[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

yes using 6 displays, but can graphics cards actually power a 4k display yet?

Well, perhaps not for gaming but IBM had a 22" monitor capable of 3840x2400 resolution almost a decade ago. Absolutely beautiful at that screen size, but pixel response was atrocious.

So graphics cards can drive that resolution. Whether you get playable frame rates will depend on cost of video card (or cards), game used, and how much you wish to reduce game IQ settings.

Regards,
SB

[Davros]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

yes using 6 displays, but can graphics cards actually power a 4k display yet?

well eyefinity uses some coding magic to say to the driver this isnt 6 displays its a single display with a res of 5760x3200 so if it didnt work with a 4k display i'm sure it could be easily made to

Davros is guessing alphawolf would also like some pie

[Karoshi]

Originally Posted by Davros

well eyefinity uses some coding magic to say to the driver this isnt 6 displays its a single display with a res of 5760x3200 so if it didnt work with a 4k display i'm sure it could be easily made to

Davros is guessing alphawolf would also like some pie

Davros, his point was about the maximum single port resolution supported by the display outputs.
I checked the wikipedia entry for displayport but it was a mess. Under some versions/bandwidths it can support at least 2k displays.
Maybe Dave can clear the issue, what version of DP and what top bandwidth are supported by the DP output drivers?

[Silent_Buddha]

It's going to be purely a matter of bandwidth. DP 1.2 has max bandwidth of 17.28 Gb/s. That would allow 3840x2160x30 bpp @ 60 Hz with CVT-R timings (16.00 Gb/s).

As an interesting sidenote, HDMI 1.4 has far less bandwidth and would require dropping back to 30 Hz or 24 Hz at that resolution. HDMI 1.4a doesn't bump up available bandwidth and thus would also be limited in that respect.

As such I'm not sure PS3 could even display video at "4k" resolution unless all source material was at 24 Hz.

Regards,
SB

[corduroygt]

For the common living room TV sizes and viewing distances, going beyond 1080p does not make a visible difference. Hell, a lot of people wouldn't even notice the difference between 720p and 1080p in a typical living room environment. 4k is only for those with front projection setups with huge screens, and I'd expect 4k projectors to be much more popular than 4k TV's. They're still both very small niches though.

[aaronspink]

Originally Posted by Karoshi

Davros, his point was about the maximum single port resolution supported by the display outputs.
I checked the wikipedia entry for displayport but it was a mess. Under some versions/bandwidths it can support at least 2k displays.
Maybe Dave can clear the issue, what version of DP and what top bandwidth are supported by the DP output drivers?

As already mentioned, this was a solved problem in the first half of the decade. Only thing I can't remember is if it was 2 DL or 4 SL cables to drive the IBM panel. Was supported in numerous cards (ATI, Nvidia, etc).

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by aaronspink

As already mentioned, this was a solved problem in the first half of the decade. Only thing I can't remember is if it was 2 DL or 4 SL cables to drive the IBM panel. Was supported in numerous cards (ATI, Nvidia, etc).

I'm not sure I would call that problem solved. They made a workaround, is that the expected solution going forward?

[xatnys]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

It's going to be purely a matter of bandwidth. DP 1.2 has max bandwidth of 17.28 Gb/s. That would allow 3840x2160x30 bpp @ 60 Hz with CVT-R timings (16.00 Gb/s).

As an interesting sidenote, HDMI 1.4 has far less bandwidth and would require dropping back to 30 Hz or 24 Hz at that resolution. HDMI 1.4a doesn't bump up available bandwidth and thus would also be limited in that respect.

As such I'm not sure PS3 could even display video at "4k" resolution unless all source material was at 24 Hz.

Regards,
SB

The PS3's HDMI interface may have that kind of bandwidth, but I doubt the PS3 itself will have the decoding power necessary for 4k.

[Davros]

4k would reduce aliasing though

[xatnys]

Yes... I suppose the analogy is overenthusiastic, but I had the opportunity to see Samsung's own quad-hd display back in CES2008 and the source material they showed made it seem literally like looking out of a window. And that was only slightly less than 4K.

The sad thing is, even though they say this caliber of devices will be available as early as this year, much much more needs to happen before their usage becomes practical.

[aaronspink]

Originally Posted by xatnys

Yes... I suppose the analogy is overenthusiastic, but I had the opportunity to see Samsung's own quad-hd display back in CES2008 and the source material they showed made it seem literally like looking out of a window. And that was only slightly less than 4K.

The sad thing is, even though they say this caliber of devices will be available as early as this year, much much more needs to happen before their usage becomes practical.

The biggest issue is content and content distribution. 4K is a lot larger than HD and as youtube has so generously shown, you can do it, if you are willing to compress that crap out of it so it looks worse than 480P!

Realistically, you are looking at in the min range of 45-65 Mb/s AVC streams to maintain quality which is a lot heftier that is reasonably possible right now. And double that for 3D.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

I'm not sure I would call that problem solved. They made a workaround, is that the expected solution going forward?

As mentioned, it's purely a matter of bandwidth.

And both DP 1.2 (60 Hz) and HDMI 1.4a (24 Hz) are supported at 4k resolution.

HDMI will need a revision to boost bandwidth in order to support 60 Hz content.

And as to that 3840x2400 display back in 2001, it originally used a Matrox card with dual specialized outputs. A revision a year later used either 4 single link DVI (960x2400 stripes or later 1920x1200 quads) or 2 dual link DVI (1920x2400 stripes). Necessary since no connector could provide the bandwidth required for that resolution of video. And since the DVI consortium was disbanded in 1999, there weren't going to be any updates to the DVI standard.

So, if a company decided it wanted to do it, they could easily release a 4k panel that worked via 2x Dual Link DVI.

I wouldn't consider any of those solutions workarounds. It's all a matter of bandwidth, how you achieve that bandwidth is somewhat irrelevant, IMO. And as aaronspink mentioned, it was video card agnostic. It didn't matter what video card was used, all it required from a video card were either 4 single link DVI or 2 dual link DVI. So a person can rightfully say that 4k resolution has been supported by all PC video cards since 2002 that had 4x single link DVI or 2x dual link DVI ports.

Regards,
SB

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by Silent_Buddha

As mentioned, it's purely a matter of bandwidth.

And both DP 1.2 (60 Hz) and HDMI 1.4a (24 Hz) are supported at 4k resolution.

HDMI will need a revision to boost bandwidth in order to support 60 Hz content.

And as to that 3840x2400 display back in 2001, it originally used a Matrox card with dual specialized outputs. A revision a year later used either 4 single link DVI (960x2400 stripes or later 1920x1200 quads) or 2 dual link DVI (1920x2400 stripes). Necessary since no connector could provide the bandwidth required for that resolution of video. And since the DVI consortium was disbanded in 1999, there weren't going to be any updates to the DVI standard.

So, if a company decided it wanted to do it, they could easily release a 4k panel that worked via 2x Dual Link DVI.

I wouldn't consider any of those solutions workarounds. It's all a matter of bandwidth, how you achieve that bandwidth is somewhat irrelevant, IMO. And as aaronspink mentioned, it was video card agnostic. It didn't matter what video card was used, all it required from a video card were either 4 single link DVI or 2 dual link DVI. So a person can rightfully say that 4k resolution has been supported by all PC video cards since 2002 that had 4x single link DVI or 2x dual link DVI ports.

Regards,
SB

That's pretty much the definition of a workaround. Making something work within the confines of existing limitations. I certainly wouldn't want to have to use multiple outputs on my receiver to support my TV. And which devices will support this output and how, and are you going to put 48 HDMI ports on a TV so it can accept inputs from multiples devices to meet the required bandwidth

Call it supported if you want, but if there's no standard existing to support the required bandwidth there's a problem going forward.

I'm sure by the time these things are actually ready for a retail market (say in 5 years) we'll see some actual support.

[Gubbi]

Originally Posted by AlphaWolf

I'm sure by the time these things are actually ready for a retail market (say in 5 years) we'll see some actual support.

My bet is that it will take much longer than that.

There is zero content for 4K displays, and there wont be for the immidiate future. Next gen console will struggle to do stereoscopic 1920x1080. Every single TV production company in the world just transitioned to 720P/1080i. A lot of money has been invested in production equipment and infrastructure.

4K will suffer the same fate as IMAX, a few boutique production companies will make content for a niche market,.

Cheers

[Simon F]

Originally Posted by Gubbi

My bet is that it will take much longer than that.

There is zero content for 4K displays, and there wont be for the immidiate future. Next gen console will struggle to do stereoscopic 1920x1080. Every single TV production company in the world just transitioned to 720P/1080i. A lot of money has been invested in production equipment and infrastructure.

4K will suffer the same fate as IMAX, a few boutique production companies will make content for a niche market,.

Cheers

Also, given that NHK & BBC are working on "Super Hi Vision" which is 16x the resolution of HD (8k*4k res), maybe 4K will just be a backwater.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by Simon F

Also, given that NHK & BBC are working on "Super Hi Vision" which is 16x the resolution of HD (8k*4k res), maybe 4K will just be a backwater.

Surely that's for specialists bropadcast (cinema) only? The whole 1080p screen size issue, where 4k won't be a perceivable improvement in many households with <50" screens, is a bottleneck for 4k adoption. Will 8k*4k res (should we start calling screensizes in megapixels? ) ever be perceivable on anything other than cinema screens? Plus they should sort out their crappy 24 fps framerate first!

[Davros]

another thing we are not seeing in regard to pc monitors is the move to 120hz for 3d apart from a few models monitors seem to be staying at 60hz

[Neb]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

... Plus they should sort out their crappy 24 fps framerate first!

Exactly. Even if you can smooth out it on PC while playing movie to get 30fps it's always better when it's native 30fps. 24/25fps is just a shame and they dont even go for dual-layer Blu-rays either.. tsss.

[Neb]

Originally Posted by Davros

another thing we are not seeing in regard to pc monitors is the move to 120hz for 3d apart from a few models monitors seem to be staying at 60hz

3D has never been that popular with PC platform as evidence of Nvidia having 3D support since years ago and other vendors/GPUs even over 10 years ago experimented with it. Also most would just likely connect the PC to the 3D HDTV and use that to display movies thus no 120Hz 3D ready monitor needed.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Davros

another thing we are not seeing in regard to pc monitors is the move to 120hz for 3d apart from a few models monitors seem to be staying at 60hz

If Nvidia ever gets off their lazy arses and implements support for Displayport we might start to see DirectDrive displays. With the cost savings from those there might be a chance monitor makers in that cutthroat market will be inclined to apply those cost savings to support for greater than 60 Hz refresh.

We now have both Intel and AMD implementing widespread adoption for DP, so just need Nvidia to catch up. As well with DP 1.2 we can actually take advantage of 2560x1600 120 Hz, something not possible with either DVI or HDMI.

Regards,
SB

[Davros]

I think its the monitor manufactures that need to keep up, been considering eyfinity and therefore looking for a display port monitor and they are hard to find
there are still a lot of monitors that are d-sub only

[Silent_Buddha]

Until all major GPU vendors (AMD, Nvidia, and Intel) support DP, there's not as much incentive for display manufacturers to include DP interfaces on anything but their most expensive monitors.

When you get down to the budget and mainstream monitors, competition is fierce and margins low. Including DP puts your product at a disadvantage if it increases cost AND you can only target a fraction of the market with it (the cost increasing DP port).

DirectDrive monitors could be made more cheaply, but then you have the problem that you've now cut yourself off from everything that doesn't have DP.

Adoption was slow when AMD was the only major player supporting DP. I'd imagine adoption of DP will accelerate now that DP support is included in Sandy Bridge. If for no other reason than the fact that now makes it instantly viable for more more coporate machines and thus opens up large contract bulk purchases from OEMs.

Nvidia jumping in would help accelerate adoption in the budget and mainstream markets. I could understand them skipping it in GF100 based cards, but I find it absolutely inexcuseable that they skipped it in GF110 based cards also.

Regards,
SB

[Davros]

not sure how long have gfx cards been dvi only (unless you use an adapter)
still a lot of monitors that only have d-sub iirc it would be cheaper to just have dvi so why are they doing this ?

[AlphaWolf]

Originally Posted by Davros

not sure how long have gfx cards been dvi only (unless you use an adapter)
still a lot of monitors that only have d-sub iirc it would be cheaper to just have dvi so why are they doing this ?

There's still a lot of video cards for sale that come with the d-sub. And I expect if there was a count it's probably still the dominant method of connection.

[Silent_Buddha]

Originally Posted by Davros

not sure how long have gfx cards been dvi only (unless you use an adapter)
still a lot of monitors that only have d-sub iirc it would be cheaper to just have dvi so why are they doing this ?

Businesses. There are still a lot of machines in a lot of businesses that are d-sub only. Even if they are being gradually phased out it's easier for a business or corporation to buy monitors that are either d-sub only or have a d-sub in conjunction with other connectors for greater interoperability..

As well, third world countries will have a greater preponderance of d-sub only machines as many of the machines that are phased out from large corporations can be repurposed and resold in those countries to either consumers, government, schools, etc...

Regards,
SB