What effect does > 1080p have on the visual quality of gaming?

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TwistedMetalGear

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Is there any visual benefit to gaming > 1080p?

I understand that a having a higher pixel density will result in a sharper image, and perhaps less anti-aliasing will be needed thus resulting in a slightly less blurry image.

But are there any other benefits? Do the textures in games benefit at all? I ask because I don't think developers create textures with 4k resolution in mind. I assume that everything in current gen games is optimized for 1080p at most.

Speaking of which, how does a texture in a game handle being displayed on a UHD monitor? Suppose you have some image on a wall in a game and you stand in front of it. How does that image differ in 1080p resolution vs. 4k resolution? Is it just smaller in 4k due to the higher pixel density? Do any textures become stretched?
 
I was wondering the same thing myself if it the image is so smooth that I wouldn't care about it.
I seen a 4K TV in person but all I notice is the smoothness of it not because it's better looking which It might be.
 
The larger resolution can give you 4x larger screen size at the same pixel density or 4x pixel density at the same size. Higher pixel density may be better for text and general usability if there is support for it, but I think there are greatly diminished returns when it comes to gaming. Textures will display in more detail if they have it (say if the actual texture is larger than 1024x1024) when the scene is rendered at 4K vs 1080p, but when they appear tiny on screen in the first place there is not that much of a benefit. Textures shouldn't stretch if they are properly tiled or whatever.

I should add that benefits in terms of gaming are still much better than benefits in terms of video. Higher rendering resolution makes for better and more cinematic looking games period, but the difference is not as stark as going from 720p to 1080p.
 
Textures are (or at least, should) be designed such that when your character is up close to them, they don't look pixelated.

Once those textures are further away from your viewpoint, the rendering engine will actually use some combination of downscaled versions of that texture because the texture detail is smaller than the pixel pitch of your monitor. There's much more to it, of course, but read up on "MIP mapping" and "Anisotropic Filtering", among other things if you're curious.

From another perspective: Let's say the texture on an object is 512x512. When that object occupies half of your screen at 1080p, you have roughly 1:1 screen to texture pixel mapping and everything looks great. Step away from that object such that it occupies only 1/4 of the screen, and then you really only need a 256x256 texture to represent the object. The extra pixels of the 512x512 texture aren't necessary. (Again, highly simplified but it explains the point)

Now imagine that you had a 2160p monitor. Instead of discarding half of those pixels, the rendering engine could still (in theory) use the whole 512x512 texture to occupy 1/4 of the screen height.


So yes, you do get more detail even if the game isn't specifically designed with 4K in mind.
 
Overall the benefit is very small, we are far from maxing out quality in 1080p, and 4k does not completely fix artifacts such as flickering lines in stairs or grass/leaves etc, even though it helps a litttle.

Higher resolution can be nice for work, but for gaming i see it as lowest priority.
 
Huge screen that maintains high PPI. There are no other advantages. There is the massive disadvantage of having to buy absurd GPU power to run with good settings and FPS, though.

I'll be gaming on 1080p until there's a truly revolutionary leap in rendering, such that PPI becomes the limiting factor in gaming video quality rather than what designers can produce that will run real-time on our hardware.
 
AgentQ said:
Now imagine that you had a 2160p monitor. Instead of discarding half of those pixels, the rendering engine could still (in theory) use the whole 512x512 texture to occupy 1/4 of the screen height.


So yes, you do get more detail even if the game isn't specifically designed with 4K in mind.
Click to expand...

This. Also, I'd like to add you'll be able to recognize distant objects you couldn't recognize before.
 
jaguax said:
Do the textures in games benefit at all? I ask because I don't think developers create textures with 4k resolution in mind. I assume that everything in current gen games is optimized for 1080p at most.
Click to expand...

IMO this set of 4k Oblivion textures beg to differ with that assumption. :p
 
True. I wonder if 4k is enough to support 360º projection at a decent resolution. Holodeck anyone? :D
 
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