4K gaming and viewing review

If you read around enough, you get a decent generalised picture. The haters list everything bad to excess. The fans write glowing reports. The truth lies in the middle, with shortcomings being present but not as disastrous as the haters report unless you're especially sensitive to that aspect, and the positives not really going to change your life for the better but being nice.

I review everything extensively before buying, tens of hours, and there's only one electronic device purchase I've ever made that disappointed. Everything else was spot on and I've very pleased with my purchases. Oh, that was a Roth soundbar. It distorted in two different units despite rave reviews.

 

Given TV suckage, an option ought to be to buy a computer monitor instead .
Let's say a 1080p 27" one which gets all right, color accuracy, black levels, viewing angles and even low input lag. I'll deign come to your house if you use that and kick ass well adjusted speakers.

I'm somewhat serious. You can have reviews detailing all the technical stuff. Delta-E bars for a range of colors, fit of the gammut to the expected color space, black level in candela per square meter, homogeneity and bleeding measures and so on. Never worry about whether the display is in "Explosion Mode" or where between 0 and 63 the "CuteSharpen 2000+" filter is set.

For a big picture video projectors are nice.

 

Part of the problem is that ones opinion will depend on what they are used to. If someone has never owned a plasma tv then they will have no clue what I'm talking about and they are likely to post a glowing review of an lcd tv that I might find to be crappy. What I might do is post on the plasma forum on avsforum, and ask plasma people there if they know of any lcd display that best approaches plasma quality.

 

I am waiting for at least 5 years before I go near a 4k screen, unless it is on my desktop for work (I do a lot of remote logins and dual screen stuff), but even there just two good 2k screens should last me a good while. Microsoft still has some serious work to do to get Windows handling high resolutions too, as I noticed when comparing 13" 2k vs 1k screens.

For gaming right now you have great, extremely low lag options for 500 euros or less, like the Sony KDL656 I bought for my PS4, and that low lag and 1:1 pixel stuff is going to keep me happy for a loooong while yet.

I'd really love one step up in resolution for TVs, as I can definitely see these pixels very well still at 2.5m distance, but the content just won't be there unless you go for extreme PC work, which I am not ready to do, and the assets will rarely be able to benefit anyway.

 

Some issues are on Windows end, like if you change from a normal display to a high dpi display (or vice versa) then you have to log out and sign back into Windows for the dpi change to take effect on apps. Yeah weird I know. Some issues aren't Windows fault though, like Google Chrome looks like utter shit on high dpi displays in Windows, but IE and Firefox work fine. Apparently Chrome doesn't properly support high dpi displays and people have been bitching at them since 2009 about it.

 

On the topic of 4k console gaming. What is really the point?
We arent going to get 4k games this gen period. Movies sure.
Unless there are changes in the way Gpus work 4K gaming on consoles will never be pratical.
Even on the Ps5/Xbox4 4k gaming would literally be a huge waste of gpu processing power.
We could be playing Xbox4 games that look cgi quality at 1080p or play games that still look like games at 4k. I hope that the gaming industry gets to a point where resolution hits a wall. Thats when we will get games that truly take advantage of their systems hardware whether its a $500 console or a $1200 pc gpu.

 

Could be feasible for less demanding indie games.

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ehtw4_johan-andersson-foveated-rendering_tech

Few years from now foveated rendering could be the solution for 4K gaming.

 

Do we really need 4k gaming??? Unless you have an 80" TV its pointless to waste resources like that when good AA and post processing can do wonders. The resources are best used in other areas that contribute more meaningfully to the visuals. 4k is a luxury that only a few can enjoy with very very large monitors and that with not as noticeable diffetence when you are sitting far.

If a game will be displayed at 4k then we should expect hefty amounts of memory too so that the accommodate super high res textures. Whats the point of 4k if textures arent high res enough? It sure works in movies where memory bottlenecks are not a problem. A 4K camera and rendering farms can output details so tiny that are suitable for 4k. 4k in games other than pixel density cant produce the same result if the memory of the hardware cant accommodate ultra detailed assets.

 

"Do we need 4K gaming" Maybe, maybe not by your bolded parts.

But we certainly need adaptative-sync/Gsync screens at any resolution, even at 1080p and baaaadly. I will keep my 1080p LCD LED TV until any decent and efficient anti-judder aptative-sync monitors are released.

That's it.

 

What about 4k rendering and 1080p output to get great IQ via SSAA!? This could be worth it for certain games...

 

4K backbuffers aren't completely unheard of, but 4x ordered-grid supersampling is a pretty dubious proposition in the console space. It just won't get results very efficiently, even by SSAA standards.

PC gamers do it primarily because it's "easy" to force while getting vaguely correct results, and works with any resolution choices.

 

Yeah I've been contemplating that because I suspect I won't find any 4k tv this year that I like. So slap in two NVidia 880 gpu's and render games supersampled at 4k, then display at 1080p on my current 1080p display. Might be worth it if the gpu's have power to spare. I don't know for sure if that will be the case with Nvidia 8 series gpu's, but next year when the 9 series 20nm gpu's come out I suspect 4k supersampling on all games will be doable.

 

There is a new 4K TV model which I've seen priced as low as 999€.

The model is the Haier TV LED 50'' LE50H6500 UHD 4K.

http://www.manhattanshop.it/haier-tv-50h600-k4.html

 

These kind of TVs make no sense whatsoever and give new tech a bad name. You would get a much higher IQ from a similarly priced 1080p set.

 

why whats wrong with it (its not in english)

 

Last year, something like 70-80% of 4K TVs were shipped to China and they were low-priced no-name models.

 

I have the 50W815 (UK silver version of the W828) and honestly couldn't think of a better screen for gaming. The black frame insertion mode ('Motionflow Impulse', no interpolation, very low lag) is the best thing to happen to LCD gaming imo. Motion is essentially just like a CRT, better than plasma. You do need frame-rate to match screen refresh for it to work to its fullest (i.e solid 60fps) so double bonus for a high end gaming PC. Black level is also pretty damn good and obviously typical Sony low lag.

 

I'm not going anywhere near 4K until stage 2 or 3 ('Full' 4K if you will) is out with something more than just a hike in pixels. The first stage is obsolete already imo. Especially when broadcasters like the BBC are saying 4K needs to be high frame rate.

 

best post.
bohemia interactive ARMA3 , include a such feature. you can combine that with a light MSAA for even better result.