I can barely notice the difference between 4K and 1440p

[TinTuba47]

I totally think this is subjective. I believe there are likely neurological reasons why some people aren't bothered by low frame rates, while some people are, and some people dramatically notice the differences between resolutions and some don't.

Having said that, I can barely notice a difference between 4K and 1440p. I've used my PC to test this, both on a 49" TV and a 21" monitor.

I feel like if I had them side by side I could MAYBE notice a difference, but other than that it's really negligible to me.

I do however notice a huge difference between 1080p and 1440p.

I guess this is a good thing. Means I can run everything at 1440p and not take the performance hit.

What about the rest of you? I would assume that the difference between 1080p and 4K is super obvious to everyone, but do any of you legitimately notice a huge difference between 1440 and 4K?

 

[Mike Rambo]

I recently upgraded from 720p to 1080p to 4K in rapid succession so it's all a whole new world for me

 

[Deleted member 16908]

I'm the opposite. 1080 to 1440 is pretty subtle to me, whereas 4K is a big jump.

 

[Portmanteau]

1440p is the sweet spot for me. I'm the same as you. I can't really tell a difference, and performance matters to me too much. The trade off isn't there for me.

 

[VG Aficionado]

Pretty sure I won't notice much of a difference in practice, and I do think 1080p to 1440p is a big upgrade. 1800p (quad 900p or equivalent to 1440p + 1080p) should be great too. Native 4K is a waste.

 

[TheInfinityGauntlet]

One's a letter and a number, the other is 4 numbers and a letter, it's pretty easy

 

[Tathanen]

I'd stick with my panny pasma for next gen cause really I don't need 4k but man I sure feel like I'm missing out with no HDR.

 

[MrBob]

I think the factors are how big is your screen and how far away do you sit. I'm about 8 feet away from my 65 inch 4ktv and I can tell the difference between 1440p add 4k. 1440p is softer. Not deal breaking difference though. Bump up to 1800p and then I can't tell a difference at all unless I go up close to my tv and even then the difference for me is minimal. I live that 1800p life with pc on my tv.

 

[Kraken3dfx]

I'm with you, 1080-->1440 was a pretty big jump for me, but I just don't see the benefit of 4K.

 

[IceburN]

My first 4K experience was watching a soccer match, and I felt the same thing when I wore glasses the first time. You might get used to it after a while, but during that period where your eyes try to take in everything, it feels pretty good.

 

[ghibli99]

When you say you're testing on a 49" TV and 21" monitor, I'm assuming the 49" is your 4K and 21" the 1440p. Remember at that size you have to take into account pixel density. At 21", I think it would be rather difficult to actually resolve all the pixels at 4K depending on how far you're sitting from the display.

I have a 27" 1440p and 43" 4K at my desk. I sit about 2-3' away from both and can see a pretty big difference on the 4K, depending on resolution.

 

[ClamBuster]

i can absolutely notice the difference, but i have been a videophile my entire adult life

4k native for me all day every day

 

[Deleted member 43552]

I'm resolution sensitive. 4K is fantastic. I can't wait for 8K and higher.

 

[MisterAnderson]

1440p is the sweet spot for me on my 27inch monitor and I don't have to worry about an insane framerate hit by going to 4k. Having said that, wen you're dealing with 65inch TVs, 4k definitely is noticeable. My guess is that when dealing with a 49inch TV, most people would not notice too much of a jump from 1440p to 4k.

 

[xenonium]

I can tell the difference, but it's not a big enough difference that I'd choose it over other graphics options. I wish 1440P + high fps was more common in the console world.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

i notice it immediately. my eyes are super sensitive to all flaws except reduced settings (like i cant really notice shadows from ultra to high, shit like that)

1440p=instantly see blurry
no vsync=instantly
no aaa=instantly
60fps to 90fps=harder, but still notice
60fps to 120=instantly

in saying that, a bit of sharpening in the nvidia control panel brings 1440p closer to native 4k. i still notice the difference though

 

[catswaller]

Yeah its not that noticable if your display can scale well. Despite being massively more expensive for fill rate

 

[Irikan]

I definitely notice it, but I don't mind if a game is 1440p instead of 4k, 1440p looks nice enough.

 

[julia crawford]

I can only tell that UIs get smaller and harder to read

 

[Z6E1Z9O]

I have a 1440p/144hz gsync monitor as my main and bought a 4k 60hz monitor to use as a second monitor, and the trade off wasnt worth at all, to me at least.

 

[Mullet2000]

The difference is absolutely noticable but the difference between 1080 to 1440 is much larger than 1440 to 4K, to my eyes.

 

[Uhyve]

I can see the difference but say a 1440p image with good TAA? That's fine really. Reduction in aliasing is way more important than crazy sharpness to me.

 

[Waffle]

I have a 32" 1440p and a 32" 4K screen side by side on my desk. It's extremely noticeable to me. I'd imagine the size and the distance you sit from your screens play a very important role.

 

[Lukemia SL]

Boy do I notice the difference.

 

[EvilBoris]

I mean, many people simply can't as they don't have either good enough contrast or visual acuity to recognise it.

But that aside, and as others have said. The size of your TV, the distance you sit and the resolution at which the output is displayed are all going to have varying levels of effect on how easily it can be seen.

I don't have to sit much closer to my normal viewing distance to suddenly be aware I could do with more resolution even in nearly 4K games. That would be more pronounced, more often if I had a bigger display.

 

[Deusmico]

1440p is almost half of 4k

Rendering at 3/4 of 4k and using a good upscaler its my expectation for next gen games

 

[DavidDesu]

I played TLOU2 on my 49inch 4K tv from about 1.5m away (5ft-ish) and it might as well have been 4K. Clear image, lots of detail, virtually no issues with the image like aliasing or shimmering. I think 1440p is fine. Beyond fine, if it helps unlock higher framerates and better visuals overall. I don't think many would trade in 1440p60 for native 4K but only at 30fps. Demon's Souls will be a great test of this as that is the trade off you will get. It looks sublime in 1440p.

Also looking ahead, the Unreal 5 demo was variable resolution and apparently peaking at 1440p. It looked pre rendered in terms of image quality... so what is the point of 4K at that point??

 

[chandlerbing55]

this is why I think most games will go the 1440p with upscaling tricks route. 4k is 2x pixels of 1440p, theres no point in using twice the gpu resources on things people hardly notice, at least not as much as they would notice prettier graphics

 

[TheWooniestWoona]

I can tell in games, but feel like at TV watching distances full 4K is a waste.

With video content it can be really hard to tell good 1080p from 4K. That's part of the reason why think HDR is a bigger deal than 4K itself.

 

[dadoes]

agreed, the difference between 1080 and 1440 is noticeable. 1440 and 4k is still noticeable, but only if you are doing a side by side comparison.

 

[Natels]

Depends on the size of the screen and distance from it.

People seem to forget this.

 

[ghostcrew]

I think that, like with 1080p at the start of last gen, the more people actually play a lot of content at native 4K the more they'll appreciate the leap from non native resolutions.

Every time I play a native 4K title on a 4k display it looks significantly sharper to me than lower resolutions. Which it should.

And you need more resolution as your TV gets bigger. 1080p was great when you were using a 32" TV. When you move up to a 60" or the like and you need all of that extra resolution to get something that's even comparable in terms of pixel density. Or it's going to look worse. Because you're stretching a non native resolution to a massive screen at that point.

 

[Lord Error]

The antialiasing in game is simply so good now that it makes resolution far less of a factor than I anticipated it would be some ten years ago, when everything was jaggy, and we needed stupidly high resolutions and downsampling to create a clean image.

 

[exodus]

Depends on the game for me. For a lot of games, 4K downsampled to 1080p looks pretty damned good still. But some (like RDR2) really do benefit from the additional detail.

 

[Deleted member 13560]

If I'm sitting on the couch I can't tell the difference between 1440p and 4K. When I am on my computer I can. But 4K is the FIRST thing to go if it affects my framerate. 1440p 120fps provides a better experience for me since I prefer motion clarity.

For me, the only thing native 4K, 5K, and 8K resolutions are good for is taking screenshots. It's not worth the waste of resources.

 

[ClamBuster]

this also reminds me of the 720p vs 1080i wars

 

[Lowrys]

With video content it can be really hard to tell good 1080p from 4K. That's part of the reason why think HDR is a bigger deal than 4K itself.

Click to shrink...

What's "good" 1080p video? Honest question, I'm not being funny.

 

[Roldan]

I feel that besides screen size and distance from the screen, the game's artstyle/image treatment also has an impact.

While games with film grain, TAA and other stuff do improve in going from 1440p > 4k, the leap isn't as big as a game with more "raw" presentation that goes from 1440p > 4k. I can play Resident Evil 2 just fine in 1440p on my 4k screen, but Sea of Thieves gets noticeably blurrier.

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

I'm sitting about 5' from a 55" 4K screen. I can definitely tell the difference between 1440p and 4K. That being said, 1440p doesn't bother me. I still regularly play 360 and PS3 games at 720p and it doesn't bother me either. I can definitely tell the difference though.

 

[Deleted member 51848]

The difference appears to be about 8tf.

 

[EvilBoris]

this is why I think most games will go the 1440p with upscaling tricks route. 4k is 2x pixels of 1440p, theres no point in using twice the gpu resources on things people hardly notice, at least not as much as they would notice prettier graphics

Click to shrink...

Well we have 3 next gen machines , if a game is designed to run at 1440p on the PS5, there is going to be be a chunk of GPU left over for Series X, I think that will end up going towards resolution as that is a quick win and that is what the machine has been designed to facilitate.

That's before you consider sparse rendering, Dynamic Resolution, ML upscaling and Varible Rate Shading. These all mean that we don't need to speak about "resolution" in such a blunt and rigid way anymore.

 

[TheWooniestWoona]

What's "good" 1080p video? Honest question, I'm not being funny.

Click to shrink...

Like from blurays. High bitrate content. I find it easier to tell 1080p from 4k when the 1080p is lower bitrate like in streaming services or YouTube. I'd put iTunes HD downloads right on the edge of that. They're not bad, but there's times when you can tell it's nowhere near bluray quality.

 

[Flandy]

I'm the opposite. 1080 to 1440 is pretty subtle to me, whereas 4K is a big jump.

Click to shrink...

Same here
Barely noticed a difference going from 23" 1080 to 27" 1440. Noticed a massive jump in image quality going from 27" 1440p to 27" 4k.

Though tbh I find 1440p on my 55" TV acceptable since I sit far enough away where it doesn't bother me. Wouldn't want to play at 1440p on my 4k monitor though since I'm so much closer

 

[Horns]

For me personally, I don't notice the difference as much when I upgrade resolutions. BUT when I downgrade to a lower resolution it always sticks out to me. My eyes adjust to the higher resolution.

 

[Lowrys]

Like from blurays. High bitrate content. I find it easier to tell 1080p from 4k when the 1080p is lower bitrate like in streaming services or YouTube. I'd put iTunes HD downloads right on the edge of that. They're not bad, but there's times when you can tell it's nowhere near bluray quality.

Click to shrink...

Oh right. Thanks. I thought something was either 1080 or not.

 

[Anth0ny]

yeah for me 1080 -> 1440 is a big jump. on my 4K monitor, games running at 1080p look jaggy at this point.

1440 -> 4k less big

 

[shinobi602]

1080p -> 4K is a large difference in my setup. I sit about 8 feet from a 60 inch 4K TV (KS8000) and it's hugely noticeable.

1440p -> 4K is less of a difference as I think 1440p games still look pretty sharp but the extra clarity going up to 2160p is still obvious to my eyes.

 

[RedHeat]

1080p/1440p look pretty similar to me so I could tell the difference between 1440p and 2160p.

 

[Deleted member 11626]

I can't tell much of a difference for shit, but I used to play a bunch in 1080p...which looks terrible to me now after 1440p for so long. If I spent enough time at 4K then I'm sure going back would make a big difference to me too

 

[Rosol]

I definitely notice the difference swapping between modes, though it does depend on what's on screen. I think foliage looks a lot better with 4k for instance that and user interfaces with text look a lot smoother.