Monitor Resolutions

I was pondering monitor resolutions tonight and came up with some numbers …

1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600 (25% of 4K) (16:9)
2560 x 1080 = 2,764,800 (33% of 4K) (21:9 ultrawide)
2560 x 1440 = 3,686,400 (45% of 4K) (16:9)
3440 x 1440 = 4,953,600 (60% of 4K) (21:9 ultrawide)
3840 x 2160 = 8,294,400 (4K) (16:9)

Future? …
5040 x 2160 = 10,886,400 (5K) (21:9 ultrawide)

7680 x 4320 = 33,177,600 (8K) (16:9) (max Nvidia 10 series resolution)

BTW, if you happen to buy a 4K (16:9) screen and you’re getting bad performance because of the 8.3 million pixel thing, you can dial the resolution back to 2560 x 1440 and it still looks great! (as I found out tonight)

I haven’t had to do this yet but it’s good to know the option is there.

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I guess it also depends on the size of the screen, and your distance to it. But good to know that your mega screen still looks good at 1440! :slight_smile:

The 34" 3440x1440 I used, also looked great at lower res. But of course, increasing the screen size, also increases the pixel size. Guess that’s why we have 4K now, because we want bigger TVs :wink:

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So this morning I was wondering what the max res of my GTX 1070 was … Turns out 10 series nvidia cards are rated for 8K at 16:9!!!

I think that might be a factor in how the 1070 eats 4K for breakfast. :slight_smile: It’s only running at 1/4 max res lol!

Anyway, I added that spec to the future res’ in my OP.

I had a 53" 4:3 standard def TV back in the day. For comparison, the vertical screen height is identical to a 65" 16:9 set (which I now have 3 of).
Put another way, add screen area to the sides of a 53" SD set and you get a 65" HD set.

However, I never sat closer than about 8 feet to the TV, and on top of that it was rear projection, so pixels were never an issue then. In fact, I’d say I never noticed them until I got my 65" and noticed that even at 1080p I could see pixels if I was standing in front of the TV, say 2 ft out.

My 4k TVs, however, I barely notice the pixels at that distance.

Given the paucity of choices for 4k, though, even streaming shows on Amazon (but not movies, because Amazon doesn’t have 4K movies, only their series) and with my handful of UHD titles that I bought new, I don’t see it progressing past there any time soon. When I still have old standard DVDs that I haven’t replaced with BD, I’m certainly not replacing my BDs with UHDs. I may replace those DVDs with UHDs if they come out, but generally if I never went BD I didn’t care enough!

I can’t imagine 8k will make any appreciable dent when the vast majority are watching things on handheld devices. Anything over 1440p on a 6" screen is ridiculous, after all. While I think the industry wants people to jump on 8K, streaming bandwidth and even storage space for that would be prohibitive. With the ISPs wanting to implement caps to find ways to get more money from people, who’s going to blow half their monthly cap streaming a couple of movies at 8k?

I think the drive to 8K is going to be gaming and VR, not movies/TV/series.

That said, there’s a lot that needs to happen between now and then with hardware, down to the release of better connector cables (the next generation of HDMI/DVI) and the next paradigm shift in graphics cards.

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Are we not at point of greatly diminishing returns? Sitting 2 feet from my very nice HD monitor leaves me wanting nothing. It is beautiful. The pixels may be there but I barely see them. I sort of wish that the march toward visual improvement would cease long enough for the performance to catch up. 1080 at 120 FPS looks far better than 4K at 30 FPS. But then again, I wear contacts and maybe my vision isn’t good enough to be sidetracked by the flaws others find annoying.

On modern cards the resolution isn’t really the limiting factor, nor is it just about monitors anymore.

On VR Oculus Rift / Vive resolutions that people run today:

PD 1.0 @ 2160x1200 resolution = 2,592,000 pixels
PD 1.5 @ 3240x1800 resolution = 5,832,000 pixels
PD 2.0 @ 4320x2400 resolution = 10,368,000 pixels
PD 2.5 @ 5400x3000 resolution = 16,200,000 pixels

Examples of PD in use: Pixel Density Examples - Meta Community Forums - 632152

Even without VR, for years I ran 3 plain monitors, which was:

1920x1080 x 3 @ 5760x1080 resolution = 6,220,800 pixels

Beyond the Gen 1.0 version of VR, it’ll get a lot higher:

Vive Pro / Samsung : PD 1.0 @ 2,880x1600 = 4,608,000 pixels
Vive Pro / Samsung : PD 2.0 @ 5,760x3200 = 18,432,000 pixels

With next up Gen 2.0 coming (maybe, Pimax 5k is at least meant to release in the next couple of months):

Pimax 8k: PD 1.0 : 2 x 3,840x2,160 = 16,588,800 pixels
Rift 2 / Vive 2 - who knows, but probably not lower?

The thing is not really to think about pure amount of pixels in VR, as they aren’t evenly distributed because of how the lenses work - the density is higher in the center as the lens warps the view. Also, the best next steps approach beyond the 8k would be things like foveated rendering, which dynamically make the images sharper where your eye is looking directly, rather than ‘waste’ pixels in your peripheral vision. That might allow a very different VR experience using similar (1080ti ish) cards with 8K like views.

Pixel fill rates are getting faster, but GPUs do a lot more than that nowadays, including vector and geometry work that scales hard at O(n) rates, meaning that it’s really diminishing returns.

For future 2D flat displays, the next up Apple OLED based 7,680×4,320 8K monitor rumors look nice. Not cheap though, but great professional refresh rates and solid colors.

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With all due respect, I’m just discussing monitor resolutions in this thread … just cold hard detail providing 2D pixels. :slight_smile:

When it comes to VR, I think of the Rift and Vive as having a fixed resolution of 1080x1200 (per eye) = 1,296,000 !!!3D!!! (awesome) pixels and that pixel density/supersampling techniques are just there to make it look sharper.

Thanks man. I was looking at this 16:9 resolution chart today …

https://pacoup.com/2011/06/12/list-of-true-169-resolutions/

… and found a nice custom resolution mathematically harmonious between of 1440 and 2160 :slight_smile:

3200 x 1800 = 5,760,000 (70% of 4K) (16:9)

(you can add custom resolutions in the nVidia control panel)

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Well, what is VR, if not just a monitor (or two) strapped to your head :wink:
And in that respect, pixels are pixels.

The performance problem with VR is that it needs two different video feeds to provide 3D.

But, back to 2D monitors.
It is interesting to look back at where we came from.
I mean, I used to flightsim on a C=64 back in the days.
And then on the Amiga. Shifting to PC with VGA and SVGA… I am amazed at the fact that I enjoyed flightsims just as much then, as I do now. And we all know, both sims and hardware has changed…a lot!
Looking at youtube vids of old sims and games I played makes me wonder how on earth I could stand it. But I guess that was the best there was, and what I got.

Then the whole TV discussion at the beginning of the millennium. How TVs where too big to be used in a normal home, and at that size you need to sit this far away from it, etc. Today, the size of the wall is the limiting factor. :slight_smile:

And, someone found a way to make practical VR… Ok, we can all agree that VR has its limits. But the tech will improve there as well. And I have no doubt that when I dust off my (then) old Rift, in 10 years and manage to get it up and running again, I will be just as amazed as I am looking at old games on youtube today.
How could I stand that horrible resolution? :wink:

I find all of this to be truly amazing!

The size of the wall and your wallet.

As always… :wink:
But the TV price per inch is a lot less than it used to be…
I bought a 40" HD Ready (720) TV in 2007, that cost an arm and a leg. 5 years later my then 2yo daughter slams the remote into the screen, creating a beautiful green vertical line… A year after that, in late 2013, I went looking for a replacement (for the TV, not the daughter). I couldn’t find anything that small, or that low res. The closest I got was a 48" HD, and that cost 1/3 of what I paid some six years earlier…

Yes, TV prices for what you get always come down. I have stuck to the $2500 rule for two decades now. When I get a new “main” TV, I get whatever $2500 will buy me. It first was a 65" HD rear projection TV. Then I got a 65" DLP that looked a lot better…but had those damn bulbs that died every 18 months.
Since that one I bought 3 more. The first was my first 3D LED, 65" and I still have it…but the upper right corner backlight is starting to flicker. It’s fine for the first couple of hours it’s on, then it starts and stays there.
Then I got a 65" 4k 3D LED. That’s in my bedroom now. The 3D was poor (blurry in the upper right), but the 4k was fine and it literally weighed 1/2 what the first 3D LED did, 50 lbs vs 100.

Last was a 4K 3D OLED TV that’s only a few mm thick on the top and sides. GREAT picture, great dark blacks, much better in 4K and 3D…and likely the last 3D TV I will ever be able to get until glasses-free 3D comes about.

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