Kilbane
Hagrid Look-A-Like
Graphics power from modern GPU's is growing at an exceptional rate, 60+ FPS is now obtainable with plenty to spare. PC enthusiasts are then left with the often debated question of "Do I aim for 120/144 FPS or increase resolution?".
I faced this very dilemma when it came to my latest upgrade, my monitor. I, as many do, both play games and do a lot of photo/video editing. This ultimately lead me to support the resolution camp over shooting for the high frame rates. To cut a long story short, I had decided on a 1440p IPS screen.
With a lot of talk about whether 4k will become the normal, I decided to look at how the real world impact of 1440p would effect me as a user. As far as the numbers go, there is a significant leap in pixel count moving from 1920 x 1080 up to 2560 x 1440.
1920x1080 = 2,073,600
2560x1440 = 3,686,400
Difference = 1,612,800 (78% increase)
So what does this mean in the real world? The obvious thing is the extra rendering needed from your graphics card, in fact 78% extra pixels over 1080 to be rendered. Like most, my PC runs a single GPU. I currently run a Nvidia GTX 970, a card known for its great 1080 gaming performance. I will be honest, at 1080, short of game optimisation issues, the GPU power is more than enough to run modern AAA titles at 60+ FPS with all the eye candy turned on. The same can be said for the equivalent offerings from AMD. The question is are the extra pixels going to have a large impact on gaming performance and what other issues can be faced when moving up to 1440?
First off, the extra resolution is something to behold. 1440p scales beautifully for everything I have so far experienced. Windows has all the extra real estate needed for multiple windows being open, internet browsing works well and video looks stunning at this resolution. With most websites being optimised for 1080p, most pages at 1440p are moved to the centre of the browser without leaving text being too small to read, unlike the issues faced when moving up to 4k resolutions. Desktop icons are still at a good size giving clear recognition while being small enough to stop your desktop seeming cluttered. Watching higher resolution media is something I did not consider when moving up to 1440p. YouTube supports 1440p as a resolution option, I can tell you that the extra pixels are a huge improvement over 1080p.
Before I move on to the gaming side of things, there is one thing I experienced that I would like to share. Mouse sensitivity is something i never considered before the change. The first thing you will notice if you change up to higher resolutions is the extra movement required of your mouse to move across the screen. A lengthy process ensued with a lot of fine tuning to my mouse DPI to get a familiar experience within the OS. Doesn't seem much of an issue, right? Now here's the kicker, changing DPI settings works globally. Consider this, while in games, that higher DPI causes all sorts of issues if you are used to having a very specific mouse movement to camera/aim change. Due to most game engines increasing pixel density within the same FOV when you move to higher resolutions, that higher DPI will throw out your aim in games. All this really means is that you will find yourself fettling settings in different areas to get your sensitivity corrected. Not the end of the world, but worthy of a mention.
The impact on gaming is what I believe to be the most interesting subject. To keep it short I decided to use the Heaven Valley benchmark and GTA V to compare the performance impact.
Valley was set to Ultra quality with no AA, full screen at native desktop resolution.
1080 results :
1440 results :
So as you can see, both the score and FPS (Both maximum and average) have taken a big hit. In fact, looking at percentages we can see 1440p scoring only 57% of the score and FPS average (54% of the maximum). So Valley scales in line within the range of the 56.25% decrease in pixels from 1440p to 1080p. So should we expect the same sort of results within games?
Moving on to GTA V, the in game benchmark does not give any information at the end of the run. Personally I prefer this due to it using different scenes from within the game using areas with different needs (Grass, draw distance and weather effects). So the only fair way to do this was to use videos of each run at the different resolutions.
1080 video :
1440 Video :
So as you can see, there is a difference (Not that it was unexpected). To make it fair in a comparison I have chosen 2 point of the benchmark to get the scores from. The Vinewood sign and the last scene. I have taken the last shown FPS before the end of the scene to try and make it as equal as possible for the comparison.
Vinewood 1080 :
Vinewood 1440 :
End 1080 :
End 1440 :
So the 1080p results show a combined total of 118.9 compared to the 1440p combined total of 84.7. This time round, only 71% of the score at 1080p. So games show a different performance impact than benchmarks. Not that surprising given as most game engines will render at a set size and then scale to the required resolution rather than rendering at the native display resolution.
Moving on from the base results, I did wonder what it would take to bring the performance within a good FPS rate of 1080p. MSAA is pretty heavy on the GPU and the extra resolution should hopefully keep the game looking as good as ever. So I ran the benchmark again with MSAA turned off.
1440 minus MSAA Video :
So as you can see, the performance was once again more in line with 1080p. In fact the combined score of 113 was 95% of the 1080p score. This is in no way indicative of all games, however I can say that in several other games I have played, the rule of thumb holds true. Yes you will need to turn down AA and occasionally some other eye candy, but ultimately the extra resolution gives a much sharper image that makes it almost impossible to see the difference.
So is the move to 1440p worth while? In my honest opinion, if you have the GPU power available (970/390 equivalent or above) then yes, so many times YES! In the short time I have been on 1440p I can honestly say that 1080p is last generation. My partner has a 1080p screen and the few times I have had to use her PC, the drop in resolution looks terrible and that extra real estate in the OS is sorely missed.
If you are looking for an upgrade then look no further. 4k screens are available, yes, however the ridiculous amount of GPU power needed to run games and the OS scaling needed is far too much to be cost effective at the moment (And likely to remain that way for a few years).
I faced this very dilemma when it came to my latest upgrade, my monitor. I, as many do, both play games and do a lot of photo/video editing. This ultimately lead me to support the resolution camp over shooting for the high frame rates. To cut a long story short, I had decided on a 1440p IPS screen.
With a lot of talk about whether 4k will become the normal, I decided to look at how the real world impact of 1440p would effect me as a user. As far as the numbers go, there is a significant leap in pixel count moving from 1920 x 1080 up to 2560 x 1440.
1920x1080 = 2,073,600
2560x1440 = 3,686,400
Difference = 1,612,800 (78% increase)
So what does this mean in the real world? The obvious thing is the extra rendering needed from your graphics card, in fact 78% extra pixels over 1080 to be rendered. Like most, my PC runs a single GPU. I currently run a Nvidia GTX 970, a card known for its great 1080 gaming performance. I will be honest, at 1080, short of game optimisation issues, the GPU power is more than enough to run modern AAA titles at 60+ FPS with all the eye candy turned on. The same can be said for the equivalent offerings from AMD. The question is are the extra pixels going to have a large impact on gaming performance and what other issues can be faced when moving up to 1440?
First off, the extra resolution is something to behold. 1440p scales beautifully for everything I have so far experienced. Windows has all the extra real estate needed for multiple windows being open, internet browsing works well and video looks stunning at this resolution. With most websites being optimised for 1080p, most pages at 1440p are moved to the centre of the browser without leaving text being too small to read, unlike the issues faced when moving up to 4k resolutions. Desktop icons are still at a good size giving clear recognition while being small enough to stop your desktop seeming cluttered. Watching higher resolution media is something I did not consider when moving up to 1440p. YouTube supports 1440p as a resolution option, I can tell you that the extra pixels are a huge improvement over 1080p.
Before I move on to the gaming side of things, there is one thing I experienced that I would like to share. Mouse sensitivity is something i never considered before the change. The first thing you will notice if you change up to higher resolutions is the extra movement required of your mouse to move across the screen. A lengthy process ensued with a lot of fine tuning to my mouse DPI to get a familiar experience within the OS. Doesn't seem much of an issue, right? Now here's the kicker, changing DPI settings works globally. Consider this, while in games, that higher DPI causes all sorts of issues if you are used to having a very specific mouse movement to camera/aim change. Due to most game engines increasing pixel density within the same FOV when you move to higher resolutions, that higher DPI will throw out your aim in games. All this really means is that you will find yourself fettling settings in different areas to get your sensitivity corrected. Not the end of the world, but worthy of a mention.
The impact on gaming is what I believe to be the most interesting subject. To keep it short I decided to use the Heaven Valley benchmark and GTA V to compare the performance impact.
Valley was set to Ultra quality with no AA, full screen at native desktop resolution.
1080 results :
1440 results :
So as you can see, both the score and FPS (Both maximum and average) have taken a big hit. In fact, looking at percentages we can see 1440p scoring only 57% of the score and FPS average (54% of the maximum). So Valley scales in line within the range of the 56.25% decrease in pixels from 1440p to 1080p. So should we expect the same sort of results within games?
Moving on to GTA V, the in game benchmark does not give any information at the end of the run. Personally I prefer this due to it using different scenes from within the game using areas with different needs (Grass, draw distance and weather effects). So the only fair way to do this was to use videos of each run at the different resolutions.
1080 video :
1440 Video :
So as you can see, there is a difference (Not that it was unexpected). To make it fair in a comparison I have chosen 2 point of the benchmark to get the scores from. The Vinewood sign and the last scene. I have taken the last shown FPS before the end of the scene to try and make it as equal as possible for the comparison.
Vinewood 1080 :
Vinewood 1440 :
End 1080 :
End 1440 :
So the 1080p results show a combined total of 118.9 compared to the 1440p combined total of 84.7. This time round, only 71% of the score at 1080p. So games show a different performance impact than benchmarks. Not that surprising given as most game engines will render at a set size and then scale to the required resolution rather than rendering at the native display resolution.
Moving on from the base results, I did wonder what it would take to bring the performance within a good FPS rate of 1080p. MSAA is pretty heavy on the GPU and the extra resolution should hopefully keep the game looking as good as ever. So I ran the benchmark again with MSAA turned off.
1440 minus MSAA Video :
So as you can see, the performance was once again more in line with 1080p. In fact the combined score of 113 was 95% of the 1080p score. This is in no way indicative of all games, however I can say that in several other games I have played, the rule of thumb holds true. Yes you will need to turn down AA and occasionally some other eye candy, but ultimately the extra resolution gives a much sharper image that makes it almost impossible to see the difference.
So is the move to 1440p worth while? In my honest opinion, if you have the GPU power available (970/390 equivalent or above) then yes, so many times YES! In the short time I have been on 1440p I can honestly say that 1080p is last generation. My partner has a 1080p screen and the few times I have had to use her PC, the drop in resolution looks terrible and that extra real estate in the OS is sorely missed.
If you are looking for an upgrade then look no further. 4k screens are available, yes, however the ridiculous amount of GPU power needed to run games and the OS scaling needed is far too much to be cost effective at the moment (And likely to remain that way for a few years).
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