4k display and already regretting it

klepp0906

Gawd
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Jul 1, 2013
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I went from high quality 1440p panels to medium quality 4k panels and ugh.

While the resolution bump is obviously substantial in games, the color is noticeably worse and ohhh my eyes fro m what i can only assume is the pwm backlight which my old displays didnt have.

i find turning the brightness down helps, but that just makes the bad colors worse.

Still - not the point of the post.

Scaling, atrocious! I got rid of surround and sli due to the hoops i had to jump through just to get everything to work as it should.

Now i have some apps looking huge. some looking blurry. and fortunately some scale ok.

Still - more to the point of the post. For some reason after installing these monitors the post text under the asus logo "Please press F2 or DEL to enter UEFI bios" is HUGE.

its not pixelated, and looks nice, its just HUGE. bigger than the Asus logo itself >.<

I can only surmise that windows is somehow scaling this? But why? How? Even if i disable scaling in windows and restart - that text is still ginormous.

I can fix it 2 ways that i can ascertain (even though this cant be the ONLY two ways as theyre A) un ideal and B) werent necessary before these 4k displays).

1) turn on CSM (seems to turn it back small, albeit blocky)
2) change the boot logo display from "auto" to "full" which shrinks the font back to blocky - but then enlarges the damn asus logo to something twice as big and pixelated.

Any ideas on the post screen stuff? The rest i know i get to live with :p
 
You can put your computer to sleep instead of turning off.

Then you never have to see the BIOS screen. That is one solution.
 
I bought 3 Dell P2715Q 4K monitors.

One went onto my Macbook Pro. I use it for work almost exclusively.

Two went onto my Win10 PC I use for work and gaming, skewing towards the latter.

The Mac - works great. "It just works". Didn't have to fool with scaling at all, everything looks clear, life is good.

The PC. Out of the box, everything is way to small to read. I set scaling to 150%... ~most~ stuff looks ok. The work stuff works decent, and web browsing and the like work good after I fidgeted with the scaling in Chrome a bit too. I find it funny that a lot of internal Windows dialogs scale awfully (mostly the old stuff left over from WinXP/7/8). You find the odd app here or there that refuses to scale correctly (Origin for some reason, is notoriously bad on my system)

Gaming is pretty horrible though - not because my GPU is too slow. Newer titles that support scaling look good, for the most part, even if I have to turn some graphics options down to get it to run acceptably (which I don't mind). But anything that's more than a year or two old - crap. The UI scales horribly, everything is tiny, or you run it at non-native resolution...

I don't regret 4k for work. I actually like it a lot there.

I do regret it for gaming.
 
I bought 3 Dell P2715Q 4K monitors.

One went onto my Macbook Pro. I use it for work almost exclusively.

Two went onto my Win10 PC I use for work and gaming, skewing towards the latter.

The Mac - works great. "It just works". Didn't have to fool with scaling at all, everything looks clear, life is good.

The PC. Out of the box, everything is way to small to read. I set scaling to 150%... ~most~ stuff looks ok. The work stuff works decent, and web browsing and the like work good after I fidgeted with the scaling in Chrome a bit too. I find it funny that a lot of internal Windows dialogs scale awfully (mostly the old stuff left over from WinXP/7/8). You find the odd app here or there that refuses to scale correctly (Origin for some reason, is notoriously bad on my system)

Gaming is pretty horrible though - not because my GPU is too slow. Newer titles that support scaling look good, for the most part, even if I have to turn some graphics options down to get it to run acceptably (which I don't mind). But anything that's more than a year or two old - crap. The UI scales horribly, everything is tiny, or you run it at non-native resolution...

I don't regret 4k for work. I actually like it a lot there.

I do regret it for gaming.

Many older games have a slider for UI scale. And newer too.
 
Many older games have a slider for UI scale. And newer too.
many?

Exceptionally few... I guess it depends on how old you are talking.

I still play games off the old Unreal and Half Life engines at lan parties pretty regularly. Text is so small on those games you can barely read it, and there is no UI slider. Rune, Unreal, Half Life mods, that era of games from the early 2000s.

I'm with Brian_B. Windows 10 and Windows 7 scaling before that was too much a hodge podge with things that scale and things that don't. Half the screen is fuzzy at any given time, or super tiny. MacOS X scales - BEAUTIFULLY. Windows OS? Not so much.
 
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many?

Exceptionally few... I guess it depends on how old you are talking.

I still play games off the old Unreal and Half Life engines at lan parties pretty regularly. Text is so small on those games you can barely read it, and there is no UI slider. Rune, Unreal, Half Life mods, that era of games from the early 2000s.

I'm with Brian_B. Windows 10 and Windows 7 scaling before that was too much a hodge podge with things that scale and things that don't. Half the screen is fuzzy at any given time, or super tiny. MacOS X scales - BEAUTIFULLY. Windows OS? Not so much.

hehe, I said "older" not "ancient"...
 
Windows has absolutely nothing to do with how the mainboard UEFI scales it's logo and text. That is ALL Asus (since you are using an Asus board).

Edit: I feel your pain, though. I have an FX-8350 CPU based media center computer connected to the 4K TV in my living room. It's using an Asus M5A970 EVO mainboard with UEFI and an R7 260X video card (using an active DPI to HDMI adapter to get 60Hz refresh at 4K). All the Windows stuff is fine, but the UEFI is pretty much unusable with some weird graphics corruption in the upper right corner of the screen and the interface scaled to OMGWTFBBQXBOXHUEG!!11!!!!!1!!! size with no scroll bars for anything. The UEFI works perfectly fine when connected to a regular monitor.
 
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Windows 10 and Windows 7 scaling before that was too much a hodge podge with things that scale and things that don't. Half the screen is fuzzy at any given time, or super tiny. MacOS X scales - BEAUTIFULLY. Windows OS? Not so much.

The biggest issue with Windows 10 scaling is that the OS supports a massive pile of legacy crap (including its own legacy crap like some admin panels) that does not do scaling properly. Likewise the attitude of many Windows developers is downright archaic and things like DPI scaling are not even on their list of things to implement properly. OSX 3rd party devs generally are very good at providing high res assets and keeping up with the latest frameworks.

OSX scaling is not without its issues. It just doesn't work on 1440p external displays for example. Where Windows can scale any native resolution UI up, OSX is limited mostly to what Apple supports on their own hardware. I cannot get sharp scaling of UI elements on the 27" 1440p screen I use at work.
 
I've tested 27" 1080p ips to 27" 4k ips. Hp 27ea to lg 27uk650 and I returned the 4k.
So - the difference IS there but mostly on desktop, text, dslr pictures and when watching hires yt videos in small window.
Difference in windows fonts. 4k with 200% scaling to 100% 1080p on 1080p. Just so it is fair and text/elements are the same size:
1080p 100%
FJg9D64.jpg


4k 200%:
azZFbfv.jpg


As You can see, the difference is quite big indeed. It is visible on hairs in pcitures and on small elements. not so much on anything else. Below is a Video game comparison on the same monitors.
On this picture I am comparing Mirrors Edge (Old game but it does not matter that greatly). On 1080p monitor (right) I am running it with 4k dsr with 0% smoothing. On left monitor, it is running pure bliss 4k. Both have 4k msaa ingame too.

fvaeqp9.jpg


I don't have the best vision. About -1 shortsighted in both eyes but I see perfectly for monitor viewing distance... and I could not see the difference AT ALL without moving in close to see the details on the billboard far away in the game.
I could not read the billboard 60cm away from the screen because it is so very small (as You can see). The only difference 4k gave me, was the ability to LEAN IN closer to the screen and see the very small detail.
Aliasing and overal picture sharpness was generally the same...

Take it as You wish. 4k alone is too small at 27". Have to run at 150% (1440p) scaling to be good. In games the difference is there but very small and You need to look for it.
The biggest difference comes just from running the game at 4k... so no wonder so many people love 4k if this is the first time they see it.
I've also tried other games like Dark Souls3. 4k dsr looked great and removed all shimmer and aliasing, while real 4k looked... well about the same. Maybe a tad sharper really... it's hard to judge.
If You are running 4k dsr in most games anyway, it is for sure better to run it on a real deal since the performance is the same.

edit: Additionally - You can see how blurry the wallpaper gets at 4k. It is only a 1080p wallpaper and scaling is quite visible. For me, 1080p looking blurry on 4k screen was more visible than 4k vs 4k dsr :p
 
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Honestly everything else sounds like a much bigger problem to me than the POST screen. I mean who really cares what the BIOS looks like?
Furthermore windows scaling is not active during post.

So.... I’d be more concerned about going back to whatever you had before.

I also went to a 4K decent monitor in place of a high end 1440p. Within 6 months I sold it and went back to my old setup
 
Can you just choose an option to stop the asus logo from appearing?

Yes, you can! Then it just shows the detected hardware screen like the Computers of Olde. Honestly, I always do this.

Related note: I've never been a fan of the "hide everything even remotely technical" trend in computing. That madness is the same mindset that gave us such wonderful Windows error codes as "Something Happened." Something Happened!? No shit, really!? Maybe could you give me a clue as to what the "something" is so I can fix it??
 
4k is a must for text if you work with it all day. For gaming it's a downgrade right now cause monitor and GPU manufacturers refuse to implement integer scaling. If they did, you would play in 1080p and work in 4k best of both worlds without any quality loss. Regarding windows 10 scaling, yeah it still has it's problems but having text not be pixelated anymore is worth it for me to replace some apps (I personally don't have 1 app that I use that doesn't have correct scaling but your mileage may vary). I have a 32" 4k and play at 1440p or 1080p (more demanding titles since my gpu is dated) on it and personally don't find the quality loss that bad, however integer scaling would be good and it isn't hard to implement either.
If money were not an issue and they did end up implementing integer scaling I would actually like 5k for the 32" screen (so 1440p for gpu intensive tasks which have limited text to show).
 
Have to agree that 27" is too small for 4k. 32" is more practical and 35"-40" would be close to perfect, IMHO.
 
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Have to agree that 27" is too small for 4k. 32" is more practical and 35"-40" would be close to perfect, IMHO.

At normal desktop viewing distances 32" is about right. Anything bigger and you start moving your head a bit too often...
 
At normal desktop viewing distances 32" is about right. Anything bigger and you start moving your head a bit too often...
Sit further away and enjoy more relaxed viewing.
 
Not sure about your specific case OP, but I went from an 30" IPS display to a 40" 4K VA display and scaling issues aside, the VA panel was the more noticeable difference NOT the jump from a lower res (2560x1600) to 4K.

From all the different displays I've used, I've found that I like IPS the best and always come back to it. It's just plain great. I'm not a big FPS guy so the slower speeds don't bother me (100-120hz vs 240+hz).

I've got the Monoprice MP 49" (VA with quantum dot) coming in today via FEDEX to check out and I'm hoping the newer quantum dot makes up for the plain LED in my last VA monitor.
 
Personally, I think VA looks the best. The colors just seem to "pop" more. But IPS is still good as well.
 
Personally, I think VA looks the best. The colors just seem to "pop" more. But IPS is still good as well.

they pop so much it looks 3D at times, but then that also applies to desktop icons .. sometimes things look as if there floating to my eyes and the color shift can be worse than a decent TN horizontally. IPS is great for a flat surface for reading solid text, VA is great for gaming especially on cartoonish looking games like wow. That's why for video and gaming i prefer VA and for text/surfing i prefer IPS or even TN.


Sit further away and enjoy more relaxed viewing.

the context of the conversation is 32"4k just being about okay at close seating, if you go bigger you have a higher effective PPI ( 1440p 27" PPI for a 4k 40" ) so by the time your sat back far enough your back into scaling issues.
 
the context of the conversation is 32"4k just being about okay at close seating, if you go bigger you have a higher effective PPI ( 1440p 27" PPI for a 4k 40" ) so by the time your sat back far enough your back into scaling issues.
When you want to talk about context you should consider it yourself.
You missed the context of my reply entirely.
I didnt reply to you or the op.
 
When you want to talk about context you should consider it yourself.
You missed the context of my reply entirely.
I didnt reply to you or the op.

In a thread anyone can join in, that's the nature of forums. your reply was to advise someone to sit back further from a larger screen if they considered it too large. I merely stated that given the 4k resolution the further you sit the more the text becomes harder to read even on a large screen, because 4k is still a decently high PPI even at big screen sizes. Now if i have missed some other thing here, then my apologies.
 
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I made my original points in good faith as an alternative for people with a large screen on their desk. I did exactly this a while back, my brother has been using this method since his vision suffered.
I honestly have no intention of fighting and simply defended myself, I'm not clear why things went awry.
Can you please explain why you think that?
 
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they pop so much it looks 3D at times, but then that also applies to desktop icons .. sometimes things look as if there floating to my eyes and the color shift can be worse than a decent TN horizontally. IPS is great for a flat surface for reading solid text, VA is great for gaming especially on cartoonish looking games like wow. That's why for video and gaming i prefer VA and for text/surfing i prefer IPS or even TN.
It look 3d-ish because each eye gets slightly different color, especially in dark near black shades which become brighter with viewing angle because gamma gets lower and lower making image more and more washed out.

Here are some great examples how dark colors get brighter on sides: https://hardforum.com/threads/eizo-foris-fg2421-120hz-va-panel.1788465/page-11#post-1040354042

With two eyes we have different points where colors are exactly the same as calibration probe will measure. So not only VA panel cannot be really calibrated but also create these false stereoscopic effects that even TN panels do not have... Results of VA and TN panels measurement should be thus taken with a bag of salt.

IPS panels keep proper gamma. Black level decrease and white level decrease so contrast is lowered but even here IPS is nice enough to really make this "ips glow" viewing angle related effect starting to be visible from pretty large angle and only affect large screens and only on the sides. Most of the screen have colors the same as measured by calibration probe and this makes this panel type only one where these measurements are really meaningful.

But so what? Black level matters more someone might say...
Blacks on VA are horrible and it is because dark elements in the scene shouldn't even be clearly visible and on VA they not only are but also border with pure black is visible making black blobs of void where it is bluntly obvious no information are displayed at all.
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All levels should be displayed but number of darkest details should be barely brighter than pure black. For non-zero black level displays this mean there will be more of levels which appear very similar to pure black but as long as this is done properly and display's black point (temperature) is also calibrated all black objects and scenes will look properly and will not draw any attention to black level being not perfect. We do not see pure blackness when in very dark environment with not enough to use cones to see so it not like we cannot process elevated black levels in our brains. In reality details of dark object in dark environment appear as noise (kinda like how path-tracing rendering looks like...) and on display this also need to happen for immersion to not be broken. We will use rods to discern dark details hidden near black and black thus will appear black.

VA panels are incapable of causing this effect because on most screen area dark details have completely wrong gamma and even in the sweet spot for each it rather causes brain to see and interpret this as "black crush" and details being lost + see false stereoscopic effects. It also caused me to have this ridiculous habit of moving head to see these details which absolutely hated. Especially that these details are mostly compression artifacts and imperfect game rendering where parts of it are simply not rendered.

Black level when we do not look for it is good enough on modern IPS panels, especially with some small ambient light in room. We must however make sure black point it is the same as white point otherwise pure black will appear different than dark shades that are supposed to fade into it. Without this condition it is hard to be immersed and stop noticing black at all.
Calibrating black point reduce contrast and if monitor does not have hardware calibration it is pretty hard to make it work in games. Thankfully some monitors have 6500K W-LEDs so do not have any blue hue to black and do not need calibration. If I was doing reviews I would not check white point of some presets but what is white point of backlight itself, so at 100% RGB settings. Unfortunately people do not go deep into how displays and human vision work to know what to concentrate on.

Oh, and if that was not bad enough already VA panels also have terrible motion performance, especially most irritating transitions from black...
 
At work I went from 27" 1080p to 27" 4k at 200% IPS to 31.5" 4k 200% VA in short time. I hope to never go back to 27" 1080p. When I go to fix other PCs I immediately notice the pixels, it is gross.
All my apps work well under windows 10, 1 or 2 are not perfect but still better than before. IPS is better color wise. 32" is a bit bigger ergonomically but easier on the eyes. 27" was also good and easier to set height wise (because desk are not height adjustable damn).
At home I use 32" 1440p @150% VA 165 Hz. Next would be 32" 4k 165 Hz IPS.
 
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