I currently have a 30" Monitor running at 2560x1600, and games looks great on it. It's about 20-30 inches away from my face. I'm thinking about upgrading to something a bit larger, perhaps a 49" 4K TV. Which one will look better considering that both will be about the same distance from my face? If the image will look sharper on the 30" 2560x1600 at 30 inches vs the 4K TV then I rather just stick to what I have.

It depends what you mean by better. The 30" monitor will be sharper (100 dpi vs 90 dpi), but 90 dpi is okay and the 49" will give you a much wider field of view. But the real problem is it's also twice as many pixels, so your performance will suffer. You don't say what your specs are but 4Mp is marginal for my PC, 8Mp would be impossible. I think there's also a bit of tap-dancing you need to consider to make sure your PC can even drive a 4K monitor.

Even though the 4k is larger, it is much higher resolution and will look extremely sharp in game.

 

In Windows 10 is a bit different. Unless you like to have icons and text very tiny (i.e. difficulty reading), the 4k will require you to run in an increased sized mode. I run at 200%. Some games have issue with this and the mode needs to be turned back to the nominal 100%.

The 30" monitor will be sharper (100 dpi vs 90 dpi), but 90 dpi is okay and the 49" will give you a much wider field of view.

 

Unless you zoom out it will only give you a bigger picture, not a wider field of view. The problem with zooming out is that it then gives a progressively more distorted image at the edges and depth perception and height judgement are wrong.

Unless you zoom out it will only give you a bigger picture, not a wider field of view.

 

I am talking about the actual field of view - i.e. the number of degrees of your forward view that will be filled by the screen. Obviously you have to adjust the zoom factor to maintain the same sized picture. If you are using a realistic zoom factor* you won't get much distortion on either of these screens at this viewing distance.

 

(* 0.8 for the big screen, 1.2 for the little one if you have WVA=True. 0.5 for the big one and 0.7 for the little one if you don't.)

Sounds like it's better to stick to what I currently have and save the big screen for later unless I sit further away on a couch vs sitting at the my desk.

 

Thanks for the input everyone.