AMD’s graphics guru describes the march to full graphics immersion with 16K screens

[csbin]

http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/15/a...-to-full-graphics-immersion-with-16k-screens/

Beyond 2016, Koduri believes that graphics are going to get more and more amazing. Virtual reality is debuting, but we won’t be completely satisfied with the imagery until we get 3D graphics that can support 16K screens, or at least 16 times more pixels on a screen that we have available on most TVs today. Koduri wants to pump those pixels at you at a rate of 240 hertz, or changing the pixels at a rate of 240 times per second. Only then will you really experience true immersion that you won’t be able to tell apart from the real world. He calls it “mirror-like” graphics. That’s pretty far out thinking.

 

[Zodiark1593]

For those thinking the dgpu will die, perhaps when igpus hit this level of fidelity first.

 

[TXBPNT]

16k is 64 time the pixels of full hd,right ? That is insane.

 

[Captain Picard]

16k is 64 time the pixels of full hd,right ? That is insane.

You're INSANE, Goldmember!

That's a staggering amount of pixels to push, at 240Hz no less. I hope I'm alive when this tech reaches the price points we're accustomed to.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

Hopefully foveated rendering will assist them in this. Will come in handy if we get eye tracking.

 

[superstition]

He's creating a problem so he can sell the solution.

The human eye cannot resolve that many pixels unless the screen is absolutely enormous — and even then we would have to be really close to it and walk around all over to see the detail.

For HDTV 1440 is already enough but we have 4K anyway even though it's clearly overkill. For closer-up viewing then more pixels than 1440 are helpful but only to a point.

evidence:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/visual_acuity.htm

The fun really starts with the Ultra High Definition viewing distance recommendations. The previous part already showed that the SMPTE and THX recommendations have a wide field of view, which results in very large TV’s for what most people consider a comfortable viewing distance. But those are still quite narrow though when you compare them with the 60° HFOV of 4K and the insanely wide 100° HFOV of 8K. Using the 250 cm viewing distance example the previous section ended with results in a 130.4” (331.2 cm) screen diagonal for 4K and a 269.2” (683.7 cm) screen diagonal for 8K.

And for 8K this gives a viewing distance of:

42% of screen width
75% of screen height
37% of screen diagonal

For VA = 1.0 the optimal viewing angle would be 58.37° for 4K and 96.33° for 8K. These values were just rounded up to 60° and 100° respectively. At those angles the horizontal retina resolution for VA = 1.0 would be 3970 pixels for 4K and 8194 for 8K.

If you think about that you only have maximum visual acuity in the foveola, 8K seems quite a waste; you can only see a circle with a 69 pixel diameter with maximum accuracy at the time out of 7680x4320.

Even if you move your focus by moving your eyes or turning your head you still can’t see the maximum detail of resolutions wider than 3438 pixels if your head is straight in the front of the centre of the screen (VA = 1.0). Even for VA=1.6 that’s still only 5500 pixels. For resolutions wider than that you’d really have to move your head sideways to see all the detail. To see all detail of 8K by just rotating your head and not moving lateral or axial you would need to have near perfect vision of VA = 2.23 (roughly 20/9 vision).

(For computer displays) 8K might have its uses with very specific applications, but in general it would be excessive.

With televisions it’s a different story. Many people probably aren’t even making full use of their FHD TV yet. To really profit from 4K you’d need an extremely large screen, or sit extremely close. And 8K is just plain ridiculous. For a 250 cm viewing distance you’d need a 595 x 335 cm screen.

 

[superstition]

If making something true-to-life is important then:

1) eliminate all perceivable reflections
2) increase contrast ratio to maximum safe level
3) increase color gamut to maximum perceivable
4) eliminate all perceivable banding
5) eliminate all perceivable uniformity issues
6) eliminate all perceivable lag
7) eliminate all perceivable flicker
8) eliminate all perceivable motion blur
9) eliminate all perceivable compression artifacts
10) eliminate all perceivable judder

From there, of course, the source material needs to not include any perceivable drawbacks.

All of these are more important than moving beyond 8K — with even 8K being questionable. Pixel count is the industry's obsession but, past 4K for computers and 1440 for TVs, it's not much of an issue. Pixel count also carries significant drawbacks, like reduced OLED lifespan, the unnecessary death of plasma, lag, GPU/CPU overhead, file size bloat, network bandwidth hogging, excessively lossy compression schemes, etc.

 

[imported_bman]

He's creating a problem so he can sell the solution.

The human eye cannot resolve that many pixels unless the screen is absolutely enormous — and even then we would have to be really close to it and walk around all over to see the detail.

For HDTV 1440 is already enough but we have 4K anyway even though it's clearly overkill. For closer-up viewing then more pixels than 1440 are helpful but only to a point.

evidence:

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/visual_acuity.htm

For the case of VR it is estimated that 16k at very high hz will be needed for realistic graphics. See Michael Abrash's or John Carmack's comments on this. As for screens I can still see spatial aliasing on my 27' 4k monitor, I need to use 2x MSAA + post AA to get rid of it.

see http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/...esolution-per-eye-isnt-enough-for-perfect-vr/ and http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hole-fixing-judder/

 

[gamervivek]

16k is well far off. The more relevant bit is about polaris 10 and 11 chips. Confirmation that there are two functioning chips already. And the quip at nvidia with the drive px2 fiasco.

Yes. We have two versions of these FinFET GPUs. Both are extremely power efficient. This is Polaris 10 and that’s Polaris 11. In terms of what we’ve done at the high level, it’s our most revolutionary jump in performance so far. We’ve redesigned many blocks in our cores. We’ve redesigned the main processor, a new geometry processor, a completely new fourth-generation Graphics Core Next with a very high increase in performance. We have new multimedia cores, a new display engine.This is very early silicon, by the way. We have much more performance optimization to do in the coming months. But even in this early silicon, we’re seeing numbers versus the best class on the competition running at a heavy workload, like Star Wars—The competing system consumes 140 watts. This is 86 watts. We believe we’re several months ahead of this transition, especially for the notebook and the mainstream market. The competition is talking about chips for cars and stuff, but not the mainstream market.

 

[ShintaiDK]

He's creating a problem so he can sell the solution.

Correct. We have seen this multiple times before. And yet they all fail. AMD/NVidia is desperate for it since people are still stuck at 1080p@60hz or below.

 

[Good_fella]

AMD already tried same PR stunt.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...-radeon-r9-fury-x-ready-for-5k-gaming.213513/

 

[Pariah]

For HDTV 1440 is already enough but we have 4K anyway even though it's clearly overkill. For closer-up viewing then more pixels than 1440 are helpful but only to a point.

Have you seen a 4k screen in person?

 

[frozentundra123456]

I have seen a lot of 4k TVs in electronics stores, especially the curved ones are beautiful. To be honest though, I have not seen one side-by-side with a 1440p screen and at various refresh rates, so I cant say if there is a perceivable difference. They certainly are far superior to 1080p though.

 

[ShintaiDK]

4K there is a case for tho already diminishing, 16K I dont see any than just trying to sell "moar". 240 FPS as well to make it even more wasteful. Kinda defeats the purpose of "syncs".

 

[superstition]

Have you seen a 4k screen in person?

4K is clearly better than 1080 because 1080 isn't enough — when we're talking about TVs.

HDTV would have logically progressed from 720 to 1440, if pro-consumer logic would have held the day. Instead we got 1080 and 4K. 4K's existence is due to the fact that manufacturing that resolution is easier due to production used for 1080. Had 1080 not been produced in the first place I assume it would have been quite possible to move directly from 720 to 1440 where HDTV could have stopped.

As for computers, the tftcentral article is clear about how being quite close to a screen makes a big difference in terms of how necessary greater pixel density is. However, while 4K is useful for computers, provided that one sits close enough, uses a large enough panel, and has exceptional eyesight, 8K is hard to sell. 16K is just nonsense.

 

[Pariah]

4K there is a case for tho already diminishing, 16K I dont see any than just trying to sell "moar". 240 FPS as well to make it even more wasteful. Kinda defeats the purpose of "syncs".

For HDTV's, 4k is probably as high as the mass market will ever need. For the home theater market using 70"+ TV's and especially projectors, 8k will still have improved IQ.

For monitors, there is definitely room for improvement above 4k. If Windows can ever figure out how to scale properly, 8k will absolutely be better than 4k for monitors over 30".

I can't see (no pun intended) 16k providing any visual benefits for computer monitors or TV's. I don't get the 240Hz refresh rate at all. I have a hard time believing the people saying they can tell the difference between 100Hz and 144Hz. I bet if blind comparison tests were given, almost no one would be able to tell the difference. I'm sure some could (professional baseball players), but the percentage would probably be below 1%, so why would anyone need 240Hz?

 

[superstition]

As for screens I can still see spatial aliasing on my 27' 4k monitor, I need to use 2x MSAA + post AA to get rid of it.

tftcentral's article shows that for people with exceptional eyesight who sit close enough that even a 24" 4K monitor can be useful. But, that is far from 16K being necessary.

24”, 16:10
Active screen size (mm): 518.4 x 324.0
Horizontal field of view: 40.64°
Required horizontal resolution: 2546
Smallest "retina" resolution: 2560 x 1600

27”, 16:9
Active screen size (mm): 596.7 x 335.7
Horizontal field of view: 46.17°
Required horizontal resolution: 2932
Smallest "retina" resolution: 2944 x 1656

This is of course assuming normal visual acuity. If VA = 1.6 the resolution will have to be 60% higher in both horizontal and vertical direction for the display to be considered retina.

Another thing to keep in mind is that because of the relatively short absolute viewing distance, sitting marginally closer can already have a fairly significant effect. Sitting at 65 cm is already a 7.7% increase in linear resolution compared to 70 cm, at 60 cm that’s 16.7%.

Most desks have a depth between 75 and 80 cm and generally viewing distance is slightly shorter than that. For now we’ll assume a viewing distance of 70 cm.

76.7% more resolution is still not close to 16K being needed.

 

[superstition]

For HDTV's, 4k is probably as high as the mass market will ever need. For the home theater market using 70"+ TV's and especially projectors, 8k will still have improved IQ.

70"?

nah:

The previous part already showed that the SMPTE and THX recommendations have a wide field of view, which results in very large TV’s for what most people consider a comfortable viewing distance. But those are still quite narrow though when you compare them with the 60° HFOV of 4K and the insanely wide 100° HFOV of 8K. Using the 250 cm viewing distance example the previous section ended with results in a 130.4” (331.2 cm) screen diagonal for 4K and a 269.2” (683.7 cm) screen diagonal for 8K.

For 4K this gives a viewing distance of:

87% of screen width
154% of screen height
75% of screen diagonal

And for 8K this gives a viewing distance of:

42% of screen width
75% of screen height
37% of screen diagonal

Especially for 8K you often see the viewing distance specified as percentage or fraction of the screen height. You might notice that the values for 4K are about twice as high as those for 8K. That’s because the viewing distance recommendations for UHD are pretty much solely based on visual acuity and 8K is twice as wide and twice as high as 4K. For VA = 1.0 the optimal viewing angle would be 58.37° for 4K and 96.33° for 8K. These values were just rounded up to 60° and 100° respectively. At those angles the horizontal retina resolution for VA = 1.0 would be 3970 pixels for 4K and 8194 for 8K. If you think about that you only have maximum visual acuity in the foveola, 8K seems quite a waste; you can only see a circle with a 69 pixel diameter with maximum accuracy at the time out of 7680x4320.

Even if you move your focus by moving your eyes or turning your head you still can’t see the maximum detail of resolutions wider than 3438 pixels if your head is straight in the front of the centre of the screen (VA = 1.0). Even for VA=1.6 that’s still only 5500 pixels. For resolutions wider than that you’d really have to move your head sideways to see all the detail. To see all detail of 8K by just rotating your head and not moving lateral or axial you would need to have near perfect vision of VA = 2.23 (roughly 20/9 vision). Anything higher than 1.8 (roughly 20/11) is very rare.

 

[Pariah]

70"?

nah:

Great response. Except there is no context for those numbers. How are they determining optimal viewing distance?

 

[superstition]

there is no context for those numbers. How are they determining optimal viewing distance?

I think this answers your question.

Most viewing distance recommendations for televisions are based on the horizontal field of view or the screen diagonal. They don’t take visual acuity and pixel pitch into account directly. Instead a new set of recommendations is made for each new definition format, often loosely based on the average visual acuity.

...

THX recommendation (HFOV = 40°)
SMPTE recommendation (HFOV = 30°)

An easy approximation for the THX and SMPTE recommendations is multiplying the screen diagonal with 1.2 and 1.63 respectively (in the same units, for diagonal in inches and distance in cm multiply result by 2.54). Most people will already find this far too close. The immersive viewing experience might be fun for watching movies and series, but it’s probably a bit much for anything else, the news for instance. For a somewhat comfortable viewing distance of 250 cm, you’d need 82.2” (208.8 cm) TV for THX.

The fun really starts with the Ultra High Definition viewing distance recommendations. The previous part already showed that the SMPTE and THX recommendations have a wide field of view, which results in very large TV’s for what most people consider a comfortable viewing distance. But those are still quite narrow though when you compare them with the 60° HFOV of 4K and the insanely wide 100° HFOV of 8K. Using the 250 cm viewing distance example the previous section ended with results in a 130.4” (331.2 cm) screen diagonal for 4K and a 269.2” (683.7 cm) screen diagonal for 8K.

...

Especially for 8K you often see the viewing distance specified as percentage or fraction of the screen height. You might notice that the values for 4K are about twice as high as those for 8K. That’s because the viewing distance recommendations for UHD are pretty much solely based on visual acuity and 8K is twice as wide and twice as high as 4K.

...

If you think about that you only have maximum visual acuity in the foveola, 8K seems quite a waste; you can only see a circle with a 69 pixel diameter with maximum accuracy at the time out of 7680x4320.

Even if you move your focus by moving your eyes or turning your head you still can’t see the maximum detail of resolutions wider than 3438 pixels if your head is straight in the front of the centre of the screen (VA = 1.0). Even for VA=1.6 that’s still only 5500 pixels. For resolutions wider than that you’d really have to move your head sideways to see all the detail. To see all detail of 8K by just rotating your head and not moving lateral or axial you would need to have near perfect vision of VA = 2.23 (roughly 20/9 vision). Anything higher than 1.8 (roughly 20/11) is very rare.

 

[Pariah]

No, it doesn't. Visual acuity varies greatly among people, and even ignoring that, that explanation means nothing. What is the basis they are determining whether we can see the difference between 4k and 8k on a given sized screen? Do you know, or are you just blindly quoting someone else's math formulas?

 

[itsmydamnation]

And what does that have to do with games?

what happens at sub pixel resolution in graphics rendering now? how does that compare to filming real life.

 

[superstition]

Visual acuity varies greatly among people

The range from normal to very rare was covered in the post.

even ignoring that, that explanation means nothing.

It would since the answer was that UHD recommendations are based on visual acuity. If one ignores visual acuity then there won't be an explanation with meaning.

What is the basis they are determining whether we can see the difference between 4k and 8k on a given sized screen? Do you know, or are you just blindly quoting someone else's math formulas?

I think you should read the article.

 

[Pottuvoi]

He is also talking about VR so the 16k and 240hz is a lot more understandable in the content.

Perfect VR would have 180-270 degree screen, so huge resolution would become important.
Even though using foveated rendering does mean that rendering resolution is variable the output must be able to display high resolution in whole area.

In VR high persistency and very high HZ is important so eyes can follow something that moves rapidly across the field of view. (and generally it just feels better to have latest headposition in the visible world.)

 

[tential]

Thank God you guys aren't in charge of TV resolutions. If 1440p was enough I'd cry.

4k is 100% necessary for tvs. It may not be useful for some of your use cases but for others of us, there is no way I'm buying a 50+ inch screen with out 4k resolution