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How bad is upscaling to 4k on PC?

ISee

ISee

Member
I'm thinking about getting a 4k 28" display now (supposed to be my 2nd screen monitor once HDR comes). But my 1070 is way to weak for true 4k/60 gaming so I'm wandering how bad upscaling is?
Is playing at 1440p (-->4k) a viable option? Or will it look blurry and 'worse' than 1080p on a 1080p display?
Because 900p on a 1080p screen doesn't look too good imo.
 
LostDonkey

LostDonkey

Member
ISee said:
I'm thinking about getting a 4k 28" display now (supposed to be my 2nd screen monitor once HDR comes). But my 1070 is way to weak for true 4k/60 gaming so I'm wandering how bad upscaling is?
Is playing at 1440p (-->4k) a viable option? Or will it look blurry and 'worse' than 1080p on a 1080p display?
Because 900p on a 1080p screen doesn't look too good imo.
Click to expand...

I play most games 4k60 with a 1070. I just let Geforce experience set them up and they look fantastic. The only ones that I've had to set up myself so far have been like Forza Horizon 3 and GTA V and I've just locked them at 30.

Still, 1440p to 4k upscale looks fine on my set. Much better than 1080p to 4k anyway.
 
M

MagicWithEarvin

Member
LostDonkey said:
I play most games 4k60 with a 1070. I just let Geforce experience set them up and they look fantastic. The only ones that I've had to set up myself so far have been like Forza Horizon 3 and GTA V and I've just locked them at 30.

Still, 1440p to 4k upscale looks fine on my set. Much better than 1080p to 4k anyway.
Click to expand...

This.

I've been playing in 4K/60fps with my 1070 and having to turn down some settings here and there on newer releases.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
ISee said:
I'm thinking about getting a 4k 28" display now (supposed to be my 2nd screen monitor once HDR comes). But my 1070 is way to weak for true 4k/60 gaming so I'm wandering how bad upscaling is?
Is playing at 1440p (-->4k) a viable option? Or will it look blurry and 'worse' than 1080p on a 1080p display?
Because 900p on a 1080p screen doesn't look too good imo.
Click to expand...

It's far far less noticeable. Pixels are 1/4th The size of the same size monitor at 1080p. I play games like over watch at 1440 on my 4k tv at max settings to maintain 60 fps.

(Still on a 970 myself)
 
I

Izuna

Banned
LostDonkey said:
I play most games 4k60 with a 1070. I just let Geforce experience set them up and they look fantastic. The only ones that I've had to set up myself so far have been like Forza Horizon 3 and GTA V and I've just locked them at 30.

Still, 1440p to 4k upscale looks fine on my set. Much better than 1080p to 4k anyway.
Click to expand...

Uh... You shouldn't be letting GeForce Experience set your configs up :'(
 
A

Aztechnology

Member
blly155 said:
what games are you playing that you can do 4k 60fps on 1070?
Click to expand...

A ton of older titles. I was getting well over 60 fps 4k on Warhammer 40k Space Marine when I replayed it this week.

Then some newer titles with some settings turned down. Which generally is worth it for that incredibly clarity.
 
ISee

ISee

Member
In my experience (with downsampling) getting 4k/60 in most modern games I enjoy isn't really an option on a 1070.
Of course I'm absolutely willing to turn down settings to increase my FPS but there is a certain point which i rather don't cross (it's weird).
That's why I'm asking about 1440p to 2160p upscaling on PC.
 
C

Cannon Goose

Member
ISee said:
In my experience (with downsampling) getting 4k/60 in most modern games I enjoy isn't really an option on a 1070.
Of course I'm absolutely willing to turn down settings to increase my FPS but there is a certain point which i rather don't cross (it's weird).
That's why I'm asking about 1440p to 2160p upscaling on PC.
Click to expand...

So basically you just want to run games at a lower than native resolution? The image will be softer but it will otherwise look fine.

If you're playing a DX9 game then you'll likely be able to use GeDoSaTo to change how the game is upscaled, which can lead to a higher quality upscale.
 
LostDonkey

LostDonkey

Member
ISee said:
In my experience (with downsampling) getting 4k/60 in most modern games I enjoy isn't really an option on a 1070.
Of course I'm absolutely willing to turn down settings to increase my FPS but there is a certain point which i rather don't cross (it's weird).
That's why I'm asking about 1440p to 2160p upscaling on PC.
Click to expand...

Oh I'm totally the same it's just for me all I've ever needed to do, or at least GFE has needed to do is cull anti aliasing, which to my eyes is totally not needed at 4k, and drop a few settings like shadows and textures to their high preset from ultra. It's not like it's dropping settings to low and making games look like last gen.

What cpu do you have out of interest.
 
ISee

ISee

Member
LostDonkey said:
Oh I'm totally the same it's just for me all I've ever needed to do, or at least GFE has needed to do is cull anti aliasing, which to my eyes is totally not needed at 4k, and drop a few settings like shadows amd textures to their high preset from ultra. It's not like it's dropping settings to low and making games look like last gen.

What cpu do you have out of interest.
Click to expand...

Full specs:
6700k running at 4.5ghz
16gb of DDR4 @ 3066mhz
my 1070 is also overclocked to 2050mhz (9560mhz memory).
Win 10 64bit

It's a fine machine for 1080p(ultra)-1440p(high-v.high) in my experience so far. But let's for example take something like Witcher 3.


4k ULTRA with hairworks (downsampled)
4k low without hairworks (downsampled)

I'm a mile away from reaching 60fps here.
 
LostDonkey

LostDonkey

Member
Cobalt Izuna said:
I meant to say "shouldn't be"

damnit
Click to expand...

I figured you did but I was waiting for a correction just in case lol

But yeah, I find it does a great job They spend a lot of time working out which settings do what and tailoring the experience to your setup and I can always change things in game if something looks too shabby to see how much I can get away with. All in all though it does a fantastic job for me. I just click optimise and play it takes 2 seconds.
 
LostDonkey

LostDonkey

Member
ISee

ISee

Member
LostDonkey said:
I play most games 4k60 with a 1070. I just let Geforce experience set them up and they look fantastic. The only ones that I've had to set up myself so far have been like Forza Horizon 3 and GTA V and I've just locked them at 30.

Still, 1440p to 4k upscale looks fine on my set. Much better than 1080p to 4k anyway.
Click to expand...

KojiKnight said:
It's far far less noticeable. Pixels are 1/4th The size of the same size monitor at 1080p. I play games like over watch at 1440 on my 4k tv at max settings to maintain 60 fps.

(Still on a 970 myself)
Click to expand...

LostDonkey said:
Still, 1440p to 4k upscale looks fine on my set. Much better than 1080p to 4k anyway.
Click to expand...

KojiKnight said:
It's far far less noticeable. Pixels are 1/4th The size of the same size monitor at 1080p. I play games like over watch at 1440 on my 4k tv at max settings to maintain 60 fps.

(Still on a 970 myself)
Click to expand...

thx for the info

LostDonkey said:
Exact same spec as me. Only I don't have the witcher 3 so I've never tried that.
Click to expand...

FO4 seems to run fine with mostly high settings though.
 
D

DBT85

Member
Non native images on a screen look less bad the more pixels you have to throw at the display. So 900p on a 1080p screen can look like gash, but a 1800p image on a 4k screen can look fine despite still being the same percentage of the native res. It's not as sharp at native 4k obviously, but it still looks good.

Ask everyone playing 1440p or 1800p games on their Pro on their 4k screens.
 
S

Sanjay

Member
I have a 65inch ks8000, view from 7 feet away and 1440p upscaled to 4k looks great. I rather have 1440p scaled to 4k at 60 fps lock then 4k 30fps.
 
S

sirap

Member
Upscaling from 1080p to 4K is shit because Nvidia and AMD won't provide nearest-neighbour interpolation.
 
O

OmarTheHippo

Member
sirap said:
Upscaling from 1080p to 4K is shit because Nvidia and AMD won't provide nearest-neighbour interpolation.
Click to expand...
Explain more?

One of the biggest reasons I bought a 4K monitor was originally thinking 1080p would be great because of the 1>4 perfect pixel scaling, and yet it's always looked way worse than 1440p upscaling. Never understood why
 
P

| Praxis |

Banned
1440 looks good on a 28" 4k monitor. I usually play everything in 4K now, but before I had my new card I used 1440 a lot and it looked a lot better than 1080, that really doesn't look good upscaled on a 4K monitor.
 
S

sirap

Member
OmarTheHippo said:
Explain more?

One of the biggest reasons I bought a 4K monitor was originally thinking 1080p would be great because of the 1>4 perfect pixel scaling, and yet it's always looked way worse than 1440p upscaling. Never understood why
Click to expand...

Unfortunately most 4K monitors don't have built in 1>4 pixel scaling. You'd think they would considering how earlier 4K monitors from Dell had this feature. A solution to this would be to use your graphics card for scaling, and hope that Nvidia/AMD allow nearest-neighbour interpolation (which is a fancy term for quadrupling the 1080p image without any blurry interpolation)

We've been waiting for this feature for years but Nvidia/AMD don't seem to care.
 
D

Dictator93

Member
sirap said:
Unfortunately most 4K monitors don't have built in 1>4 pixel scaling. You'd think they would considering how earlier 4K monitors from Dell had this feature. A solution to this would be to use your graphics card for scaling, and hope that Nvidia/AMD allow nearest-neighbour interpolation (which is a fancy term for quadrupling the 1080p image without any blurry interpolation)

We've been waiting for this feature for years but Nvidia/AMD don't seem to care.
Click to expand...

You can technially downsample with nearest neighbour... but not upscale :(
 
ISee

ISee

Member
| Praxis | said:
1440 looks good on a 28" 4k monitor. I usually play everything in 4K now, but before I had my new card I used 1440 a lot and it looked a lot better than 1080, that really doesn't look good upscaled on a 4K monitor.
Click to expand...

Sounds promising.

StrategyFan said:
it's usually a setting in your GPU control panel

it should be better or equivalent for image quality and might be better or worse for input lag
Click to expand...

Found it thx.
 
E

Easy_D

never left the stone age
SeeNoWeevil said:
Why are you so eager to burden yourself with a native res your GPU can't supply?
Click to expand...

Eager to? He's already doing it and by the tone in the OP he's quite happy with it and set things up to get nice frames out of it as well. What even is this post. Ain't like 4K is some outlandish crazy thing on a 1070, my 280X can do 1440P @ 30 in a lot of cases and I don't see why a much faster card couldn't do 4K 60 with tweaked settings

Edit: I confused OP with the another poster lol. my point still stands, with a 4K monitor he could still watch 4K content and if 1440P actually scales up well on a 4K monitor then it's not really an issue either. But yeah going by
sirap said:
Unfortunately most 4K monitors don't have built in 1>4 pixel scaling. You'd think they would considering how earlier 4K monitors from Dell had this feature. A solution to this would be to use your graphics card for scaling, and hope that Nvidia/AMD allow nearest-neighbour interpolation (which is a fancy term for quadrupling the 1080p image without any blurry interpolation)

We've been waiting for this feature for years but Nvidia/AMD don't seem to care.
Click to expand...

It isn't worth it. Shame neither Nvidia nor AMD are willing to fix it on driver level either, doesn't seem like it would be the hardest feature to implement, certainly simpler than implementing downscaling/supersampling.
 
M

Mivey

Member
sirap said:
Unfortunately most 4K monitors don't have built in 1>4 pixel scaling. You'd think they would considering how earlier 4K monitors from Dell had this feature. A solution to this would be to use your graphics card for scaling, and hope that Nvidia/AMD allow nearest-neighbour interpolation (which is a fancy term for quadrupling the 1080p image without any blurry interpolation)

We've been waiting for this feature for years but Nvidia/AMD don't seem to care.
Click to expand...
As 4K or even higher resolution monitors become more prevalent, they will probably start thinking about it and implement it in like 2 seconds.

Would it not work to set the game to output 1080p (or whatever would you want to scale) as a window and use something like BordlessWindow to scale it? Doing it with Owlboy and it looks quite sharp for a pixel art game.
 
G

GrazGamer

Member
SeeNoWeevil said:
I'm not sure I can rephrase that in a simpler way. A 1070 can't push 2160p60 sufficiently now, let alone in games coming out in the next 6 months plus. You're going to be upscaling.
Click to expand...

Titanfall 2, MWR and IW are 3 games that run at 4k60 on my 980ti that came out in the last month. Maybe not all games but enough you can.
 
Lister

Lister

Banned
SeeNoWeevil said:
And for every game that does, there's half a dozen that won't even get close.
Click to expand...

Yeah I doubt that number (which you just made up) is anywhere near true.

Besides, you don't need to run, and OP shouldn't be looking to run games, at 4K at ultra, especially not with that GPU.

Certainly the Pro isn't doing checkerboard rendering with anything resembling ultra PC settings.

And newer games are likely to start offering some type of checkerboard or reconstructive upscaling too.
 
S

SeeNoWeevil

Member
Lister said:
Yeah I doubt that number (which you just made up) is anywhere near true.

Besides, you don't need to run, and OP shouldn't be looking to run games, at 4K at ultra, especially not with that GPU.

Certainly the Pro isn't doing checkerboard rendering with anything resembling ultra PC settings.

And newer games are likely to start offering some type of checkerboard or reconstructive upscaling too.
Click to expand...
I have a 980Ti, I know exactly how a 1070 performs at 4K, thanks.

Who mentioned the Pro??
 
kraspkibble

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
Cobalt Izuna said:
Sure it can.
Click to expand...

Not all games. Maybe older/lightweight games of course. If it's a newer game you're definitely going to need to turn down settings. A lot of games the 1070 just can't do 4k 60fps. it's mostly a 1440p 60fps card or 4K 30 fps if you don't mind the low framerate.
 
P

| Praxis |

Banned
blly155 said:
Not all games. Maybe older/lightweight games of course. If it's a newer game you're definitely going to need to turn down settings. A lot of games the 1070 just can't do 4k 60fps. it's mostly a 1440p 60fps card or 4K 30 fps if you don't mind the low framerate.
Click to expand...

This.

You are definitely not going to be playing at 4k60 maxed out. Hell, I get occasional drops below 60 on a Titan XP maxed out in Battlefield 1,and that game is very well optimised. Some less optimised games I have to bump settings down to maintain 4k60,like Hitman.
 
S

SeeNoWeevil

Member
Aztechnology said:
More games than you think.
Click to expand...

The last games I've played on a 980Ti and a high end i7

Hitman, drops below 60 at 1080p, lower settings do nothing

Rise of the Tomb Raider, just about manages a locked 60 at 1080p at somewhat better than console settings

FH3, lol

I think Dragon's Dogma was the last game I played that could just about hit 4K60. A remaster of a 360/PS3 game.
 
L

laxu

Member
I'd say once you get above 1440p the resolution matters less. I do really hope that future games support more creative ways to handle the resolution like rendering edges at a lower res as on Shadow Warrior 2, checkerboard rendering or using a lower res in motion where you are less likely to notice the difference.

1080p just still has too few pixels in my book. The real shame is the lack of adaptive sync support in TVs as that would help a lot. I am no longer nowhere near as adamant about framerate as long as it's above 30 fps at all times. I currently have the option of playing in 27" 1440p @ 144 Hz or 65" 4K @ 60 Hz and I can't quite decide which I prefer. Obviously with an overclocked 980 Ti I do have to make compromises to get decent framerates in native 4K.

I really hope next year's GPUs deliver on the performance.
 
M

mullet2000

Member
You can do 4k/60 in a shocking number of games on a 980 ti if you get past the mentality that you MUST max out any game that you play.

Furthermore you can run virtually anything at 4k/30 very comfortably. I love 60 fps and it's the reason I got into PC games in the first place, but there are plenty of games (like Hitman) where 30 is a good experience.
 
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