Is it a good idea to get a 4k gaming laptop?

I love high-resolution displays, think 4k screens are the future for laptops, and want to make my next laptop future-proof (I usually keep my laptops for 3-4 yrs).

However, I know that even with the 970M or 980M, most newer games will not be playable in 4k on a laptop. If I drop to 1080p for those games, how much fuzzier will they be vs native 1080p on a 1080p screen? Will I be able to set up the NVidia driver to apply direct 2x scaling to games that do not have their own scaling options, or will I have to deal with bilinear/trilinear scaling and/or some sort of bad hardware scaling if a game doesn't have built-in scaling options?

Also I've heard that Intel's CPU-integrated graphics do not support 4k at 60HZ, but it seems that 5100 and above ought to support it? Are the laptops that I see that are limited to 48HZ really limited due to Intel/Optimus or are they limited by e.g. the Samsung IPS panel that seems to be commonly used? If I go 4k will I have to choose between 60HZ and Optimus?

(I use my laptop for software dev, HD (and in the future, hopefully greater-than-HD) movies, gaming, and amateur photo and graphics editing. Also I am aware of the scaling issues that some Windows apps have on high-DPI settings, but it's not a big issue to me because it seems to be getting better.)


PS: I hope I posted this in the right section. I thought about posting it in "what laptop should I buy?" but it isn't about recommendations for a specific laptop.

 

Depends, but I say not. Not with a single GPU. You can always lower settings, but that defeats the purpose, IMO. Why spend thousands to game "cheap?"

Single mobile GPU's are not strong enough to play games on a 4k display at a decent FPS, yet. 980M SLI would be the only setup I'd get with a 4k display, if I wanted one. The GTX 780 (desktop) plays BF4 at like 33-40 FPS with AA disabled. On the "Ultra" preset, it would probably get less than 30 FPS, and BF4 is actually quite dated now (considering development started about 2+ years before release). The newer games coming out this year (Q3~) will be much more demanding.

If you get an Alienware 15 (4k) with the Graphics Amplifier, the GTX 980 - desktop card - should be able to get around 40~50 FPS in BF4 (Ultra preset).

 

My question was not about whether I can play recent games at 4k, since I know that they will not be playable on a non-SLI machine even on the most recent mobile graphics cards. My question was "when I drop down to 1080p, as I inevitably will have to, will I experience fuzziness from subpar scaling?"

 

Oh, no, that's not an issue. People do that all the time. The 4k will be great for everything else you want to use it for. For gaming? Not so much.

EDIT: There are a lot of people whom just ordered the new Alienware 15 with the 4k display. I suppose you can wait to see what they say about it.

 

jddunlap, it's always a good idea if your eyesight is good enough for it, because even if you're a hardcore gamer you will sometimes browse the web, etc. And in games you can lower resolution when you're not satisfied with performance without any scaling problems as long as you choose same aspect ratio.

 

It will be a little blurrier than a native 1080p display, making a little haloing since GPU scaling in the Nvidia driver uses bicubic, but shouldn't be too bothersome.

 

So does that mean I can be sure that I can set a scaling algorithm that will assign 4 screen pixels to every 1 source pixel, as opposed to scaling algorithms like bilinear/trilinear/bicubic that are meant for scaling resolutions that are not multiples of the native resolution?

Is there still no way around this, e.g. assigning scaling to the GPU and setting the scaling algorithm somehow?

 

That's the problem, you can't change the upsampling filter in the GPU options. And if you have Optimus, you have even less control over your display.

Not that this helps, but you can use GeDoSaTo to upsample a lower non-native resolution (basically reversing the settings you would normally use for downsampling) and it lets you choose between point/nearest (blocky), bicubic, bilinear, and Lanczos filter for upsampling. But GeDoSaTo only works for DX9 games, which aren't that demanding anyway and could probably already run at 4K most of the time.

A more universal solution might be if DSR ever gets support for upsampling in addition to downsampling. Then you could set the Smoothness slider to zero, which should disable the Gaussian blur filter and make it basically point/nearest. But somehow I don't see Nvidia ever making this happen.

 

I was afraid of this. :-( If NVidia were to support nearest-neighbor scaling, maybe that would help - but even then, would Optimus get in the way of that even for games (when the dedicated graphics card was active)?

Does anyone know if this is enough of an issue from a visual quality perspective to warrant avoiding 4k?

 

Personally I would just get 1080p now...

 

Yes, because then display options are in the Intel not Nvidia control panel, and they seem to be far more limited there.

 

Is the NVidia control panel completely disabled at all times for all laptops that support Optimus?

 

No, a bunch of options are just missing.

 

Personally I don't care for 4k. It's over-hyped due to smart phones, etc. For a laptop 1080p (preferably 1920x1200) is all you really need. Even on my Samsung netbook with 3k screen where I don't really use it to game, it really isn't needed.

 

High-def screens just look so much nicer though. But if it is harder to do one of the activities I use my computer for, then I might have to forgo that.

 

3K-4K is great for daily tasks, not so much for gaming (as 980m cannot drive 3K display properly with high settings, forget about 4K).

 

I dunno, even for daily tasks I personally don't see the appeal. Sure it looks decent but not worth the added cost or headaches. A 4k screen with scaling set to 200% looks remarkably like running at 1080p, hence why not just use a 1080p screen? For me, it's a feature that I didn't ask for, nor really care about. Maybe in a few years when GPU's can manage 4k without a sweat and scaling issues have been resolved, I'll jump on the band wagon.

 

4K looks great but on big screens haha. I agree, on a small screen it goes rather unnoticed. I did enjoy using it on my 49 inch tv but without using any scaling.

 

Thing is, I do notice the pixels on my 1080p screen, and even at a distance where I don't, I still notice the clarity difference of a high-res screen. But I think I would also notice the artifacts caused by bicubic upscaling.

 

How big is your 1080p screen and what is your normal viewing distance?

 

Yes, you can notice the pixels because they are still physically noticeable. PPI on a 15-18inch laptop is not that big. However, you will notice scaling, and artifacts, with a 4k screen.

I'd say a well made IPS 1080 screen will work better for now. My asus has a 15.6 inch ips screen and I have a viewing distance of about 2 feet, and I don't really "notice" pixels until I get closer.

 

17 inches, and 2 feet. It's a little less noticable on 15.6" but still there is a noticable difference for me.

 

You must have out-of-this-world eyesight then.

 

I have actually been using everything at 1600x900 including windows on my blade due to Unity. Looks great. Obviously the desktop looks better at 1800p, extremely easy to get used to. Honestly for games is extremely hard to notice.

 

I love 3K while writing papers, the pdfs look so crisp (LaTeX generated stuff looks amazing on 3K, like posters just pop, all the detail is there on screen). I wouldn't comment on 4K as I never had it (I will get hands on experience next week), though it might be too small. Maybe on 17 or 18 inch (if it existed).

 

One thing I didn't realize till I didn't see 3K screen in person was how much more "pure" colors are with high-DPI screens. It's basically the same thing like people complain about Oculus Rift headsets: screen-door effect caused by seeing unlit grid between pixels.

Even without seeing any pixel patterns that would show more details, just looking at big empty mono-colored areas you can clearly see the difference (especially noticeable with white).

Simply by having different inter-pixel spaces, high-DPI screens do look different than just 1080p ones. Once you notice, it's kinda curse. Before I wasn't aware of pixel grid on 1080p screen, now I can't unsee it.

 

If you can see the pixel grid on your 1080p screen then either you have a crappy screen or are sitting way to close to your LCD. If I get about a foot from my LCD I can start to see it, but anything beyond that is not noticeable, and I've used several 4k screens for extended periods and have a 3k 13.3" screen as well that I use on a regular basis. In any case, from my experience the headaches with 3k/4k are not worth it. I would have preferred a 1080p LCD in my Samsung notebook but it is only offered with 1080p and got the laptop for a bargain price, so I'll deal with it. Plus I rarely game on it (although it has scaling issues there too).

 

..since "4k" is really 3840 x 2160, double 1920x1080, it does actually scale down well to an even pixel-height. So I wouldn't really worry too much about that for games in an exclusive screen context. I think.. there was a long discussion about this somewhere else on the forum as well.. that the doubling effect actually will be lower, since the individual pixel collections on a 4k screen are smaller. I'm not .. completely sure about that, but it's likely.

On top of that, a newer 4k screen would be made with newer lcd2 or ips tech, and that is going to give you an advantage over more common back-lit panels in every way.

The only real drawback to having a 4k screen turns up if you run windows. Where everything that isn't the new overlay either becomes tiny, or blurred from careless upscale, or doesn't fit with the actual graphical representation. Actually, the sdk still allows people to include graphical components with fixed sizes. This (read: idiocy) is probably the biggest issue stopping common adoption of a better standard right now. ..of course, if you work with linux normally - no problem. Enjoy your 15 year old vector-based scaling UI.

 

This is exactly it.

 

Ironically I hosed an Ubuntu install by trying to scale it to 200% and had to muddle around on the system terminal to try to fix it. As for Windows, there are still apps that look messed up on high-DPI and I've been tracking these for a while, and they have been being fixed at a pretty rapid pace, so I am not too worried.

 

Ah, yes. You know the Ubuntu shell is becoming modern and advanced, when it starts to get Windows problems.

 

I can confirm that the jump from 127.34 PPI (FHD/1080p 17.3") to 282.42 PPI (UHD/4K 15.6") is definitely noticeable. Text especially looks much, much crisper thanks to the higher PPI.

Running games at 1080p on a UHD/4K native display looks as good as running games natively on a 17.3" FHD/1080p display. I have both P170SM and P651SG, so I have been able to verify this 100%.

I am in the process of compiling a playable 4K games list for the 980M. I hope to post it soon

 

Yeah, I've already seen the difference between 15.6 1080p and 15.6 4k and I love the richness and clarity of the 4k and strongly notice the difference. Across everyone I've asked though, some say 1080p is not fuzzy on a 4k screen and some (like many in this thread) say the opposite. I wonder if the particular panel has anything to do with it. I really should find a way to try it out for myself - but that will require more than showroom access or a quick session with a friend's laptop.

That Sharp panel is (drool)!

 

If Unity and Steam would just implement the proper DPI scaling APIs in windows I would totally go back to 1800p. But truthfully 900p doesn't look terrible scaled. There is obviously a difference but it's a minor quibble. HiDPI is here to stay, UI devs need to catch up. As far as gaming is concerned, the scaling is a non issue. It's really in apps where you notice the most difference. I suppose if your game of choice has a ton of small text it might be noticeable, but those games tend to perform well at higher resolutions.

 

Am I the only one who thought he was asking about a Laptop that cost 4'000 USD? haha

 

You're the only one.