4k vs 1440p

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

16 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

One of the 3rd party developers posting on the main forums admitted one reason they use 4K textures, even though it makes minimal difference for normal users, is that YouTube reviewers like to zoom into obscure parts of the aircraft like in the wheel wells or under the seats, looking for low-res/low-detail areas to talk about.

I used higher res textures at KLGU than most people use, but I don't remember all their sizes.
I just did it because they look better closer up, but in a sense they sometimes looks worse at a medium distance away (not always).
Softer textures can look better sometimes at airports, gives it a touch of that cartoon flavor which can be good.

I still have to fix the taxiway markings and slightly crooked taxiway borders, because MSFS default asphalt is crooked when you connect taxiways sometimes. I was hoping they fixed that so I wouldn't have to create custom images, but not yet...

Edited July 28, 2022 by Alpine Scenery

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

People don't want to hear that there isn't much difference, they want to hear "Wow 4k looks so much better than 1440p".
I will keep an open mind as I test it, but the early results aren't promising...

I am using a 4k native Dell in front of me, and to my left I have a 1440p Gigabyte monitor that is is in 4k mode (so downscaling it).

If having to choose between Higher Hz or more resolution, I would pick the higher Hz over the resolution, because even though that can also be hard to see at times, it's more likely to make a difference to more people.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Alpine Scenery

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

The best I can say right now is anti-aliasing might be slightly smoother looking with blades of grass at a distance, but it's so so slight.
It could just be tiny color differences in the monitors, I did calibrate both the same, but a tiny difference remains.

When you have problems testing something because it's too close, that pretty much gives you your answer...

It's too close to even test in MSFS under normal flying, and needs some specialized textures and a custom rendered object to really test it properly. That said, if I have to do all that just to find a difference, not worth the extra AC bill to run in 4k 🙂

Needs a double blind test by 20 people, it's too close to test by any one person alone.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Alpine Scenery

[Cpt_Piett 4,645]

3 hours ago, Alpine Scenery said:

People don't want to hear that there isn't much difference, they want to hear "Wow 4k looks so much better than 1440p".

Wouldn't this expectation bias work both ways though? 🙂 People that are hyped by 4K are more likely to "see" that it's obviously way more sharp than lower resolutions. And vice versa. 

In pain management there's the concept of the pain experience, which is highly subjective. And the concepts of placebo and nocebo are very real. In studies, people were given intravenous morphine for pain, then the testers told them that "we are now stopping the infusion". Just hearing this lead to fear and the expectation that the pain would get worse. And it invariably did in almost all the subjects. (they didn't stop the infusion)

I use 4K, but if I didn't have the expectation that it's way better than 1440p, I probably could have saved a lot of money on TVs and monitors 😉

Based on your posts, I think you would be very happy with 1440p. If your bias changes over the years, you can always replace it with a 4K later.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[cianpars 1,165]

I recently upgraded from a 24 inch 1080 monitor to a 1440 32 inch Gigabyte monitor.  The difference is amazing though my new RTX3080 and 5600X make much harder work of it at ultra settings (upgrade to the 5600X next on my to do list).  However, I do watch Youtube videos on a 49 inch 4k TV set and notice the greater clarity.

For now, I feel that 1440 is the sweet spot for msfs to get a combination of decent quality and performance.

[CaptainNick 575]

I am convinced *insert whatever resolution I like* is the best.

The best is whatever you like. We have options. No need to make threads trying to convince yourself one way or the other.

[tup61 1,562]

I use the Viewsonic Elite XG270Q which is 'only' 27". My viewing distance is around 50 cm. (I don't really get it when people buy HUGE expensive screens and then sit at a distance of 1 or 2 meters.) My main reason to go with this monitor is the official G-Sync support. G-Sync hasn't been mentioned in this topic yet (or I must have missed it). To me G-Sync is a real game changer.

My main reasons to not go for 4K was performance: 4K needs too much processing power. 1440p hits the sweet spot and specially at 27": it has a great ppi which was a big improvement over my previous 27" 1080 monitor. My son has a 32" 1440p monitor and there you already can notice the larger ppi. And sitting close to a larger screen somehow doesn't work for me. To really 'enjoy' 4K you'd need a bigger monitor than 27" obviously and they become expensive real quick.

The main reason to go for this (in comparison) expensive monitor was official G-Sync support (so it works even with a very low fps). And I am very happy I did because it works like a charm. I can fly in MSFS with all settings at ultra with any plane and performance is smooth all the way. I rather spend money on G-Sync support than on a larger 4K monitor.

I have to add that I've always been quite happy with my previous 1080p monitor... as long as you don't compare it with other monitors things look 'sharp' anyway. I never felt the need to upgrade for years and years, also because at that resolution performance isn't a problem (nowadays). But I am very happy with my new 1440 monitor now! (That XG270Q really is superb: great colors out of the box and all!)

BTW I use a nVidia 3060Ti GPU so not the most expensive top model and for 1440p it's great: for 4K you really need one of the more expensive GPU's which is another con of 4K.

[tup61 1,562]

51 minutes ago, cianpars said:

I recently upgraded from a 24 inch 1080 monitor to a 1440 32 inch Gigabyte monitor.  The difference is amazing

Do you watch them from the same distance? Because the ppi is the exact same. So if you watch them from the same distance the 32" is only larger, not sharper. So I wonder in what regard the difference is amazing.

In fact, the ppi of that 4K 49" tv is even (a fraction) smaller than those monitors...! I do suppose you watch that tv at a larger distance which makes things look sharper. When you look at all those screens from the same distance the sharpness should be about the same: the size is the main difference.

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Based on your posts, I think you would be very happy with 1440p. If your bias changes over the years, you can always replace it with a 4K later.

Just telling you what I see, I have no expectations, I tried hard to see a difference, there isn't much.
I am pretty OCD when it comes to image quality, so if I thought there was almost any difference, I would have noted it.

Everything is anecdotal when people switch displays or say they see this or that, you have to test it side-by-side with same sized display outputting same settings from same source calibrated to the same color and same luminance (in this case I had both at 20 fL). I used a C6 colorimeter to calibrate both very close, I could have spent more time to get that last dE refined to the point where there was no difference in color at all, but I got better things to do.

Even after all that work, it's too close to really test in this case, and as noted, I'm not the end-all, as it would need a double blind test.

My point is, if I need a double blind test, then it's a non-issue for me as far as 4k vs 1440p...

 

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by Alpine Scenery

[G-RFRY 1,712]

The move to 4K buy game consoles and TV`s and monitors are that you have less need for AA, in a few years you will be lucky to find a none 4K TV most manufactures have stopped making them, and again you tend to find what the future game wants he gets.  

[ckyliu 1,749]

7 hours ago, Noel said:

What is the native resolution of the imagery in MSFS? ...  If the native resolution of scenery is not at least 4K then 4K display does not improve the picture in large part...

6 hours ago, Alpine Scenery said:

The problem with using the absolute highest-res textures in games is it gives it a "harder" look on the textures instead of that softer feel, and when making things too realistic looking, they don't blend in as well with each other. Death Stranding did a good job of using fairly high-resolution textures, but they probably still weren't really true 4k as far as detail resolving goes from camera lenses.

The term "4k texture" is a bit meaningless, it's all about pixel density (i.e. how many pixels per cm or PPI). Putting an entire building on a single 4K texture sheet versus a single door has a very different appearance and quality, but they're both 4K textures. This also means you can benefit from 4K textures even though you might only be running 1080p monitor, and it explains why 8K textures exist even though hardly anyone has an 8K screen.

 

2 hours ago, tup61 said:

4K needs too much processing power. 1440p hits the sweet spot and specially at 27": it has a great ppi which was a big improvement over my previous 27" 1080 monitor. My son has a 32" 1440p monitor and there you already can notice the larger ppi. And sitting close to a larger screen somehow doesn't work for me. To really 'enjoy' 4K you'd need a bigger monitor than 27" obviously and they become expensive real quick.

BTW I use a nVidia 3060Ti GPU so not the most expensive top model and for 1440p it's great: for 4K you really need one of the more expensive GPU's which is another con of 4K.

Fully agree with this. I did a fair amount of research when I did my 27" 1440p build (including standing in front of them in shops, trying friends'), and I found that was very much the sweet spot. Below 24" my experience was you may as well stick with 1080p so I'd recommend that size and resolution for those on a tight budget. At 32" I started to see the benefits of 4K over 1440p but not massively so and text got too small for my liking (less of an issue with modern OS text scaling but legacy applications can present problems)

Based on the above my conclusion is that about 100 ppi (pixels per inch) at a typical monitor viewing distance of 70cm is ideal, because 24"@1080=92PPI and 27"@1440p=109PPI.

32" mentioned by OP is a bit of an awkward size when it comes to typical render resolutions, at 1440p it's 91 PPI which I find a tad fuzzy, and at 2160p(4K) it's 138 PPI which is the limit of detail the human eyes can resolve, especially given at that monitor size you might be sat further away - although these days you have render scaling in most games to counteract somewhat and gain back some FPS. I venture to really see the benefit of 4K, a monitor of at least 36"-38" is needed giving a 119-115 PPI (if 36" 1440p monitors are even made, you'd only be about 80 PPI) or you get a big TV and sit much further away.

There's a monitor PPI calculator at https://www.sven.de/dpi/

There's a visual acuity calculator at https://stari.co/tv-monitor-viewing-distance-calculator that will advise at what screen size, resolution and viewing distance your eyes (well, typical 20/20 eyes anyway) can no longer resolve more detail (i.e. beyond that distance individual pixels merge together in your sight)

There some more layman explanation on field of view and angular resolution at https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship

10 hours ago, Alpine Scenery said:

I cannot see any difference yet at all looking at the videos paused from 1 foot away or even closer, even when zooming, the video in the images distort at the same zoom level (which is odd). It could be the codec and compression they are using though, not sure.

My TV is 55" 4K but 1080p content looks very good at my viewing distances, I rekon 65-70" would when I'd really start to notice 4K benefits. But I find streamed 4K content looks significantly better than streamed 1080p content and I believe this is the higher bitrate providing more details and less compression artefacts. I don't notice the same level of difference on satellite broadcast television between 108p and 4K, and I think that's because broadcast 1080p bitrate is higher than a typical 1080p stream over the internet.

I don't have much experience of this, but I perceived 4K Bluray to look a lot better than a 4K stream on a big enough screen, again, this would be bitrate and compression and perhaps other things like HDR10.

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by ckyliu

[regis9 4,014]

I had a 1440p 32” monitor then switched to a 4K 55” TV.  I feel like those size/resolution combos were quite satisfactory.

[JSmith2112 317]

Regarding viewing distances, Linus Tech Tips did a video about this a while ago. Skip forward to about 4 minutes to see what some of his staff members think: How Close is TOO Close? - YouTube

[Noel 4,499]

2 hours ago, ckyliu said:

The term "4k texture" is a bit meaningles

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

[hanhamreds 592]

I'm running a 32" 1440P monitor, if I wasn't playing MSFS I'd upgrade to 4k, but for this 2k seems a good fit.

Screen resolution is fine at my two feet viewing distance, I'm not GPU limited generally which also gives me the option to bump up render scaling a bit if need be.

 

that being said, on my 55" OLED at 8-10 feet it looks amazing