4k vs 1440p

[ckyliu 1,749]

@Noel Providing the screens of an identical size, it would look better at 1024, the lower resolution display. This may sound counterintuitive, but the reason is because it would be occupy less space on the physical screen and therefore be of a higher PPI.

For it to look better on the higher resolution, the image would have to be bigger than 1024, meaning it would be forcibly downscaled with a loss of detail to make it fit within the screen area.

Edited July 28, 2022 by ckyliu

[Noel 4,498]

46 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

@Noel Providing the screens of an identical size, it would look better at 1024, the lower resolution display. This may sound counterintuitive, but the reason is because it would be occupy less space on the physical screen and therefore be of a higher PPI.

Of course--which is why I am adamant unless the native resolution is at least 4K, 4K display offers nothing to improve the image.  So back to the original question:  what is the native resolution of scenery and objects such as buildings in MSFS?  Plane models will be up to 8K but I question the scenery resolution benefiting, at all, from 4K displays.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Noel

[ctdlg 106]

5 hours ago, Noel said:

Of course--which is why I am adamant unless the native resolution is at least 4K, 4K display offers nothing to improve the image. ..

Hello,

Consider other things such as HDR, color and contrast, and viewing distance, which can all make a huge impact on your viewing experience.

Edit : not easy to calibrate/characterize, so, may be, it's not for everyone ( to fully enjoy those 4k monitors) ...

Edited July 28, 2022 by ctdlg

[crimplene 631]

5 hours ago, Noel said:

Of course--which is why I am adamant unless the native resolution is at least 4K, 4K display offers nothing to improve the image.  So back to the original question:  what is the native resolution of scenery and objects such as buildings in MSFS?  Plane models will be up to 8K but I question the scenery resolution benefiting, at all, from 4K displays.

This is a common misconception. The resolution of textures (trees, buldings, gauges) does not have to be 8k because you almost never see their full resolution, unless you go very near to them. Since this is a 3D programm, every textured is scaled relative to the distance to the viewpoint (obviously). If (e.g.) the gauge (or building or whatever) has a texture of 2000x2000 pixel, you only see the full resolution when it fills your 1080p screen entirely or a big part of your 4k screen. Usually it is only a fraction of the screen in size and it does make a huge difference if it's scaled down to 20x20 or 40x40 pixel, obviously. Conclusion: the native resolution of scenery texture is not of much interest if you are not on the ground very near to those scenery elements.

If you'd ever used MSFS in 4K you would not doubt the huge benefit of a higher screen resolution. Instruments for example are much, much crisper in 4k than in 1440p or 1080p. Same goes for scenery. Since I have one 4k and one 1080p monitor I can compare directly. Two different worlds entirely. Sadly it is simply impossible to show the difference in screenshots, because you would need a 4k screen to be able to see the difference.

[MySound 403]

Bought myself a LG CX 48“ OLED for my PC about a year ago. And will never go back. 
I have a 32“ Samsung IPS next to it - and the comparison is mind blowing. 
 

An OLED with 120 Hz, 4K, HDR and G-Sync is hard to beat. 

[MySound 403]

54 minutes ago, crimplene said:

This is a common misconception. The resolution of textures (trees, buldings, gauges) does not have to be 8k because you almost never see their full resolution, unless you go very near to them. Since this is a 3D programm, every textured is scaled relative to the distance to the viewpoint (obviously). If (e.g.) the gauge (or building or whatever) has a texture of 2000x2000 pixel, you only see the full resolution when it fills your 1080p screen entirely or a big part of your 4k screen. Usually it is only a fraction of the screen in size and it does make a huge difference if it's scaled down to 20x20 or 40x40 pixel, obviously. Conclusion: the native resolution of scenery texture is not of much interest if you are not on the ground very near to those scenery elements.

If you'd ever used MSFS in 4K you would not doubt the huge benefit of a higher screen resolution. Instruments for example are much, much crisper in 4k than in 1440p or 1080p. Same goes for scenery. Since I have one 4k and one 1080p monitor I can compare directly. Two different worlds entirely. Sadly it is simply impossible to show the difference in screenshots, because you would need a 4k screen to be able to see the difference.

Could not say it better. Thanks. At least one persons understands how textures and screen resolutions work 😉

[Ixoye 1,821]

For me 3440x1440 is good enough, G-Sync Ultimate is more important to me than 4K when I will upgrade my monitor.

[Noel 4,498]

3 hours ago, MySound said:

Conclusion: the native resolution of scenery texture is not of much interest if you are not on the ground very near to those scenery elements.

How does this support the notion scenery, which is what i'm talking about, looks better on a 4K screen and most importantly--from what viewing distance?  It's a big processing burden, 4K v 3440x1440, so unless the difference is truly "huge" doesn't seem like it would be worth the processing burden.  Here's a compressed/degraded image from my 3440x1440--can't see how to improve on this quite frankly.  Same same it true of my 4K Sony TV:  movies in 4K, from where we sit, make zero difference in image quality over even 1080p, but we are at 12' or so from a 65" screen.  The same principles apply--viewing distance from the screen and from scenery textures from the air.  

 

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

15 hours ago, Noel said:

Do you believe this image would look better on a 4K screen than a 3440x1440 screen, or for that matter a 1280x1024 screen?

Clearly not if just thrown onto a document.

If upscaled well with a good algorithm though,  it might. Upscaling of Blu-ray quality movies to 4K on newer TV's is quite impressive. 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[Fielder 3,663]

22 hours ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Right, if you stay with 60hz and 32" on 4k, and 60hz is fine for me since I don't play intense games.
However, at 35"+, the 4k monitors are a big expense even if only 60hz.

I am also considering a "rolling tray" on my table to do 2 monitors I can swap between, the cabling is a bit tricky though.
That said, 4k monitors are more future proof.

If the 1440p - Deco Gear (generic) 39" for $499 monitor is up to snuff, it is likely what I will keep instead of the 4k - 32" Dell.

Also will take a bit of getting used to sitting that far back on a desk.

 

Some monitors stands have the ability to swivel. If you set 2 or 3 monitors side by side pointed at you it's nice if side monitors can swivel. Swiveling makes them point straight at you.

You leave them lined up in a row (not swiveled for a wide view msfs. For anything else you could swivel the outside monitors to turn and face you directly. Then you all of them facing you directly. So you can get a good straight on look at all three screens (or all two screens if you have 2 monitors)

If a monitor does not swivel, I found that a couple of barbell weights stacked together make a very good swivel base.

I use a 25 pound circular weight with a 15 pound weight stacked on top of it. If you grab the screen edge the monitor and top weight will turn and bottom remain stationary. (Most barbell weights lock together  but they still will  turn/swivel with respect to each other). 

VA screens (as opposed to IPS) don't look their best from an angle. I love VA images because of their deep contrast blacks. With multi monitors in msfs, I swivel the end monitor slightly to face me a little more which cleans up how you see the image. Apparently MSFS SU10 beta has settings to correct for slight rotations like that for any or all monitors if using multi monitors. Although I haven't tried those correction setting sliders  yet.

 

[MySound 403]

8 hours ago, Noel said:

How does this support the notion scenery, which is what i'm talking about, looks better on a 4K screen and most importantly--from what viewing distance?  It's a big processing burden, 4K v 3440x1440, so unless the difference is truly "huge" doesn't seem like it would be worth the processing burden.  Here's a compressed/degraded image from my 3440x1440--can't see how to improve on this quite frankly.  Same same it true of my 4K Sony TV:  movies in 4K, from where we sit, make zero difference in image quality over even 1080p, but we are at 12' or so from a 65" screen.  The same principles apply--viewing distance from the screen and from scenery textures from the air.   

Just because you can’t see it or don’t believe it doesn’t make 4K the same as 2K 😉

You just talk about what you see personally. With this logic you could buy a 640x480 VGA Monitor, sit 5 meters back and tell us that you don’t see any pixels. 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Ray Proudfoot
Image in quoted message removed

[craigeaglefire 197]

Retina Display = pixels per (say) square inch = pixel density,

then apply viewing distance...

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

1440p is already 1.77 times higher resolution than 1080p, or 3,686,400 vs. 2,073,600. You can only keep increasing detail so much by adding more and more pixels (even if adding millions),
because the source imagery and original analog resolvability to the end output device are rarely 100% matched perfectly even at the maximum resolution. The same problem exists in rendering to some degree as well, for varying reasons, hence the render is rarely at the maximum perceived resolvability of its own resolution. Hence, you may render OR film an image in 4k and you only achieved a theoretical resolvability of 80% or so due to the renderer aspects or an analog lens error, but then some of the digital processing can fill back in the detail.  The higher the PPI the less likely you can achieve a maximum resolvability (hence the more likely the lens did not pick up as much detail as it needed). That is why some lenses on certain cameras like they use at NASA are ridiculously expensive in the tens of millions of dollars. That is also why they call an image a reference sample when it is closer to the full detail of how our eyes would naturally see the image in real life. Another reason is also because things in motion get blurred. Even with a reference sample image, you still need a reference sample output.

So unless you have "optimally captured pixels" in 4k (or optimally rendered pixels), then you are not going to lose detail at a 1:1 ratio from a down-sampling process.

Using a higher quality source resolution can sometimes help, even when outputting it at a lower resolution (hence playing a true 4k Bluray on a 1080p device).
If using a 1440p device, you can always put render scaling above 100% and let the renderer add additional perceived detail. 

When the analog part of the image quantization and sampling (analog part being lens usually) is not as good as the digital PPI that it is translated to, it's garbage in garbage out. For example, if you have a cheap lens on a camera you can go to infinite PPI and it won't help much, because the analog aspects of the lens itself (the MTF) cannot resolve the pixels as high as the digital resolution. So it's a source problem in the lens or the analog resolvability.

The majority of textures are not high enough resolution at the distances we are zoomed in MSFS to have a large benefit from 4k at certain distances. 4k and 1440p both have better anti-aliasing and image processing than 1080p since they have more pixels to wrap around the objects "halo effects". That said, the anti-aliasing increase in 4k vs 1440p is much less distinct looking at our viewing distances than the jump from 1080p to 1440p.

Maybe with some cockpit textures they scaled the images at a high enough resolution, but even then it's still hard to see a difference when I looked.

Most textures in games still have a lower resolvability in detail. There is some benefit to distant objects and textures in 4k vs. 1440p if you are sitting close enough, but a certain amount of detail is lost to the LOD system in down-sampling and motion resolution as you move around, so even then it's difficult for 4k to jump ahead of 1440p by a big margin. A lot of the complex processing algorithms that are going on these days have muted the difference. 

Put your 1440p monitor under a microscope and look how small the pixel already is, even though 4k pixels are much smaller, 1440p is already pretty small.
 

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Alpine Scenery

[Noel 4,498]

1 hour ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Put your 1440p monitor under a microscope and look how small the pixel already is, even though 4k pixels are much smaller, 1440p is already pretty small.

Pixels on my 3440x1440 display are a little smaller than 1/100th of an inch.  I sit 30" from my display.  I never see individual pixels, and edges of objects are razor sharp.  

Gander at the sharpness of this image, taken on 3440x1440.  I just don't believe the 'huge' difference is worth the processing overhead, especially including VRAM utilization.

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

20 hours ago, crimplene said:

If you'd ever used MSFS in 4K you would not doubt the huge benefit of a higher screen resolution. Instruments for example are much, much crisper in 4k than in 1440p or 1080p. Same goes for scenery. Since I have one 4k and one 1080p monitor I can compare directly. Two different worlds entirely. Sadly it is simply impossible to show the difference in screenshots, because you would need a 4k screen to be able to see the difference.

Even though by pixels 1440p has a long ways to reach true 4k, the threshold of analog and digital rendering resolvability and digital image processing is going to be hard to overcome when
starting with 3.7 million pixels. Hence going to 8 million pixels over 2 million is a huge difference, but 3.7 million is already IMO above the theoretical resolvability of the overwhelming majority of the source imagery that MSFS is using at most of our seating distances, so all that leaves is the anti-aliasing, the smoothness of the PPI, and and improvements the sampling and renderer do internally at 4k.

It is true however that because the pixels are even smaller in 4k some people sitting close enough may see a smoother image initially on a fresh set of eyes, but wait 5 minutes and your eyes will naturally lose the tiny amount of that smoothness and adjust or partial screen door effect you could call it, because the SDE is very small even at 1440p.  

Due to the game using textures that aren't at their maximum resolvability level and using lower LOD resolutions at farther distances, you lose some of the benefit of 4k even when you are zoomed out. 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Alpine Scenery