4K Monitors: Not Now, But Soon 186
An anonymous reader writes 4K monitor prices have fallen into the range where mainstream consumers are starting to consider them for work and for play. There are enough models that we can compare and contrast, and figure out which are the best of the ones available. But this report at The Wirecutter makes the case that absent a pressing need for 8.29 million pixels, you should just wait before buying one. They say, "The current version of the HDMI specification (1.4a) can only output a 4096×2160 resolution at a refresh rate of 24 Hz or 3840×2160 at 30 Hz—the latter, half that of what we're used to on TVs and monitors. Connect up a 4K monitor at 30 Hz via HDMI and you'll see choppier animations and transitions in your OS. You might also encounter some visible motion stuttering during normal use, and you'll be locked to a maximum of 30 frames per second for your games—it's playable, but not that smooth. ... Most people don't own a system that's good enough for gaming on a 4K display—at least, not at highest-quality settings. You'll be better off if you just plan to surf the Web in 4K: Nvidia cards starting in the 600 series and AMD Radeon HD 6000 and 7000-series GPUs can handle 4K, as can systems built with integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics or AMD Trinity APUs. ... There's a light on the horizon. OS support will strengthen, connection types will be able to handle 4K displays sans digital tricks, and prices will drop as more 4K displays hit the market. By then, there will even be more digital content to play on a 4K display (if gaming or multitasking isn't your thing), and 4K monitors will even start to pull in fancier display technology like Nvidia's G-Sync for even smoother digital shootouts."
display port (Score:5, Interesting)
Displayport doesn't have the same limitations that HDMI has at those resolutions. and is available now.
Nvidia 6xx and ATI 7xxx (not to mention intel hd4000) are not exactly brand new, and available now.
IF anything, this sounds like "HDMI is showing it's age, use displayport"
Display Port (Score:1, Interesting)
Why is there no mention of Display Port? Current 4K LCD all accept this, and with the right GPU, you can most certainly drive at 60Hz, full resolution.
This is more about HDMI being a broken standard to me. I just don't like DisplayPort because it's sort of Apple's thing.
What?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm typing this on a monitor with 3840x2160 resolution, at 60hz right now. I posted about it weeks ago:
Clicky [slashdot.org]
It's like $600 when on sale, and it works superb for coding and playing games. Skyrim/Saints Row 4 plays fine on a GTX 660 at 4k resolution, you just disable any AA (not needed), but enable vsync (tearing is more visible at 4k, so just use that). Perhaps that's just me - but things seem fine at 4k res on a medium-cost graphics card.
A few generations of video cards, and everything will be > 60-FPS smooth again anyway (partially thanks to consoles again), so I don't really need to wait for a dynamic frame smoothing algorithm implementation to enjoy having a giant screen for coding now.
I don't see any reason why you'd want to wait - it's as cheap as two decent monitors, and if you're slightly near-sighted like me, it's just really great. See my previous post for a review link and an image of all the PC Ultima games on screen at once.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Occulus Rift (Score:2, Interesting)
In it's present iteration, the Occulus Rift might very well fit your current hardware but the requirements for getting a decent amount of pixel per view-angle on VR are brutal. Micheal Abrash's post on the matter is very enlightening: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/when-it-comes-to-resolution-its-all-relative/. In short, you'll most likely need a ultra-responsive, insanely dense mini-displays each boasting a 4k x 4k resolution per eye. This kind of resolution plus the latency requirements for VR will indeed demand a very powerful gaming rig.
Re:display port (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Display Port (Score:1, Interesting)
DisplayPort is actually Intel's and Dell's thing. They invented it.
AMD and Apple picked it up because it's the only replacement for DVI which is capped at 1600x1200 at 60Hz or 1200p at 60Hz. One display only. Requires dual-link for higher resolutions. Has large outdated connector.
DisplayPort supports up to 8K and 4K 3D or two 4K displays per connector at 60Hz. Or 4K at 120Hz which is what I want on my display. :P
You can drive multiple DisplayPort monitors by daisy chaining them together rather than using multiple ports, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... [wikipedia.org]