Is 1440p that much noticable for a monitor?

Deforges · Dec 2016

I love monitors, have an obsession with them for some reason. We just got our christmas bonus and I've been thinking about buying one. I use my primary display for gaming and I had bought a budget 144hz 24" 1080p monitor that I am using currently.

I'm currently eyeing a 144hz 27" 1440p monitor (this one specifically). I'm wondering if anyone has taken a similar jump.

PRS · Dec 2016

While I can't speak to the 144hz aspect. I currently have 27" 1440p 60hz monitor at home, with a 1080p 22" monitor next to it. And I absolutely love the 1440p size.

(Previously I was using 3x 22" 1080p monitors, when I got the 27" monitor I was planning on keeping two of the 22" monitors around, but ended up just keeping one.)

slipsius · Dec 2016

I just picked up 2 of these https://www.amazon.com/BenQ-EW2750ZL-Revolution-Enjoyment-Monitor/dp/B013FDIUFA/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

While I would have preferred a 144hz for gaming, the price was right for 2. I also upgraded from a single 21" monitor to two of those. so the sheer amount of work space now is insane.

I really dont notice a difference for the 1080 vs 1440 at that size though. But, im also not suuuper picky about it. So you might have different tastes.

huffer · Dec 2016

I have two 23" 1080p at work, and two 25" 1440p at home, there isn't a big difference in productivity, my home panels are a bit larger and crisper. I used to have a single 27 inch 1440p, which I do not recommend, it was too large and a bit clunky to work in a 3d software with it, it's way better, for me at least, to work with 2-3 smaller monitors.

Shrike · Dec 2016

1440p is the best of both worlds right now. I had a 10 bit 4k but gave it back. 1440p offers 40% more screen space over 1080p with decently higher DPI. 4k is affordable but the DPI is way too high, fucks up scaling of other monitors, software scaling is fucked up, and it totally messes with your impressions of interfaces on web/games due to the much higher DPI, its just a mess and eye strain and I have 10/10 eyesight. Dont buy 4k under 32 its just too small and brings tons of complications in case you were considering that and for anyone reading this.
1440p / 144hz on 27" is basically the perfect monitor as of now and will be for a couple years at least until software makers like adobe and microsoft adapt on Windows.

ZacD · Dec 2016

1440p is perfect for working on textures, on 1080p textures at 1024x1024 at 100% or 2048 at 50% start to clip the top and bottom of the UI in Photoshop and other apps.

27in monitors are fine if you have a big desk, 2 of them can take up a lot of space.

Ravenok · Dec 2016

I moved to 1440p some time over a year ago. I can tell you that today 1080p is too crowded for me to work with. My second monitor is 1080p and whenever I have to do anything on it, I get claustrophobic.

Technically speaking, 1440p will make life much easier for you when you work on any graphical thing that's large in size. You'll also probably like looking at your work better since pixels will be smaller (depending on your preferred monitor size). It's just so much more comfortable. Not to mention the amount of things you can do on that monitor and still have space, suddenly you can have menus in front of you and not at the other screen, without giving up any work space.

I'll always pick a fantastic color performer over a high-res monitor, but that's not a problem today. Not sure about 144hz monitors and their color performance, great color usually comes on the expense of other things, one of them speed, but monitors have come such a long way in the past decade that I'm sure you have a good selection there as well.

Deforges · Dec 2016

Thanks guys I actually got that monitor and I'm in love! I definitely appreciate the image quality.

Lt_Commander · Dec 2016

An addendum - from my experience, 1080 to 1440 is a better jump then 1440 to 4k. 1440 @ 27 inches or so is pretty great. One you move up to 4k, text starts to get too small or you got a monitor/TV so large the edges of the screen are far away from your face. Add the fact that you need a bigger upgrade in graphics cards to run 4k well and it tarts to add up. If you're thinking you missed out by not going 4k, don't.

Deforges · Dec 2016

Lt_Commander said:

An addendum - from my experience, 1080 to 1440 is a better jump then 1440 to 4k. 1440 @ 27 inches or so is pretty great. One you move up to 4k, text starts to get too small or you got a monitor/TV so large the edges of the screen are far away from your face. Add the fact that you need a bigger upgrade in graphics cards to run 4k well and it tarts to add up. If you're thinking you missed out by not going 4k, don't.

That was one of my concerns about 4k. I still think there's a few years before 4k becomes easier for cards to push, for now 1440 is keeping me happy

throttlekitty · Dec 2016

So I just unhooked the 3840x2160 I was using for a month, and now I'm back on 2160x1080 (OH GOD THE PIXELS!) 4K was nice, but I think everything was just too small, I found myself hunching and squinting too often. I think of what I use, Maya is the only app that scales well. Chrome does good enough, but it varies from site to site.

So I'm looking at this one from LG, and now I'm wondering what's different about that BenQ that it's so much cheaper?

Deforges · Dec 2016

Are you talking about the one slipsius posted? for one thing that monitor you posted is 34" and an IPS panel whereas most 4k monitors are going to be TN panels. The few IPS panels I had were amazing with color. Another factor is that monitor has Freesync if you're running an AMD card.

Deforges · Dec 2016

perna said:

I'm running a 3440x1440, and the amount of extra space over a 1080 is very, very significant. When most software is designed to barely fit on a 1080, it becomes real luxurious. I also run two additional 1080 monitors which makes for ideal screen estate.

Avoid 4k unless you're getting a HUGE monitor, and avoid a HUGE monitor because it will just mess up your neck. In short, 4k is only for movies.

On IPS vs TN panel there's enormous amounts of misconception. TNs are often BETTER than IPS, but I'm not going to get into that as a lot of people have entered nearly religious hysteria on the issue. Just do some REAL research instead of bogging it down to silliness.

There's also a great deal of misconception with regards to color "accuracy". As long as your gamma curve, general contrast, and color balance is decent-ish, that's ALL YOU WILL EVER NEED. For 3d artists there's no added benefit whatsoever from more "accuracy". Only photographers/videographers need such monitors.

definitely agree, especially with that last part. Color accuracy is pretty much moot for 3d artists when you realize your work will be seen on other monitors anyways. But the only IPS panels I've had were those ultrawide LG monitors and I can only say that they looked amazing - so does the TN panel I posted.

I have noticed working at 1440p that 3ds max needs some kind of DPI scaling. it's ui is very small compared to all other programs but I don't want to turn on that scaling just for max. Maybe it's something I'll get used to.

throttlekitty · Dec 2016

perna said:

On IPS vs TN panel there's enormous amounts of misconception. TNs are often BETTER than IPS, but I'm not going to get into that as a lot of people have entered nearly religious hysteria on the issue. Just do some REAL research instead of bogging it down to silliness.

There's also a great deal of misconception with regards to color "accuracy". As long as your gamma curve, general contrast, and color balance is decent-ish, that's ALL YOU WILL EVER NEED. For 3d artists there's no added benefit whatsoever from more "accuracy". Only photographers/videographers need such monitors.

Thanks for the insight! Maybe I've never seen an amazing TN panel firsthand? They've always looked to some extent, darker, muddier or with just bad colors, or terrible backlight issues. At least the color and maybe brightness could be fixed with proper calibration. Guess I've got some reading to do.

One thing I miss from my 4k stint is that it's possible for Cleartype to not look like shit.
P.S. Selling a LG 4kUHDWFTBBQ display.

AtticusMars · Dec 2016

Deforges said:
Color accuracy is pretty much moot for 3d artists when you realize your work will be seen on other monitors anyways.

http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2312139/#Comment_2312139

AlecMoody · Dec 2016

50" 4k display here and I love it. I have it situated so I sit offset and use the left half as my primary space the right half for reference material. It's like having two big displays in portrait and then 1 big display when you want it to play a game or watch something.

I would not have moved to a screen this size except that a former employer sent it over for me to dial in UI which was intended to be displayed on this panel. I'm used to it now and if this display ever breaks I will be finding something comparable.

AtticusMars · Dec 2016

perna said:

Atticus, EQ is into photography, so has a different perspective. For those in normal 3D production, the cult built around that image is based on silly misinformation. I've addressed this whole issue so many times, but it won't die. It's kind of like how some people still believe they need to model exclusively in quads. Think I need to put it on my todo list to write up an article on the actual facts so people don't go unnecessarily spending money on "color accurate" monitors.

It's a pretty big leap to go from suggesting you don't need the level of color accuracy that print artists need to dismissing it entirely as a moot point. Color accuracy matters to everybody within reason.

I would never suggest that anyone spend $2500 on a monitor on the basis of its amazing color accuracy, but at the same time I'm also not going to run out and buy a wildly inaccurate display that would probably be just fine for a regular consumer that isn't producing content for anyone else to view.

Deforges post felt unnecessarily dismissive of color accuracy, that's my only point and in retrospect I should have said that rather than just dumping the link.

AtticusMars · Dec 2016

perna said:
Even a badly calibrated monitor can work perfectly well, because everything you see on that monitor is calibrated equally, so consistency is given. As long as production manager is on top of color, everyone else can more or less use whatever settings look good to them.

I don't see how you can possibly conclude this. If you crank up the brightness higher than the average viewer on your display and try to produce art on it then more than likely your work is going to look darker than you intended on other peoples monitors.

perna said:
If bad monitor color reproduction is a real problem, then where are all the resulting polycount WIYWO submissions with horrible color? It's an artificial issue and not something to worry about.

How is anyone supposed to know this without seeing the users display in person? There's no shortage of images in WAYWO with poor contrast and washed out colors and it's impossible to tell whether or not this is an artistic decision or the result of producing art from a poorly calibrated display.

I've seen this first hand in friends work who've calibrated their monitors according to what they thought looked good only to realize the colors in their work were totally desaturated when viewed on any other device because they'd blown out the saturation in their own display. This is even worse when the end user has decided to desaturate the color in their display.

Does this have any meaningful impact on the audiences viewing experience? I have no idea. Maybe not, the data from my interracial porn survey isn't in yet. But the difference is certainly noticeable and you can minimize that difference by getting as close as you can to the baseline that they are deviating from.

AtticusMars · Dec 2016

I feel I'm getting totally lost here so if I could press you to elaborate furthere here, going back to the original image in EQ's post: http://www.alecmoody.com/stuff/accurate_display.gif

Are you suggesting that the inaccuracy compounding effect described here is imperceptible (or just inconsequential) because the end user will be used to how their display is calibrated and simply perceptually adjust accordingly?

Deforges · Dec 2016

AtticusMars said:

perna said:

Atticus, EQ is into photography, so has a different perspective. For those in normal 3D production, the cult built around that image is based on silly misinformation. I've addressed this whole issue so many times, but it won't die. It's kind of like how some people still believe they need to model exclusively in quads. Think I need to put it on my todo list to write up an article on the actual facts so people don't go unnecessarily spending money on "color accurate" monitors.

It's a pretty big leap to go from suggesting you don't need the level of color accuracy that print artists need to dismissing it entirely as a moot point. Color accuracy matters to everybody within reason.

I would never suggest that anyone spend $2500 on a monitor on the basis of its amazing color accuracy, but at the same time I'm also not going to run out and buy a wildly inaccurate display that would probably be just fine for a regular consumer that isn't producing content for anyone else to view.

Deforges post felt unnecessarily dismissive of color accuracy, that's my only point and in retrospect I should have said that rather than just dumping the link.

It's a moot point in that anyone on here looking to get a monitor would probably buy one that is "color-accurate" enough to not be an issue. There is a point of diminishing returns for digital artists investing in color accuracy as compared to a print artist. I think the assumption I'm making is not wrong that people who visit this forum or are interested in digital media aren't going to spend $25 bucks on a monitor they found at a garage sale and that most mid to high range monitors they would buy will be color accurate enough for their purposes.

the picture EQ posted would be more accurate if the green dot was within the first ring from the red dot.

Eric Chadwick · Dec 2016

I agree with perna's stance.

I'm only using monitors I've gotten for free, hand-me-downs that came with machines I bought at studio-closure sales. (Studios I used to work with btw, I'm not a vulture waiting on a thermal for studios to fail, haha.)

It's been a long time since I've specifically had to buy a monitor.

Whatevs though, to each his own.

ZacD · Dec 2016

There's a few times a month when I see projects on here that are way too dark or washed out. For game art you don't need something 99.9% accurate, but having something with colors in the right ballpark has benefits.

But you can also just check on multiple displays to make sure a project looks good on everything.

jRocket · Dec 2016

For any of you that have gotten those massive 4k displays at 40" or bigger(no scaling), whats that like? That much screen real estate must be really great, but is it too big? Is it comfortable? Do you move your head up and down too much trying to find things on the screen?

ZacD · Dec 2016

I think the general idea with having a large 4k display, is making windows for applications small enough that you do not have to constantly look up, left, right, down, to see all the UI. I guess you could also customize the UI to have it all in one spot. Treat it as 4-1080p monitors without bevels, or a 1440p with extra space around it.

gnoop · Dec 2016

Any $100 IPS monitor is perfectly ok once you have Xrite or at least Spyder calibrator . And in total it often cheaper then any pro expensive display.

Also it's all depends on subject. If you work in a comics based, purely graphical style or just within a kind of heavily visually stylized or extremely color graded environment or very high contrast environment like predominately night one , in such cases I would probably agree with everything Perna said.

But ones your game is trying to do realistic style, especially regular day light scene on planet Earth , not being stylized into sepia , indigo or any other fancy "cinematic" grading , just real one, in such case I couldn't stress enough how important the calibrator is .

And it's tough lesson learned in practice usually. The problem with porn or just cinema/photo examples you see it always real whatever colors they are . Just because in every other aspects the visuals are real. Your brain just believe it, whatever off colors are.

It's totally other way around with video games. Your brain instantly notices everything is unreal, every detail , every silhouette, every lighting feature, every tree or grass bush. So you have basically two options. Make everything highly stylized or have colors/effects at lest be as believable, as possible . And any just a slightest deviation from a pretty narrow "real" scope and you can expect to hear from most of your users how "cartoony" "fake" "overdone" "gamy" "damn HDR" ets your game looks. Sometimes the whole company can't figure out the source of such complains while everything they needed to do is to calibrate a single art director's screen at least.

ZacD · Dec 2016

In general, it's a good idea to have every monitor in a studio calibrated the same way so that everyone is seeing the exact same thing. You don't want the art director saying a scene is too warm when it's just a variation in displays. But from what I remember hearing, I think Valve has the right idea and has test environments for every general type of setup a customer could be playing on, from a living room with a cheap LCD to a high end PC gaming setup.

gnoop · Dec 2016

perna. As I said, It was a tough lesson learned in practice. And I am not going to discuss neither rivaling projects no able to give you any inside in ours.

Whatever "sane" artist are , it's a kind of natural instinct to adjust your screen to "right" colors for your project. I have seen it couple times actually when the whole company gradually adjust their screens to what looks ok and even telling the "calibrator does something weird" and TVs are all wrong anyway.

And at the same time we all had "consistency" The risk is higher, smaller the company is. And you have to remind every contractor to calibrate their screens because they often see things only on their own.

As alredy mentioned it's important to be within the target
http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2312139/#Comment_2312139
Not for every genre and style, But for a game pretending to simulate reality it's extremely important

ps. Most important part of it is not a "warm" or "cool" shift. It's gamma/contrast and saturation of certain subjects like green grass and blue sky where wrong calibration could have much stronger impact than sRGB mismatch

gnoop · Dec 2016

perna said:

when people know what they're doing... T

I shared your point of view actually until 1O years ago we found it's not that simple. You could lose control of your colors and slip into something that was not your artistic decision so easily , so smoothly and so unnoticed. You just tell yourself the TV is wrong every time you see anything unexpected. So I wouldn't be so 100% sure.

Although I have to admit monitors out of a box is getting more accurate nowadays. It's not that rivalry to amaze customers with most bizarre, fancy saturated "crystal" "improved" colors it had been in the middle of last decade.

Still I wouldn't expect correct gamma and saturation from a cheap display. With TN one I would say it's impossible.
My point is you need $200 X-Rite dysplay pro first (never had any trust in Spyders) and then any cheap sRGB IPS .
So I kind of agree , you don't need to spend grands for expensive hardware

Octo · Dec 2016

I have a 40" 4k monitor, going from 2x24". The space is freeing but it's a bit of a weird size. It's not quite large enough to feel like 4 smaller monitors,
but too big to be treated as a single more traditional sized screen.
There is a 43" 4k one now..that might be better to use as you would with 4 smaller monitors.
Looking up and down is no issue, but side to side you have to rotate your head. A curved one would be nicer I think.
I never run apps full screen. I have a 24" on the side that never gets used. No real problems with scaling.
Personally I'm looking forward to a higher res headsets to use a virtual desktop.
The Pimax is 4k but has no positional tracking..might be good enough for such use and movies..quite affordable too.

Joao Sapiro · Dec 2016

4k screens for something that sits 60 cm from you seems overkill , to start with the letters would be so tiny i would need a magnifying glass or increase font size in windows. i agree with per as i never used a spydr etc to calibrate screen , the default calibrations on my monitor are more than enough to have good color values, i cant see any justification to spend 200dolars on something to calibrate the screen when it has never been a problem

gnoop · Dec 2016

Perna, I didn't mean TN is impossible to calibrate . Of course possible. Especially with calibrator. Honestly, I don't follow TNs for a while . The last one I tried to sit at was 5 years ago. After X-rite it was perfectly ok. Still it has a tiny vertical angle with correct gamma/contrast and I had to instinctively move my head up and down to find it . Gave a pain to my neck. And before calibration it was pretty washed out gamma. Your ASUS looks very decent from reviews but I bet it's rather rare example.

As of calibrating manually on your own eye my previous experience tells me that you can't really believe even your own eyes in that specific matter. You could do things worse actually. Again , it all doesn't matter if you are doing a kind of cyberpunk game, predominantly night scenes with contrast light splashes here and there and all gray, earthy, brownish, indigo- bordeaux etc pallet . Such pallet looks the same on any monitor . I bet it's why it's so popular and half of the works here falls within it, more or less.

Problems occur when you have to recreate a bright saturated colors of outdoor day light scene. A green fresh grass for example with a light coming through grass blades . On wide gamut monitors / "improved" TVs it turns so nuke over-saturated and totally off with even slightest deviation. Ok , I know, people just make it brownish to close the case or just ignore how it looks beyond "right" sRGB. Same with red Australian desert and so on and on. In a word, more vivid colors you are using within realistic style , more you are in need of a calibrator to be sure they are not totally off.
Manual calibration just never put you right in the middle of the target, you still would see wrong saturation in certain part of a range while ok in other, unpredictably . Your shadows may be darker or brighter than they should be and your artistic decisions would still be done on wrong input. It's just my exact experience I am trying to share. Have no idea how to prove it to you. Those gamma curves tell not that much actually.

ps. I had to say that my current monitor was ok enough out of the box. X-rite did just a very subtle, still noticeable touches . But that TN one 5 years ago was nothing close to reviews I read about it that time. Had pretty nice reviews too.

Shrike · Dec 2016

perna said:
Here's a better TN for reference:

The Asus ROG Swift PG278Q (8-bit) has been reviewed coming from factory with literally perfect gamma curve and deltaE of 1.2! Look at it smashing IPS monitors on these stats.

So why all the voices putting down TN panels? At one point they were mostly (or exclusively?) 6 bit, had even worse viewing angles and had bad blacks. Nowadays there's 8-bit color as well as "emulated" (totally good enough) 8 bit with 6-bit panels. Blacks have gotten better, actually better than on IPS panels, and viewing angles have improved. TN gives you better contrast and faster response than IPS. When TN panels are accurately said to be bad for color accuracy now it's mostly due to the limited viewing angles. So, just don't sit to the side of the monitor when doing color-sensitive work. Other reasons for putting down TN panels are leftovers from back when they genuinely sucked.

Another consideration is anti-glare coating. It will reduce color quality, especially on TN panels. Still I personally prefer matt monitors as I can't stand basement-style environments in my old, old age and prefer to enjoy some sunshine while I work.

So yeah

I had the mentioned ROG Swift PG278Q on TN, I thought TN would be fine, just wanted it for gaming but the lightness values were absolutely horrible, totally unworkable and dark areas in games looked like total crap too. I had to send it back, got the higher version PG279Q with IPS, a bunch more expensive but it looked indistinguishable to my 10 bit LG 4k calibrated pro working monitor and as 4k sucks hard right now, I gave that one back too and got 2 PG279Q , both absolutely amazing, + 144hz and GSync, never looked back.

gnoop · Dec 2016

BTW, the red gamma curve in that ROG Swift PG278Q example definitely shows the profile was done by a calibrator. Manual approach just could't do such a precise, many points curve , look at the top.

Is 1440p that much noticable for a monitor?

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