 1080p on a 1440p screen looks pretty trash. How about playing at 2k?

[Alex Atkin UK]

It also depends on the game.  Some allow you run at the native resolution and upscale internally, which generally gives a better result.  Still not as sharp as native, but not necessarily terrible.  After all, its what console gamers put up with all the time.

 

The problem is monitor scaling tends to be a bit rubbish, so if you can get the GPU to do it then the results are still blurry, but generally tolerable.

[mariushm]

You could always just go in video card's control panel and tell it to ignore what resolution the game wants and always run the display at 4K, and center the 2560x1440 image on the screen.

You'd have bars all around the image, but the image would be perfect...

 

Or run the game at 1920x1080 and tell the video card to scale the image in hardware 2x to 4K (and monitor always sees 4K)

 

See for example on AMD's side Virtual Super resolution, GPU Scaling, preserve aspect ratio etc...

 

ps. and you can also ADD your own custom resolutions , which may or my not show up inside games (depends if game filters available resolutions or not), for example make a custom resolution  2880x2160 (4:3 aspect ratio)  or 2560x600 (16:10 aspect ratio)

The monitor may refuse a resolution like 2880x2160 but you can force the card to always send 4K to monitor, and center the 4:3 image on the 4K canvas (gpu scaling, scaling mode set to center)

[Princess Luna]

Native is always best.

[Glenwing]

26 minutes ago, Unexplainable Lag said:

33% say: "1440 on a 4k panel will look just fine, no noticeable difference to native 1440."
33% say: "it's blurry and doesn't look as good as native 1440 maybe more like a really nice 1080 display."
33% say: "1440 on a 4k display looks like trash, absolute crap, native 1080 looks better, it's unplayable!"
...and then some random dude (the final 1%) comes along and tells me: "I bet none of these people has ever tried it, I bet they're just repeating stuff they read somewhere". Ahhh! 

Well, it is true that most people haven't tried it Most people have experience running non-native at lower resolutions (like 1080p on a 1440p monitor, or 720p on a 1080p monitor) and then decide "well that looked terrible, so 1440p on 4K must look terrible too!"

 

Yes, 1440p on a 4K screen will be blurrier than 1440p on a native 1440p display. But the higher resolution you go, the less noticeable it becomes. If you are trying to read fine text, it won't be so good, but in gaming I don't think it's a big deal. Playing 1080p on a 1440p screen... pretty blurry. But 1440p on a 4K screen, honestly, isn't really that bad. At least to my eyes.

[Unexplainable Lag]

9 hours ago, Glenwing said:

Well, it is true that most people haven't tried it Most people have experience running non-native at lower resolutions (like 1080p on a 1440p monitor, or 720p on a 1080p monitor) and then decide "well that looked terrible, so 1440p on 4K must look terrible too!"

 

Yes, 1440p on a 4K screen will be blurrier than 1440p on a native 1440p display. But the higher resolution you go, the less noticeable it becomes. If you are trying to read fine text, it won't be so good, but in gaming I don't think it's a big deal. Playing 1080p on a 1440p screen... pretty blurry. But 1440p on a 4K screen, honestly, isn't really that bad. At least to my eyes.

Thanks everyone for your replies and the info, I really appreciate it.

Glenwing - I've had a good read of your Display Tech FAQ and that helped a lot too, thanks and kudos for that post.

[jones177]

I did it for years. For best results you need a TN monitor.

 

On the VA 4k monitor I use now the results are not as good.

[Alex Atkin UK]

That's odd, as TN monitors typically look crap compared to VA or IPS.

[jones177]

On 10/27/2018 at 11:45 AM, Alex Atkin UK said:

That's odd, as TN monitors typically look crap compared to VA or IPS.

Not really.

Cheap TN monitors are 6bit. 4k TN monitors are usually 10bit.

 

Hear is the LTT video of my 28" NT panel I got back in 2015. Back then there was no affordable IPS 4k monitors. 

 

 

 I am not claiming it is better than IPS. I am claiming that A Samsung 28" TN 4k panel & a ASUS 28" TN 4k panel do a perfect 1440.

 

I now use a LG 32" VA 4k panel. It has better contrast than my TNs, but it is not as good at 1440. 

[mariushm]

2 minutes ago, jones177 said:

Not really.

Cheap TN monitors are 6bit. 4k TN monitors are usually 10bit.


 

I seriously doubt that your TN panels are true 10 bit, most likely they're just 8bit+FRC so meh.

And only really cheap TN panels are 6bit these days, the chips used these days are so mass produced and common that the pennies saved on them are no longer worth it.

One place you may find those 6bit things is in 240Hz TN monitors, they can take 8bit panels and "overclock" them at 240Hz with sending on 6bits and resorting to FRC to get close to 8bit per color.

 

Problem with TN panels is view angles, as you move your head to the sides, the colors may shift due to the view angle. Also, say you have the computer at a workbench but you just want to sit on a couch or bed a couple meters away from the desk and a bit lower... since your eyes are not straight looking a the panel, the view angles will screw you again, you get shift in color.

 

With TN panels they also focus on high Hz (144 Hz and all that jazz) and cheap out on backlight technology, using cheaper leds with lower CRI so while the monitor may show 16 million colors or more, the monitor could be so not calibrated and the backlight could so screw up the color reproduction that it's pointless. Also, backlight could be using various pwm techniques that may introduce flicker (sure, there's flicker free backlights but you have to really read the specs of the monitor)

 

VA panels have some of the best view angles (around 178 degrees), pretty much on par with IPS and nearly the same color accuracy and quality, and they don't suffer as much from "IPS glow". VA can have higher contrast and can also have lower latency compared to IPS, so you may get less "ghosting" (like seeing a trail after your mouse, or a kind of blur or something around mouse or something with high contrast to the rest of the image)

 

IPS would normally have the highest color quality and has great view angles.