Blogs AMD and Nvidia need to step up to the 4K challenge

NVidia & AMD are like Tescos and Sainsburys.
We need an Aldi/Lidl to come and take them on otherwise they are always going to rip us.

 

4k is not a widely adopted format yet, 2560x1600 was never even really adopted, it's hardly surprising that they haven't released cards en masse to handle the resolution.

How many people just on these forums alone even own a 4k display?



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I think this is a classic case of those that have wanting more and those that haven't, well, they get left further and further behind. Of course the general idea of 'if the high end gets higher then it drags up the performance for the rest of us' is all very well but the problems come when you look at product life cycles and the fact that those often found in the mid range segments or lower just don't bother to upgrade as often, if at all unless something actually fails. This means that the market for high end only gets smaller and smaller as fewer and fewer people need or desire the extra power to run the very best.
While 4K is technically only around the corner from going mainstream it is realistically years off with regards to services that will use it. I think we are years away from another format war to replace Blu-Ray which in reality is still a long way from being the mainstay of home entertainment. Furthermore, look at the recent article written on Bit-Tech regarding internet services and then ask how you expect 4K streaming to be handled? So apart from PC gaming (which in terms of sales is far behind that of the console market) and a few niche professional sectors, where is the need for 4K coming from to drive it all forward? We just seem to be facing too many bottlenecks in the near future for things to take off the way some would like it to.

 

This is a great article.... especially if you replace '4K' with 'VR' all the way through. For a lot of people, its far more important that the GPU companies up the ante for VR than 4K.

4K is just a natural evolution of regular display tech, in which things look slightly nicer than before; VR on the other hand, with head and positional tracking and the ability to feel entirely immersed in a game, is a huge revolution for the games industry. The GPU manufacturers probably have until this time next year to come out with hardware than can handle it.

 

Surely VR is no problem? As even though the screens used have incredibly high pixel density, the screens themselves are very small as they sit just in front of each eye.

 

I understand it is the "future", but to me the difference in quality is nowhere near the price differential between a 4k screen and a conventional one.

Actually, for slightly less money, IMO a triple monitor setup is far more immersive, and besides it is more useable when not gaming.

What developers and GPU manufacturers need to step up is multi-monitor support. It is still at best a single stretched image across the screens, with far edges suffering from fish-eye effect. What needs to happen is to have each screen with its own rendered image. Apart from some obscure racing sims, no-one does this yet.

 

Res will be 2560*1440 for CV1.

it also needs to run at 90 fps at an absolute minimum.

Not many cards can do that.

 

4k is in the same place 1080p was 10 years ago, with regard to its power requirements, content and price, patience is all that is needed or some compromises with in game eyecandy.

1080p had some help I guess in media and games that Sony/MS pushed quite hard with their HD formats and games which helped, 4K hasn't really had the same push yet.

VR is another kettle of fish, whilst this needs power it also needs a different approach to game design, VR support thought through from the ground up rather than tacked on to existing stuff as is now.

 

I think you're right, 4K IS around the corner.

The simple reason: TV-manufacturers need a new horse to flog.
Full-HD is there, and dead cheap, nobody really cares about 3D, now they need a new hype to sell TV’s.

Reading the advertising at the soccer world cup, 4K is the new hype. (even if the content problem isn’t solved, no reason not to push a new technology)

With 4K TV’s in production, panel prices will go down.

With cheaper panels, what reason is there to not move to 4K on computers, I for one am tyred of affordable 1080 panels.

 

Nvidia and AMD may well be rising to the challenge, rumors (for what they are worth) are saying AMD is planning on releasing pirate islands on the 20nm process in the first half of 2015 (R9 380X ‘Fiji’ GPU), followed by the flagship R9 390X ‘Bermuda’ GPU some time later.

Apparently Nvidia is going to counter this with the release of the GM200 (GTX 980 Ti or GTX Titan X) with SMMs/CUDA Cores: 20-22/ 2560-2816, Memory Bus: 384 Bit, Performance: ~50% Boost over GTX Titan Black.

Personally I'm more interested in what G-Sync & Free-Sync can do, if anything, to make playing games at 4K more reasonable in terms of GPU grunt needed.

 

4K for PC's? Most PC users are at 19*10 or lower and they aren't going to jump to 4K, they'll move to 25*16 eventually.

Also before nvidia/amd step up to 4K gaming, windows and all the software that runs on it needs to sort it's self out for general use. A standard 16*16 toolbar button gets pretty small on a PC sized (say 27 inch) 4K screen.

 

4k TVs are already quiet cheap, there is very little content in the uk that is 4k ready though. Some blue Ray films and a blueray quality at best Netflix stream which is as far away from true 4k as the gpu manufactures are.

I'd say where 4-5 years of 4k been standard pc resolution, how long did 1080p take a lot longer than that.

VR is another matter the 90fps min target rules out all none SLI or CFX setups and if you use one with it you get major issues.

20nm may change things but I dout AMD or nvidia have that much performance in hand to make a £250 gpu play at 4k, we are a lot longer or that than we are of even some 4k streams.

 

The idea that graphics tech is lagging behind the high end monitor resolution is hardly new. It was years before a single GPU card was released that could handle 1600p.

 

unfortunately the PC market is being held back by consoles as more and more games are multi-platform. the PS4 and Xbox one are making their limitations the norm.

Why develop better faster technology for a niche ( general pc gaming market) within a niche (high end gaming).

At the moment neither AMD or Nvidia have the insentive to take a giant leap forward as it simply doesn't make financial sense.

As someone said previously it will just take a long time to change and will most likely come about around the time and more likely slightly before the next console refresh for 4K gaming

 

Also whilst 4K screens are getting cheaper they aren’t getting better, too many problems with interface ( or lack of HDMI 2) and input lag and poor scalers, this still needs to firm up before you could say 4k is really ready for prime time.

If the consoles did 4K the push would be huge, that is 10 years off.

 

4k they now going on about 8k and 10k before 4k been mass released

 

It was my understanding that PC gaming has made a huge uplift in terms of popularity and exposure and currently sits on par with the giants?

Or am I completely wrong...

 

Really? GPUs to drive 4K screens at a decent FPS with high res polygons, the volumetric light effects and surface shades we love to see, needs a huge amount of silicon!

Look at the detail a high end GPU is a behemoth of a chip but they are also getting smaller and more energy efficient all the time.

Gaming needs affordable GPUs that are capable of generating the highest of fidelity images in 4K at 120FPS. This will be good for conventional screen gaming and essential to transition those games to VR.

But it's not the GPU manufacturers fault we're not there yet. We get closer every year, but things take time.

You just gotta be a bit more patient, and while you're waiting accept that the very achievable 1080p is still a bloomin lovely resolution to game at when you think how far we've come.

My first 'personal computer' had me gaming in monochrome and silence at the amazing resolution of 64 x 48!

The step up from that to 256 × 192 was awesome... even if the colours did clash.

 

2560x1600 monitors are about the same price as 4K (3840x2160) ones, why buy the lower resolution.

especially since 4k panels are coming down (TV standart) while 25xx monitors have been stagnating in price?