Forget Anti Aliasing - Where is PPI

[lavaheadache]

Exactly. Anyone saying higher resolution eliminates the need for AA is wrong.

And I find it incredible that anyone believes a "smaller" monitor would be more immersive. When it comes to a home theater for gaming, bigger is always better - also applicable for PC gaming IMO

you seem stuck on missing the point. It's not about higher res, it's about PPI. PIXEL DENSITY.

I would very very interested in a 2560x1600 16:10 24inch monitor. While I'm content with my 2560x1600 30", I think I would prefer that res on a smaller screen. My 1920x1080 17inch G73 laptop has pixel density of nearly 130 pixels per inch and i feel like 2x AA is all I ever need vs. 4x AA on my 23inch 1920 x 1080.

edit...

Actually while 2560 on a 24 would be nice in a perfect world I would prefer a 4k 30" with a monitor that could do loss less image scaling for when the going gets tough

 

[ArchAngel777]

If high enough, it absolutely does. When you have more pixels then your eyes are capable of discerning then you won't have visible aliasing. Basic signal theory.



It is already shipping on 10" displays. While PC users of the last decade have demanded grossly inferior displays the rest of the world moved on.

2560x1600 22" is 137 ppi- said another way- way too low to be anything but garbage. In the 27" range it is even worse, 112ppi, 30" and it is a painfully bad 101ppi. 100ppi is probably a good guideline moving from 'garbage' to 'disgusting'.

2560x1600 is only considered high resolution in the pitiful PC display market at this point sadly(10" consumer mass market devices have that for a resolution, 5" phones are 1080p).

High end displays now are 3840x2160, that on a 22" display would get us to 200ppi, not embarassingly bad any longer. Still won't be close to the 300ppi pixel density normal people are getting used to, but a lot better then the utter crap we deal with now.

I think PC enthusiasts need to wrap their head around the fact that the entire rest of the world has blown past them in display technology- a place where PC used to always be leagues ahead of every other market.



Wrong again. It depends on the layout of the part and how resources are allocated what the relative performance hit is going to be. I could build you a hypothetical part that would be faster with higher resolution then AA, and it would *absolutely* look better- as in by a stupidly huge amount.

I seen you mentioned that going higher enough does eliminate the need for the AA. While you true, it isn't a practical way to eliminate it yet. As you noted, the PC display market has a low PPI already in comparison to some cell phones and tablets. In order for a 24+ monitor to hit a similar PPI where we could safely say anti-aliasing isn't needed would probably be somewhere between the 200ppi and 300ppi mark. We just don't have the GPU power right now to handle it. I suppose we could always beef up the fill rate, like they did for eyefinity and nVidia's equiv, but I just don't see this being viable for years down the road, maybe a decade. One thing is for sure, anti-aliasing will be a thing of the past, eventually.

 

[Fx1]

1) The GT650M is junk

2) Macs are also junk for gaming. rMBP has significant ghosting issues and input lag issues, way more so than any mdoern IPS panel.

3) 2560x1600 will not ever happen on a PC monitor 22 inches in size.

4) Higher resolution does not eliminate the need for AA.


Let's review how this entire thing started.

a) You say you're upset because AA causes a performance hit - this is because your 460s do not have enough VRAM , not to mention they're too old. You understand that VRAM use increases exponentially as you increase resolution or AA right?
b) You say that higher resolution such as 2560x1600 will cause less of a performance drop than anti aliasing. This is wrong. More pixels will always be less efficient than lower resolution with added detail or anti aliasing. This will also never change.

Like I said, I love higher resolution myself. But this is what I can't wrap my head around: You want higher resolution because AA causes too much performance drop. Well, sorry to say the higher resolution will have FAR LESS performance. No GPU architecture will change this. More pixels to push will always mean less performance, period. 1080p with higher detail is more efficient - and this will not change because of consoles.

I think you're in for a big disappointment if you think GT650M or 460s are adequate for 2560x1600 gaming. They are so far from adequate, it isn't even funny.

Where do you get this tripe from.

Where did i say 460 SLI is good enough for 2560x1600?

What do you know about the 650M GT in the MBP? Nothing. You dont own it like the 2 people i know. I installed their Windows and set up their games for them. So i have first hand experience with those GPU's. i doubt you have any. Also Macs are fine for gaming if you install windows on them.

Claiming something will never happen such as 22" 2560x1600 is stupid and it will most likely happen at some point.

I also said i had problems with my 460 GTX SLI setup. i dont have any issues with it. Not even the 7970 GHZ CF has enough VRAM to run 4x AA at 2560x1600 let alone 8X.

This was never about MY setup. This about the industry problems with low resolution gaming and all the magic they have to think up to fix jagged edges in 3D games caused by the lack of pixels.

What you clearly fail to understand is that jagged edges are caused by limited pixels on the diagonal and AA filtering uses visual trickery to smooth out these edges but what it does is actually reduce the image detail also. So basically your spending GPU resources to make an image worse to actually appear better. Its counter productive and pointless.

Ever wonder why SLI and CF doesnt scale very well in games? Well one of the reasons is because its not exactly simple with all the effects being split between GPU's. BUT paralel processing normally scales much better in other applications. When you increase pixels you should be able to spit the work much easier between multiple GPU's or higher number of cores.

I remember back when the 4870X2 came out and it was claimed it give you "Free 4xAA" AA performance has been an issue for years and it offers no benefits other than covering up the limits of poor resolution.

Ever wonder why laser printers are better than ink jets? PPI thats why.

 

[SirPauly]

What kind of demand would there be for a 22 inch 2560 x 1600 monitor? Just a thought!

 

[Fx1]

What kind of demand would there be for a 22 inch 2560 x 1600 monitor? Just a thought!

id buy a 23" version in that resolution

 

[BenSkywalker]

What kind of demand would there be for a 22 inch 2560 x 1600 monitor?

It would be much better now that MS finally got their head out of their @ss regarding increasing pixel density for screen objects instead of just making them smaller. That had been the major stumbling block for PCs for quite some time, Apple and Google made them take a different approach.

 

[SirPauly]

in a perfect world I would prefer a 4k 30" with a monitor that could do loss less image scaling for when the going gets tough

Who wouldn't? But, what would be the costs of such a display for very early adopters?

 

[lavaheadache]

Who wouldn't? But, what would be the costs of such a display for very early adopters?

the sooner the better

 

[moonbogg]

Who wouldn't? But, what would be the costs of such a display for very early adopters?

30" @ 4K res sounds just so perfect. I would love to get one just like that. Right now I am at 27" 1080p, which is similar to many of you. So, the 30" is a nice bump up in size, but the 4k res would be so awesome I would just love that monitor.
Whatever, let me dream alright.

 

[SirPauly]

Whatever, let me dream alright.

 

[kache]

If I could get a 22 inch 2560 monitor I would in a heartbeat

Opinions.
Personally I don't like very high DPI on desktop monitors. Far too tiring for the eyes.

 

[moonbogg]

Opinions.
Personally I don't like very high DPI on desktop monitors. Far too tiring for the eyes.

Yeah, but thats only because windows doesn't scale well with high PPI monitors, right? Everything becomes too damn tiny. You can scale text etc, but if windows didn't change its scale and actually stayed the same, then your eyes would be SO happy for the pleasure that you brought them that they would sprout little tongues and they would kiss and lick your face as you sleep.

 

[lehtv]

Yeah, but thats only because windows doesn't scale well with high PPI monitors, right? Everything becomes too damn tiny. You can scale text etc, but if windows didn't change its scale and actually stayed the same, then your eyes would be SO happy for the pleasure that you brought them that they would sprout little tongues and they would kiss and lick your face as you sleep.

Nothing would stop you from running the desktop at 1920x1080 and gaming on 2560x1440. Of course, even better would be a 27" screen with 4K resolution (3840 x 2160 or quadruple of 1080p). The desktop would look sharp at 1080p with easily readable text, and games would run relatively nicely at full resolution with two high end GPUs.

 

[Fx1]

Opinions.
Personally I don't like very high DPI on desktop monitors. Far too tiring for the eyes.

Really?

So how does the Retina MBP work then exactly?

Are people using microscopes to read web pages?

before you form opinions on something you really should learn to understand how they work.

 

[Fx1]

Nothing would stop you from running the desktop at 1920x1080 and gaming on 2560x1440. Of course, even better would be a 27" screen with 4K resolution (3840 x 2160 or quadruple of 1080p). The desktop would look sharp at 1080p with easily readable text, and games would run relatively nicely at full resolution with two high end GPUs.

This is just a patch to fix a problem with Windows.

Microsoft is all about stupid tiles and crappy tablets than fixing the issues with its OS that is limiting innovation.

MS needs to understand that Apple has kicked its ass because Apple isnt afraid to do something new.

Microsoft has become another catch up me too company.

 

[moonbogg]

Nothing would stop you from running the desktop at 1920x1080 and gaming on 2560x1440. Of course, even better would be a 27" screen with 4K resolution (3840 x 2160 or quadruple of 1080p). The desktop would look sharp at 1080p with easily readable text, and games would run relatively nicely at full resolution with two high end GPUs.

People now run multiple monitors, so its been said before but i'll say it again, as far as GPU power goes we aren't far off from 4k gaming being possible with lowered settings or even maxed settings on some games with high end multi GPU setups. We just need the damn monitors. Ultra high def TVs and displays already exist of course. I feel that we are at the start of the HD era again, when 1080 TVs were an exciting rumor just over the horizon.
It might not be more than 5 years before these monitors become firmly planted in the high end segment and will be like the new 2560x1600 class product, costing a little over $1000 with good availability. I think we are actually pretty close. It certainly won't be a decade or more.

 

[Fx1]

People now run multiple monitors, so its been said before but i'll say it again, as far as GPU power goes we aren't far off from 4k gaming being possible with lowered settings or even maxed settings on some games with high end multi GPU setups. We just need the damn monitors. Ultra high def TVs and displays already exist of course. I feel that we are at the start of the HD era again, when 1080 TVs were an exciting rumor just over the horizon.
It might not be more than 5 years before these monitors become firmly planted in the high end segment and will be like the new 2560x1600 class product, costing a little over $1000 with good availability. I think we are actually pretty close. It certainly won't be a decade or more.

A single 7970 can run 3x1080p without AA on high settings. So why cant it run 4k in a 24" monitor??

a 690 GTX could run 4k in a 24" monitor without AA with ease.

Your right though its the lack of monitors thats the issue and windows limitations

 

[kache]

Really?

So how does the Retina MBP work then exactly?

Are people using microscopes to read web pages?

before you form opinions on something you really should learn to understand how they work.

Windows doesn't have that good of a dpi management...
And if you plan to use OSX why are we even talking about games?

And, again, I prefer having a size that allows me to use it fully at native resolution and DPI, instead of having to increase them because I can't read...

 

[kache]

Yeah, but thats only because windows doesn't scale well with high PPI monitors, right? Everything becomes too damn tiny. You can scale text etc, but if windows didn't change its scale and actually stayed the same, then your eyes would be SO happy for the pleasure that you brought them that they would sprout little tongues and they would kiss and lick your face as you sleep.

But I don't want to scale... What's the point of higher res if the space available to me stays the same? Just more strain on the components.

 

[kache]

Nothing would stop you from running the desktop at 1920x1080 and gaming on 2560x1440. Of course, even better would be a 27" screen with 4K resolution (3840 x 2160 or quadruple of 1080p). The desktop would look sharp at 1080p with easily readable text, and games would run relatively nicely at full resolution with two high end GPUs.

Lol, 4k on a 27"? On a Mac maybe. On a Windows system I would accept 4k only at 45"+...

 

[blackened23]

Really?

So how does the Retina MBP work then exactly?

Are people using microscopes to read web pages?

before you form opinions on something you really should learn to understand how they work.

This was already answered. It works because the operating system enlarges the fonts to hyper stupid proportions to make it usable. You can do the same thing in windows 8. If you want to use 450% extra large fonts, it might be usable.

23 inches at 2560x1600 in a desktop monitor will not happen. We can revisit this in a year and I guarantee you, it will not happen. You can pay for a 30" or you can just stick with 1080p , and this does not change the fact that AA has a smaller performance penalty than does 2560x1600 (which is nearly double the pixel count of 1080p). This was your original argument and you were wrong - AA has less of a performance hit (especially FXAA) than doubling the pixel count.

Also, all panels for PCs are produced by samsung and LG. They are not producing 2560x1600 in anything less than 30 inches for a desktop monitor form factor - and like I mentioned numerous times, that resolution is not usable at 23 inches unless the OS uses gigantic fonts. You can view their product plans for the next year, again, NOT HAPPENING. Only by using a tablet operating system with hyper enlarged fonts is it usable, which is what apple does.

It honestly sounds like you want 2560x1600 on a 23" because you're cheap. You also complained about 8x MSAA when you're using a GTX 460. If you want more pixels, prepare to pay for it with a 30". If you want 8x MSAA upgrade your cheap video card. Panel makers have no plans for producing that resolution outside of 7-10 inch tablet screens, again - in this context that resolution works because android and iOS allow you to enlarge fonts to stupid proportions.

Lastly, most people agree that for home theater or immersive gaming, bigger is better. For gaming purposes nobody takes a mac seriously and most people don't want to game on a crap 22" inch panel. I'd much rather game on a 60" big screen or a 30" PC monitor. I don't think your opinion of getting a tiny screen for gaming is representative of what most gamers want - games want bigger and better. Not smaller.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

27'' 1440P is the best you can in terms of PPI in the desktop market. I don't think we'll see quad-1080P for many years to come. Look how long it's taking to bring a 1440P 120Hz IPS to the market... And speaking of 120Hz, the highest end GPUs can't even max out that refresh rate at 1440P in the more demanding games.

 

[kache]

This was already answered. It works because the operating system enlarges the fonts to hyper stupid proportions to make it usable. You can do the same thing in windows 8. If you want to use 450% extra large fonts, it might be usable.

23 inches at 2560x1600 in a desktop monitor will not happen. We can revisit this in a year and I guarantee you, it will not happen. You can pay for a 30" or you can just stick with 1080p , and this does not change the fact that AA has a smaller performance penalty than does 2560x1600 (which is nearly double the pixel count of 1080p). This was your original argument and you were wrong - AA has less of a performance hit (especially FXAA) than doubling the pixel count.

Also, all panels for PCs are produced by samsung and LG. They are not producing 2560x1600 in anything less than 30 inches for a desktop monitor form factor - and like I mentioned numerous times, that resolution is not usable at 23 inches unless the OS uses gigantic fonts. You can view their product plans for the next year, again, NOT HAPPENING. Only by using a tablet operating system with hyper enlarged fonts is it usable, which is what apple does.

It honestly sounds like you want 2560x1600 on a 23" because you're cheap or can't afford the real thing. You also complained about 8x MSAA when you're using a GTX 460. If you want more pixels, prepare to pay for it with a 30". If you want 8x MSAA upgrade your cheap video card. Panel makers have no plans for producing that resolution outside of 7-10 inch tablet screens, again - in this context that resolution works because android and iOS allow you to enlarge fonts to stupid proportions.

Lastly, most people agree that for home theater or immersive gaming, bigger is better. For gaming purposes nobody takes a mac seriously and most people don't want to game on a crap 22" inch panel. I'd much rather game on a 60" big screen or a 30" PC monitor. I don't think your opinion of getting a tiny screen for gaming is representative of what most gamers want - games want bigger and better. Not smaller.

Yeah. I hope they go back at producing those awesome 4k 56" monitors, this time for an acceptable price. I think that's the perfect DPI for a pc monitor.

 

[blackened23]

a 690 GTX could run 4k in a 24" monitor without AA with ease.

AA doesn't have a large performance penalty unless you are VRAM limited (which you are with your GTX 460). And your statement that a 690 could do 4k with ease - that highly depends on which game you're playing. 2560 is roughly double the pixel count from 1080p, and 4k is double that. There are plenty of games that push the 690 to the limit at 2560, at 4k it would definitely struggle. Maybe a cheap blizzard game, sure. Not a real game.

I use 680 sli and metro 2033 can definitely dip below the ideal framerate at times, I still cannot max that game out. I can see this happening with the upcoming crysis 3 as well. Extrapolating performance data, 4k gaming will be roughly half the performance of 2560x1600. I'm excited about 4k resolution but GPUs aren't ready yet and can hardly handle it "with ease".

 

[kache]

27'' 1440P is the best you can in terms of PPI in the desktop market. I don't think we'll see quad-1080P for many years to come. Look how long it's taking to bring a 1440P 120Hz IPS to the market... And speaking of 120Hz, the highest end GPUs can't even max out that refresh rate at 1440P in the more demanding games.

Well, the difference is that with a quad-HD monitor you can play at 1920x1080 without losing quality, and still have 4k res for other uses.
With a 2560 monitor you'd play at 1280, and that's not really satisfying.