Single Large 4K TV Screen vs. Multiple Monitors (FSX/P3D)

[Voltman 0]

Hi Everyone,

 

Firstly I've passively lurked these forums on and off for years from aside - THANKS to the collective soul and knowledge of everyone! 

 

I'm finally embarking on building a dedicated 172S Skyhawk NAV III sim based on FSX or P3D for primarily night flying, IFR, and procedural / workload management home training, which will have dedicated / separate G1000 panels / bezels and standby instruments etc. - basically all "external" instruments + a small side screen for miscellaneous controls and needs I can't mimic with hardware. Obviously since its primarily for cockpit tasks I'm not heavily concerned about the "prettiness" of the outside view, and actually would prefer a higher (smoother) frame rate versus pristine detail. For VFR night flying it would be important that runway lighting and beacons be reasonably specular in nature - but I don't really care about surrounding scenery. 

 

Thus for the outside view I'm considering a simple setup using a 55" 4K TV panel at a short distance from the console (about 1.5 meters/5 feet). The 4k TV has a resolution of 3840x2160, which I hope in theory can be sufficiently driven by a single or dual GPU card setup. For the CPU I'm not sure of the exact configuration yet but I have resources to make it an over clocked 6 core at ~4Ghz etc. 

 

I understand a large majority of people seem to prefer 3 dedicated monitors, versus a large TV, but most of those opinions seemed to be based on experiences with HD TV at 1920x1080 resolution. In addition, I've had some experience with the 3 monitor setups and for myself they seem "wider than real but vertically shorter than real" in comparison to my real life seat perspective view from a 172.  

 

Any thoughts on using a 4K monitor would be greatly appreciated. It's a big investment obviously.  And if someone has done this before could you please share with us how well it worked out..

 

Thanks in advance!

 

--Volt Man

 

[gboz 157]

Any thoughts on using a 4K monitor would be greatly appreciated. It's a big investment obviously.

 

 

If you have the money go for it.

 

I've seen the Sony 55" and 64" and the LG 84" 4K's and they do look stunning showing 4K video.

 

Against that, for FSX it might be a slight wast of resources.

I find I have to sit closer than about three feet to see the dots on a HD 1920x1080 TV.

At your five feet a HD TV might look, dot wise, much the same as a 4K.

Given that, you might then want to compare individual reviews of specific 4K TVs with reviews of individual HD TV's

to see if there is enough difference in each models colour accuracy/depth, motion blur, input lag etc. to justify

the price difference. Also not all 4K's can do a 60HZ refresh rate yet.

 

This is early days for 4K TV and I guess there are a few lemons out there already.

gb.

[Voltman 0]

Thanks for the opinion Gboz.  I wound up doing a lot of comparisons as you'd said, and in one lucky case they had the Sharp 4k 60" Aquos side by side with its older 60" HD predecessor  showing the same video which happened to be aerial fly-bys through a mountain range along a river bank. I watched that from about 5 ft for nearly 20 minutes as the video looped, and just as you'd said I was hard pressed to see the dots on the HD 1080p. Not only that the HD 1080p was on sale at $1400, while the 4K listed at $5400 (USD equivalent prices). I wound up getting the HD at $1400. I figure I can do something better with the savings which ironically turned out to 4K  

[GSalden 4,657]

For me it's multimonitor : I have 3x 32" hd tv's in 5850x1080 resolution.

The view is very wide and incredible sharp.

 

I am sitting about 3-4 ft away from the monitors and it really is like looking out of cockpit windows...

[gboz 157]

I wound up getting the HD at $1400.

 

 

Curse....

I was hoping you would get the 4K so you could tell us all about it.  :smile:

 

Let us know how the HD goes.

 

gb.