True 4k

HAWK12HT

Hey all, Recently seeing a lot of "true 4k" talk and wondering if its 4k on screen resolution or texture. 
Calling a 4K texture and it becomes a "4k" buzz word, cause even at 4k texture you might end up giving 128x128 pixels to a prop etc especially if its a modular based workflow. 
What you all think of this? 

ZacD

4k and true 4k is just display resolution talk. If 3840 x 2160 counts as 4k (which TVs have been advertising), 1080p counts as 2k. 

True 4k would be 4096 x 2160 pixels, but the reason 3840 x 2160 is used more often is because it's 1080p x2, and makes scaling up content cleaner and easier. 

1k, 2k, 4k, and even 8k textures have been used for years now, and has nothing to do with the display resolutions. 

HAWK12HT

Thanks ZACD, Interesting so this also means using a 4k /8k textures dont make the game 100% 4k / 8k even if you are using a display that supports 4k. Cause lets say if you have a 4k res wall texture but its viewed at a distance in game mipping takes over and its downsized etc. 

ZacD

Of course making a game for 4k displays would mean using higher resolution textures or at least more detail textures. But 4k textures ≠ 4k display. 

CreativeSheep

Most TV you see are not true 4K, hence the lower price.

EarthQuake

4096x2160 (4K) is the cinema/projection standard (what high end projectors at theaters tend to use).

3840x2160 (UHD) is the broadcast standard and what any 16:9 display (the vast majority of displays) would use.
 
The difference between the two is about 6% horizontally, entirely trivial for anything we would be concerned with in game dev. Both are ~4K pixels wide, which is why 4K is used as a generic term even for UHD displays.

"True 4K" sounds like something a wanker TV salesman would say to try to get you to buy a more expensive model. Especially when you consider that the majority of (all?) consumer 4K content will be released for 16:9 (thus UHD, not 4K). For example, the 4K UHD Bluray resolution standard is 3840x2160.

There are two UHD standards, 4K and 8K, to confuse matters further.

This is why we used 720 and 1920 (vertical resolution) rather than horizontal resolution, as we had 2048x1920 and 1920x1080 as 1080 standards previously depending on the content type.