The 4k Scare

[lavaheadache]

"The Scare"

The two primary features of 4K (3840 x 2160) displays that excite me:

1) DPI: Individual pixels should be barely perceptible, if at all, at reasonable viewing distances. Also, the space available for workflow on a 4K 28"+ monitor would be incredible. I often wish I could fit 3 or more separate windows open and in parallel when I'm working, such as a web browser, Word document, and PDF file. My current 24" 1200p display is great, but is lacking in raw work-space real estate.

2) Scaling: 3840 x 2160 is exactly 4 times 1920 x 1080 and 9 times 1280 x 720. I have no desire to invest in multi-GPU setups to game at 2160p resolutions, unless a single GPU can handle it at reasonable frame rates. Therefore, having the option to drop down to 1080p with perfect geometric scaling is huge. Additionally, the current standard in HD content is 1080p, with some 720p content still available. The ability to consume this media without having to worry about non-integer scaling conflicts or black bars is very enticing.

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Now that I've had about a month with my 2414 4k I want to share probably the most important thing.

You can buy single gpu video cards right now that will easily play even the most demanding games fluidly with most eye candy turned on I say most only cause I usually leave AA @ 2X since this screen really doesn't need AA.

While I have 2 780 ti's even 1 is more than capable of driving this screen with plenty of grunt.

Crysis 3 is the only game I have that needs 2 cards to become playable at Ultra/Very High settings. A quick drop of the shaders down to "high" brings you back down to playability with 1 card. When I use the term playable I am very picky too.

I even play BF4 with 2XAA maxed out 64 man servers with 2 cards with a frame limiter set at 60 with frame rates holding steady at 60, unless you hit escape or travel into enemy zones... for whatever reason frame rate plummets in the esc menu or the zones that tell you to turn back.


If you want to go 4k, don't worry about having to spend $1000's in video cards to be able to enjoy it. My buddy, who saw my screen and had to have one, is claiming that his vanilla GTX 780 is providing all the power his screen needs too and he is an avid BF4 player.

I hope this helps some people who want one but are scared by reviews and claims of needing 4x gpu's to drive the screen. Even my 3 gig frame buffer hasn't caught up to me yet... =P


edit...
youtube video

http:// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q035YMT96U4

 

[KingFatty]

The total pixel count for 4K is what, something close to triple-screen 1080p gaming? Would you say the performance can be extrapolated by looking at a benchmark result for 3x1080p surround/eyefinity, then multiplying by 3/4, to get an idea of what your performance would be on 4K?

 

[lavaheadache]

I would say for me since I have a pair of U3011's too that is similar to 4xAA 2560x1600, probably not quite though.

I tell you, the hype around the performance required prompted me to buy a second card while I was waiting for my screen to ship. Had I waited, I probably wouldn't have purchased

 

[96Firebird]

4K is 4x 1080p in terms of pixel count.

I was responding to KingFatty's first sentence, guess I should have quoted.

 

[lavaheadache]

4K is 4x 1080p in terms of pixel count.

yes it is..

 

[blastingcap]

Now that I've had about a month with my 2414 4k I want to share probably the most important thing.

You can buy single gpu video cards right now that will easily play even the most demanding games fluidly with most eye candy turned on I say most only cause I usually leave AA @ 2X since this screen really doesn't need AA.

While I have 2 780 ti's even 1 is more than capable of driving this screen with plenty of grunt.

Crysis 3 is the only game I have that needs 2 cards to become playable at Ultra/Very High settings. A quick drop of the shaders down to "high" brings you back down to playability with 1 card. When I use the term playable I am very picky too.

I even play BF4 with 2XAA maxed out 64 man servers with 2 cards with a frame limiter set at 60 with frame rates holding steady at 60, unless you hit escape or travel into enemy zones... for whatever reason frame rate plummets in the esc menu or the zones that tell you to turn back.


If you want to go 4k, don't worry about having to spend $1000's in video cards to be able to enjoy it. My buddy, who saw my screen and had to have one, is claiming that his vanilla GTX 780 is providing all the power his screen needs too and he is an avid BF4 player.

I hope this helps some people who want one but are scared by reviews and claims of needing 4x gpu's to drive the screen. Even my 3 gig frame buffer hasn't caught up to me yet... =P

Thanks lava, I suspected this was the case, speaking as a "3K" Eyefinity user. The dropoff in framerates appears to be nonlinear for most games so that going from 1080p to 4K usually doesn't drop your fps to 25% of what it is on 1080p. I'm guessing more like 33% on average, based on what I've seen with how games react to 3K.

I'm surprised you are leaving AA on at all though, I'd think no-AA is almost like 2x AA given how dense the pixels are.

 

[Batmeat]

4K is 4x 1080p in terms of pixel count.

I was responding to KingFatty's first sentence, guess I should have quoted.

Kinda but not really. True 4k standard definition is 4096 pixels × 2160 lines. however, for 4k tv's/monitors it's scaled to 3840 x 2160.

source

 

[lavaheadache]

Thanks lava, I suspected this was the case, speaking as a "3K" Eyefinity user. The dropoff in framerates appears to be nonlinear for most games so that going from 1080p to 4K usually doesn't drop your fps to 25% of what it is on 1080p. I'm guessing more like 33% on average, based on what I've seen with how games react to 3K.

I'm surprised you are leaving AA on at all though, I'd think AA is almost like 2x AA given how dense the pixels are.

I'm running AA because I have horsepower to spare. Running a frame limiter with GPU usage monitors active lets you know exactly how much power you have left going untapped.

 

[Sohaltang]

I dunno about this.. I run 2X780ti and push for 120 FPS(120hz screen) @ just 1440P and they are really not enough to give me what I want in many game. Playable yes.

 

[krumme]

Now that I've had about a month with my 2414 4k I want to share probably the most important thing.

You can buy single gpu video cards right now that will easily play even the most demanding games fluidly with most eye candy turned on I say most only cause I usually leave AA @ 2X since this screen really doesn't need AA.

While I have 2 780 ti's even 1 is more than capable of driving this screen with plenty of grunt.

Crysis 3 is the only game I have that needs 2 cards to become playable at Ultra/Very High settings. A quick drop of the shaders down to "high" brings you back down to playability with 1 card. When I use the term playable I am very picky too.

I even play BF4 with 2XAA maxed out 64 man servers with 2 cards with a frame limiter set at 60 with frame rates holding steady at 60, unless you hit escape or travel into enemy zones... for whatever reason frame rate plummets in the esc menu or the zones that tell you to turn back.


If you want to go 4k, don't worry about having to spend $1000's in video cards to be able to enjoy it. My buddy, who saw my screen and had to have one, is claiming that his vanilla GTX 780 is providing all the power his screen needs too and he is an avid BF4 player.

I hope this helps some people who want one but are scared by reviews and claims of needing 4x gpu's to drive the screen. Even my 3 gig frame buffer hasn't caught up to me yet... =P

Hey thanx. Very usefull. Was thinking on same screen and gaming bf4.
Whats your impression of the screen quality?
I am thinking its just to small..dont know..?

 

[Grooveriding]

What is your threshold for fluid by your definition ?

With a couple overclocked Titans I could not maintain constant 50+ FPS in BF3, Crysis 3, Metro:LL, CoH 2, The STALKER games, original Crysis and some others.

I can't see a single card being a good experience for 4K ever personally. I didn't have my 4K screen when BF4 was out, but, I've played BF4 on a single 780 overclocked to 1300/7000 and FPS drops as low as 35-40 playing at 2560x1600. That is running ultra and 4xAA. Even trying a single card on Ultra with no AA and post-AA in BF4 gives 40fps at times.

In Battlefield 3 to hold 60fps at 4K I ran a mix of medium/high and no AA. It was unacceptable.

 

[lavaheadache]

What is your threshold for fluid by your definition ?

With a couple overclocked Titans I could not maintain constant 50+ FPS in BF3, Crysis 3, Metro:LL, CoH 2, The STALKER games, original Crysis and some others.

I can't see a single card being a good experience for 4K ever personally. I didn't have my 4K screen when BF4 was out, but, I've played BF4 on a single 780 overclocked to 1300/7000 and FPS drops as low as 35-40 playing at 2560x1600. That is running ultra and 4xAA. Even trying a single card on Ultra with no AA and post-AA in BF4 gives 40fps at times.

In Battlefield 3 to hold 60fps at 4K I ran a mix of medium/high and no AA. It was unacceptable.

tell me how I can prove my statement to you. I would not misdirect people.

 

[Grooveriding]

tell me how I can prove my statement to you. I would not misdirect people.

That's not what I meant. I was asking what your threshold is for fluid gameplay, because it must differ from mine. I don't like BF4 with a single 780 at 1600p and couldn't see even bothering with it at 4K with a single one.

I shared my feelings on using 4K in my post. I'm not asking for benchmarks or something, there are plenty of 4K benches on the web using recent games. Here is one for example

 

[Sohaltang]

tell me how I can prove my statement to you. I would not misdirect people.

What is your definition of fluidly? What is "easily"? With my rig below I'm not seeing either at 1440P better yet 4K.


"You can buy single gpu video cards right now that will easily play even the most demanding games fluidly with most eye candy turned on I say most only cause I usually leave AA @ 2X since this screen really doesn't need AA. "

 

[Sohaltang]

Averages for the fastest card on the planet right now @ 1440. Running 2 in SLI still has noticeable drops. 4K would be horrid

 

[moonbogg]

tell me how I can prove my statement to you. I would not misdirect people.

Provide FRAPS runs showing min, max, average with a certain game. Go on a 64 player BF4 map and do a fraps run and don't stare at the sky the whole time =).

 

[Pandamonia]

i dont buy it personally. I have 2x780 GTX and i can push my cards to the max with 4xMSAA at 1440p. If i went 2xMSAA and went to 4k then one could not handle that on its own

 

[lavaheadache]

youtube video incoming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q035YMT96U4

I couldn't upload in a higher quality for some reason.... FYI the monitor and current drivers don't allow image scaling so just the very fact that the image is full screen helps you to know I am in fact that I am running 3840x2160. Sucks I couldn't upload that any clearer. I'll keep trying

 

[cmdrdredd]

That's not what I meant. I was asking what your threshold is for fluid gameplay, because it must differ from mine. I don't like BF4 with a single 780 at 1600p and couldn't see even bothering with it at 4K with a single one.

I shared my feelings on using 4K in my post. I'm not asking for benchmarks or something, there are plenty of 4K benches on the web using recent games. Here is one for example

30fps isn't what I'd call a good experience in a shooter. Maybe on a console with slower analog control movements though. Those dips to 20fps would be very jarring for someone like me.

 

[Majcric]

Even if the playability of 4k is adequate with current GPU tech, I wonder if this scenario will change when next gen titles start showing up. With any luck hopefully High-end Maxwell will arrive not long afterwards.

 

[lavaheadache]

30fps isn't what I'd call a good experience in a shooter. Maybe on a console with slower analog control movements though.

That chart is showing very High quality with Tess. Like I said, in the most demanding titles the most you ever have to do is click like 1 setting down to have fluid game play. In any less demanding titles, no worries.

My OP still stands, watch my vid.

 

[Ventanni]

I buy it. Why not? The individuals stating that 4k would be impossible at a fluid framerate would absolutely be correct if the OP was running 4K with 4x MSAA and ultra settings, but the OP is not, because that's not what he stated. What the OP is stating is that 4k is definitely playable with most of the eye candy settings turned on (sometimes with 2x AA), and that's a very different statement from saying all the eye candy turned on, because we all know that in some games, the performance impact of some graphics options don't always correlate to their subjective increase in eye candy.

Case in point, my laptop has a Geforce 540m. It is absolutely by no means a powerhouse of a GPU by any stretch of the imagination, but I can play WoW at 1080p on it with 2x AA enabled (to my TV) with some of the eye candy turned down, and it plays just fine. Mind you, the 540m has a whopping 4 ROP's.

Side note, what I'd honestly like to start seeing in some performance graphs is something similar to what Planetside 2 has built into the game; it tells you whether your framerate is limited by the CPU or the GPU. But let's take it further. For GPU benchmarks, I'd like to start seeing what the limiter in performance is if that were able to be done. For instance, if a Geforce 9000Ti-Titan-GTX is pushing 50fps at 4k resultion in SoccerMom 4, is it:

1. ROP limited (by hardware)
2. Shader limited (by hardware)
3. Texture fill limited (by hardware)
4. Memory bandwidth limited.
5. CPU limited.

I see no reason why a Geforce 780Ti can't push 4k at reasonable framerates with some of the settings turned down, all the while still providing an enjoyable visual experience.

 

[Sohaltang]

That chart is showing very High quality with Tess. Like I said, in the most demanding titles the most you ever have to do is click like 1 setting down to have fluid game play. In any less demanding titles, no worries.

My OP still stands, watch my vid.

RE you not running 2 780Ti's in SLI. I cant tell much from your vid. Looks like 40-60 FPS with 1500$ worth of cards. The exact opposite of the point your trying to make.

I spent a small fortune on my 1440 rig and watching FPS dip makes me wanna hulk smash things (not really but I may be a bit OCD lol). Dropping even more $$ on a 4K monitor to see 40 FPS would make my blood boil. Turning down settings on a multi thousand dollar rig would make me lose sleep at night. Hell Im losing sleep becasue I cant get a constant 120 fps @ 1440p.

 

[lavaheadache]

RE you not running 2 780Ti's in SLI. I cant tell much from your vid. Looks like 40-60 FPS with 1500$ worth of cards. The exact opposite of the point your trying to make.

I spent a small fortune on my 1440 rig and watching FPS dip makes me wanna hulk smash things (not really but I may be a bit OCD lol). Dropping even more $$ on a 4K monitor to see 40 FPS would make my blood boil. Turning down settings on a multi thousand dollar rig would make me lose sleep at night. Hell Im losing sleep becasue I cant get a constant 120 fps @ 1440p.

reading fail........ I had 1 card running in my vid not 2

 

[Grooveriding]

youtube video incoming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q035YMT96U4

I couldn't upload in a higher quality for some reason.... FYI the monitor and current drivers don't allow image scaling so just the very fact that the image is full screen helps you to know I am in fact that I am running 3840x2160. Sucks I couldn't upload that any clearer. I'll keep trying

Didn't need to upload a video. There will certainly be various settings you can get good frames at with turning down settings. For BF3 though, you'd be better not using Bazaar or Metro to try and stress your system. Those maps are the easiest to run.

Something like Oman, Caspian, Bandar will be a completely different experience. Huge maps and the addition of vehicle combat changes performance a lot in Battlefield.

I don't disagree you can get playable frames at 4K turning down settings, but do disagree about max settings just forgoing 4x AA for 2x AA to get 60fps constants. That is just not the case, you need to turn down more than AA settings and that is with two cards, not one. Averaging 30-40fps is terrible as well when you account for the fact that you are going to see minimums of 20.

I agree you can get good frames turning settings down, but just AA ? A heck of a lot more than AA if your goal is 50-60fps constants in new games. On a single card I think you'd be running low most of the time.