Epic: Skyrim put to test on 4K monitor

The guys at PCGH.de played a modded version of Skyrim which consumes 3.5 gigs of VRAM on an 36 inch Eizo which offers 4k resolution (4096x2160). They also show a video running Skyrim in this epic resolution.

[5eriously]

Now where are those fools that claim 4K is not relevant?

[hennessey86]

When its not so expensive to buy one

[morganfell]

I never think tech really cost that much. But lets look back at the general perceptions of the consumer base in the past. CD players came out and were expensive. DVD players were expensive. Flatscreen TVs outrageous. Bluray players costly. 3D TVs beyond purchase. All of these dropped rapidly in price and became mainstay consumer items. 4K televisions will be no different. At CES this year there was a virtual flood of models from numerous companies. As they race for your dollar the prices will plummet. And console manufacturer not looking at 4K will rapidly find themselves outdated.

[aceitman]

at 27 inch 4k monitor cost 25,000 , so it will take one hell of a price drop to make it.

[SilentNegotiator]

"Now where are those fools that claim 4K is not relevant?"

In reality, where it costs a fortune for it to make any sort of sense in gaming for the next ten years, or even as a TV for watching video.

[Scenarist]

4k res .. . i seen one in the sony store a couple months ago

84inch 3d tv ... . 25k
so why the fk does this monitor cost 25k

that new spider man movie they were shoing gave me a "belly drop" ( dont know why ive been callin it that all my life)

[ziggurcat]

@ hennessey86:

every piece of new tech first released on the market says, "hi!"

plasma/LCD/LED TVs were all ridiculously expensive when they first became available, so why is 4K all of a sudden going to "fail" or become "irrelevant" because of its cost?

[PinkFunk]

I've never actually seen a 4K in action, but isn't it pretty much pointless until you get a TV 60"+?

I'm sure someone can enlighten me on the specifics. But if that is the case, I will reiterate that I think nailing down 1080P is more important when it comes to video games.

I suppose the whole pushing 4K has more to do with movie but I could be wrong. Either way, I don't have an 80" TV quite yet and don't intend on getting one for a long, long time.

[Anon1974]

It doesn't even matter if it's relevant today. The next gen of consoles will probably last 10 years again. Who knows what TV tech will be readily available for cheap in 2020. Those are the conversations that are taking place right now with regard to next-gen systems.

[Bathyj]

Well said Morgan.
Nice to sell someone who realizes brand new tech is always expensive at first buy only every goes one way.

Down.

I distinctly remember the first DVD player I ever saw was a thousand bucks.
The first Plasma TV was 20 grand!

People act like this stuff will stay the same price forever.

[portal_2]

Nice

[mandf]

It's not relevant because Sony is promoting 4k. The only problem with 4k is it;s expensive right now. Give it 7 to 8 years and thing will change. Remember vcr's were priced at $2000 when they first came out.

[Allsystemgamer]

It's not because Sony is promoting it its because the fanboys actually believe the ps4 will deliver AAA top graphic 4k games. It takes a beefy PC to run 4k games at max settings. There's no way a console in the next year or 2 will do that unless its expensive but that defeats the purpose.

[mandf]

@ allsystemgamer

I don't disagree with anything you said but it doesn't change the fact 4k is not being fairly discussed because Sony is promoting it. 4k is caught up in a fanboy war when gamers should be excited for this.

[turgore]

4k are too expensive for what the offer. I mean if you take the displays of four of the newest ipads and put them side by side their resolution will be 4k.
The problem is getting enough horsepower to run games at that resolution.

[Bigpappy]

@mandf: You need to calm down. You are defending something that is not an issue. Every thing does not come down to anti-Sony. You need to listen to what people are saying with your head out of the fanboy box.

From what I am reading, the reasons people are not ready to jump on the 4K bandwagon are: 1) it is too freaking EXPENDSIVE not and the foreseeable future. 2)the concern of putting out close to the money need for one, then not have it fully supported for a long time because of development cost concerns and cost of hardware needed to support it.

Those are legitimate concerns that have nothing to do with Sony. I can also guaranty you, that Sony (while leading on the tech) is not the only company who has interest and is work on 4K monitors.

[papashango]

I don't see why 4k is being included in the fanboy wars. 4k is not a Sony technology.

[portal_2]

@Allsystemgamer Kaz said that just upscaling 1080p looks excellent too.

[cleft5]

It's relevant and amazing, but incredibly expensive at the moment. I wish I had a truckload of money to spend on whatever I want but right now I have to budget myself. If you don't then great, buy a 4ktv and enjoy it for the both of us.

With that said, please try and understand where the majority of people are coming from when they talk about 4k and how much it cost.

[aliengmr]

Amazing? Sure. Relevant? Hardly.

Thing is, the improvement doesn't justify the cost.

Then there is the next gen consoles that have the largest market share in gaming. They aren't going to support this for the foreseeable future so its just not relevant.

[FantasyStar]

2160 (or 4k) is not relevant in the same way 1080 is not relevant this-gen. It's not a question of whether or not it's worth it: more pixels is always going to look better. What is the issue is working with the increased hardware load to deliver it.

[Allsystemgamer]

Exactly. No console "next gen" will be able to output a AAA title with impressive graphic fidelity. Some indie titles maybe but nothing along the lines of uncharted, killzone, halo 4 or god o war. It's simply not going to happen

1080p standard at 60fps locked is a lot more reasonable

[OpenGL]

Not only that but the 4K TVs demoed at CES from LG and other manufacturers only supported HDMI 1.4 so that means you can't play games because HDMI 1.4 only supports 4K at a refresh rate of 24Hz. This 4K display they used in the video utilizes DisplayPort which is currently the only video input standard that supports 4K at 60Hz.

[donman1]

It not going to relevant for the up coming next generation of consoles as price will be a huge issues for both the console (pushing that level of graphics with a solid frame rate) and purchasing a HDTV with 4K capability. Its simply a cost factor. We are at best 4-6 years away from HDTV being at an affordable rate for 4K to be mainstream.

[--Onilink--]

Im guessing you misswd the part where just the processor and graphics card alone are close to $1500, add in the rest of the components and the prize of tv and you would be spending a small fortune.

And lets not forget that this was just an upscaled version, they are not working with 4k textures, which i cant even begin to imagine how large they would be if the regular "hd texture packs" these days are at least 3gb and they are not even for the whole game... And this is not even a very graphically intensive game, imagine now one of those fancy new engines for next gen how much harder it would be

So yeah... $2000 (with luck) console + $20.000 tv + $100 games that have to be sold on 1TB external hard drives just to fit the game = VERY IRRELEVANT TECH

[palaeomerus]

Yeah sure, and supporting 3d was essential for video games too. Except for y'know...it's totally not and no one cares about it any more.

Frankly, that video didn't make me want to go out and spend money on 4K at all.

[admiralvic]

In a lot of ways it still isn't relevant.

This generation we saw a lot of games fail to hit 1080 and even more fail to hit 1080P. Naturally next generation we will probably see 1080 become the new standard, which will give 4k time to become affordable. Even then it's hard to say if we will see a shift to 4k, since we have no clue how many companies will be able to afford / justify the increased costs for this tech.

Either or, we're looking at about 6 years before this tech becomes relevant.

[LordHiggens]

I.....can't see the difference.

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

Ofcourse wii can't see it.. But it's good to know pc can do it. Also new gpus are coming in a few months. Gtx780!

@DoomeDx
why not?

[DoomeDx]

Seriously? 'wii'?

[Allsystemgamer]

I may pick up a 780 to replace my aging 6970 2gb edi. But being in college my funds are tight lol and being a media student (producing is expensive) is also taking a huge toll on my wallet. Plus my job not giving me hours is painful

[N4GDgAPc]

because u are watching it in a hd resolution for video. Not 4k.

[LordHiggens]

This makes sense to me now, thank you for explaining...

[donman1]

Based on the video we both just watched... I also cannot see the difference.

[sdozzo]

Haha I only have 8GB of RAM.

[TheModernKamikaze]

Me too, but they're talking about VRAM, the ones in GPUs.

[--Onilink--]

You would still need huge amounts of "normal" ram to help with the textures, though in this case ita just an upscale to 4k, its not even real 4k textures

[Are_The_MaDNess]

@You would still need huge amounts of "normal" ram to help with the textures, though in this case ita just an upscale to 4k, its not even real 4k textures

nope, you are wrong. most of the demand is on VRAM when it comes to resolution and 4k (ofc. GPU and CPU power aswell)

his ram usage is prob. at around 1.4-1.8GB
and the VRAM usage is because he is using AA (witch you own't really need in 4k since the Picture is already big)
he did also mod the game with 2k textures witch isn't on the Nexus anymore (he still hasn't the most demanding textures tho)

all and all, its good that a GPU for this gen has no problems. meaning my future 780/790 is a go for me ^^

edit: oh and BTW there are 4K textures out there, he is just being a n00b for not using them. and you won't see any difference in performance either

[Norrison]

@--Onilink--
Normal RAM wouldn't take a big hit, VRAM would. The GPU needs to render 8.3 million pixels which is more than 4 times 1080p (2 million pixels). I think he's using the 4k textures pack BTW.

[Are_The_MaDNess]

@Norrison he clearly says Texture mod Realistic Overhaul with is removed from the Nexus and is up to 2k textures, they also had an 1k version.
the there is just one thing that uses 4k textures in that mod, and that is the mountains and that is only 2 textures for the mountains + normal map for each ofc.

and if anyone want a real Texturepack, get the Texture Pack Combinder:
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com...

it combindes the best Textures of many many mods to make it looks great. the only down side is that you have to download the Realistic Overhaul (with you need to find somewhere else then the nexus) if any one want the missing texture pack tell me and i get it up on a Skydrive or something (its 4.62 GB)

[MacDonagh]

The people who claim they can tell the difference of 4K are probably blowing smoke because I can't tell the difference. Low frame-rate as well is actually pretty worrying. Check out the Battlefield demonstration and check out the weird glitch thing that happens.

[cleft5]

Unless you are checking out any 4k footage on a 4k monitor, then of course you can't tell the difference bro.

[Hassassin]

with new GPU and SLI/CF it won't be a problem... I haven't seen a 4k display yet, but I CAN tell the difference between my 1440p monitor and a 1080p monitor.

[LightofDarkness]

If you're looking at a 4k screen through a 1080p monitor, you won't be able to see it. If you're there in person, you'll see it as night and day.

[MacDonagh]

Is it worth $25,000?

The new 84-inch Sony XBR-84X900 Bravia 4k television is going to cost that much and I've seen people on speculation threads claiming that both Microsoft and Sony need to have 4k support in their new consoles.

It'll only jack up the price for the new consoles and I don't think it's worth it.

Would be nice on PC I guess because that's where all the innovation is.

[Qrphe]

Widescreen 480p has a 1/5 of the pixels 1080p has while 1080p has 1/4 of the pixels 4k has.

Yes, there is a huge difference.

[MacDonagh]

Might be a huge difference, but let's be real here. If games are going to be made with 4K support in mind, it'll be an extra add-on that isn't needed. How about having console games that can run 60 fps first? Because from what I've seen in this HD generation of consoles are unacceptable frame-rates on 720p. These tellies might be nice in the future when they are far cheaper, but I'd rather have decent graphics with decent frame-rate to be honest.

[Hassassin]

I'd like to see some screenshots from the games also :P

And oh please test Witcher 2 with uber on 4k!!

[Moncole]

Do it with a good RPG like Witcher 2.

[LOL_WUT]

You call that a good RPG?

[WetN00dle69]

The Witcher 2 is not a Good RPG.........its an AMAZING Action/RPG.

[mamotte]

In my 720p laptop.

[FantasyStar]

I get it ;)

[GribbleGrunger]

Resolution alone does not make a game better. I really wish the PC mentality would die or at least stay where it's supposed to. Reality doesn't come with overly sharp edges and distance naturally blurs the scenery ... I want better games, not higher resolutions. Use your eyes in the real world to see how resolution has hoodwinked people for many years and continues to do so. Do you see any obviously sharp edges in the room you are in at this very moment? Until we emulate that, you won't see better graphics, let alone better games. Photorealism has absolutely nothing to do with resolution either. It's about shades, shadows, lighting and the way these three things interact with each othet, not sharp edges.

Wouldn't you sooner walk through a virtual world full of rivers that flowed realistically, used actual physics to determine how fast you could walk through it or even whether the force of the water could drag you under, depending on your weight or what you were carrying? Wouldn't you sooner see real time whether that 'really' did what was promised and didn't just randomise the conditions? Wouldn't you want to be able to build a raft and reach that island you could see in the distance? These are things that would qualify as next gen, not a higher resolution.

[zebramocha]

Your complaints about why game are not better are developers choice and personal preference,a dev can't make ever body happy but they can reach a majority of people.

[MikeMyers]

It goes hand and hand. It's like saying I want better movies, not blu-ray over DVD. Technology helps further the immersion of gaming. If I feel like Gran Tursimo 6 graphics are much cleaner than Gran Tursimo 5 and the PS4 helps make it possible then why wouldn't I want that?

[Series_IIa]

Once again GribbleGrunger is showing how bitter he is...

When you're not crying about the media picking on Sony or when you're not trying to make some conspiracy about a pact with Xbox and IGN because they have some video app on XBL, you're bashing PC gamers.

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

You're right, resolution doesn't matter. Humans only see in 30 FPS at 720p, silly people always trying to get the most crisp resolution out there.

Not to mention real life has a ton of jaggies and artifacts.

Fun Fact Gribble, do you know what HD means? High Definition. As in directly correlating to RESOLUTION. The first sentence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[TheDudeLasse]

I hope your comment is supposed to be satire @ZombieNinjaPanda "Humans can only see 30fps at 720p.” What are you talking about? You are either blind, an idiot...or both.

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

@TheDudeLasse

Wait, do I seriously need to write in giant caps SARCASM on my posts now? Did you not see the second part of my post where I denounce everything he says about the resolution argument? Jesus.

[Irishguy95]

Congratulations on your achievement.

[Rageanitus]

ummmm it matters! Lets take COD mainstream game looks sooo much better at higher resolution and much smoother framerate on a PC

[ZoyosJD]

ugg... while i agree with your sentiment that an increase in power can be used for physics, ai, etc. the fact that you dismiss the improvement that 4k could bring is uninformed to say the least.

4k doesn't just make "sharp edges", it increases pixel density meaning that individual pixels are closer together. Not only does this mean that the image can have a sharp edge, but that this very edge is more defined due to the increase in contrast that a higher resolution brings. the increase to 4k increases contrast so much that, from first hand experience, adds a sense of depth that is comparable to well done 3D, but without the headaches or glasses all the while being sharper or smoother than 1080p.

how realistically you see those lighting, shodow,and shading effects on your screen is limited to the resolution of your screen.

if you think photorealism is not effected by resolution you should set your system to 480p again. remember those jaggies yeah they are still there, even in 720p its just reduced by bluring which also reduces contrast. they appear when your screen is trying to produce a straight line but the pixels are so wide that a straight line look like steps. when an image is natively produced at 4k their is no need to blur to get rid of jaggies in the first place.

as much as i would love to see some of the physics you took note of we have to have devs that are capable of coding these little nuances in the first place or at least a game engine that can relatively estimate these effects. its not so much about power, but time and reasoability. sure they could have 3 billion calculus operations per second on how your clothes affect the water flow, but is that going to make a game that much more imersive for the time and power it would take? In the big picture...No.

[aliengmr]

In a game the resolution is not the same as a 2d image, where there would be substantial improvement. Shadows, textures, etc. are separate things that must be rendered in real time. Without 4k textures and shadows, crisp edges are about the only thing you will notice.

4k will be cool...someday. People seem to be missing this very obvious point. The new consoles aren't going to be able to achieve 4k res. This is fact. And even if by some miracle they could, you would have to get a 4k tv or monitor just to use it. The vast majority of gamers won't have that for 5 to 10 years at least.

The market is just not ready for it yet.

[GreenRanger]

The poorer i get, the more expensive TVs get.

[pandaboy]

I don't see the difference.

[GribbleGrunger]

You won't and you never will. Even if that feed was in 4k, all it would be was the same game with slightly sharper edges. Ni-no-kuni isn't in 4k or even 1080p but the world is vibrant and alive because the developers have understood what next gen is supposed to mean. If we go down the route of higher resolution, then all we'll get is the same old game with the same old textures, using the same old techniques and having the same old content. Take a look at Beyond: Two Souls and see what photorealism looks like. Is it in 1080p, let alone 4k? NO. This obsession needs to stop

http://i289.photobucket.com...

And, yes, that IS from the game. Skyrim doesn't come close to that and never will, even IF you throw 4K at it.

[Norrison]

Can you take your PS3 fanboyism back to the PS3 threads? You're not convincing anyone here, you don't know anything about PC gaming, let alone graphics.

Beyond: two souls doesn't look impressive at all, if low res textures in a small enviroment seems impressive to you and high res textures on an open world doesn't then you're in denial.

[RuperttheBear]

'Is it in 1080p, let alone 4k? NO. This obsession needs to stop '

You do know that SONY is pushing 4k don't you?

[DERKADER]

It takes an i7-980x and 7970, that's $800 alone not including motherboard, ram, hard drive and power supply. If a $1000+ purpose built gaming rig can't maintain 4K at 30fps I can't see consoles being able to come close. This console gen 720p was the standard next gen it will be 1080p and then the gen after that will be 4K. Buy that time 4K will have a larger install base, prices will come down and there will be actual content to watch in 4K.

[Tewi-Inaba]

And it still looks like crap without proper mods....

[OneAboveAll]

Oooo wow. I'm so impressed. /s

4k res doesn't mean jack if the textures aren't high resolution either and Skyrim doesn't have that high res of textures.

This looks just like 1080p with the view pulled back.

[annus]

What are mods? There are plenty of texture packs, and they can get as good definition as the person making the textures wants.

The same could be said that 1080p looks the same as 540p, that it's just further away, but of course there is far greater detail.

And of course it looks like 1080p, it isn't recorded in 4k, and you aren't viewing it in 4k. It's like getting a black and white tv and playing a game in colour and complaining that it looks the same because it's still in black and white on your tv.

[aliengmr]

Far as I am aware there are no 4k texture mods. Highest I've seen is 2.5k.

There is also the file size, which for 2k is about a 3 gig download.

[landog]

2560x1600 is fine for me, a 30" looks amazing at that res, going down to 1080p is a significant drop in quality and clarity.....can't wait till 4k is cheap....its gonna be a while

[FlyingFoxy]

if you want shit framerates be my guest.

[tubers]

Ever heard of high end GPUs and setups?

Mind you PC's today can do x6 1080p smooth depending on your PC setup (likely having SLI/Xfire configurations).

[RedDeadLB]

I'm happy with my 1920x1080 screen. Looks great and games run great still. I won't change it until it dies.

It's not as big of a quality difference like 720p to 1080p. 1080p itself isn't considered that big of a resolution nowadays but it's still sharp and detailed. I know from personal experience because after my monitor died, I was using a 30" 768p TV and games were aliased quite badly, some of them were very blurry (BF3 for example) and foliage looked very weird. On 1080p now, for example, everything is sharp, smooth and detailed. I don't see the leap to 4k being as dramatic because 1080p itself isn't a low resolution.

[SamPao]

All I see is ugly screen tearing :D

[WetN00dle69]

Yeah the Battlefield 3 video had a crap load of Screen tearing as well.

[landog]

on console it tears, i think buljo is talking pc, it looks perfect on pc

but yeah, i played bf3 with my nephews on 360 and it tears, and pops in and has lots of jaggies, still fun, but it is distracting.

[FlyingFoxy]

1080P is enough, i am fed up with these BS articles.

Look at the new video interview about the Oculus Rift, even the guy working on it said you need a decent rig to pull 60fps with that thing and it's not even out yet.

Let's stop with the BS, people who own multiple screens and go much above 1080P will have much lower framerates and also be laggy unless you play much older games. Multi GPU = micro stuttering also.

Get one mid-high end graphics card and stick to 1080P, because graphics cards are NOT powerful enough to play much above that at FAST framerates.

Doom 3 couldn't do it on my new 6800 Ultra in 2004, suffering dips as low as 20FPS in intense sections. that was a brand new card and was expensive back then. Nothing much has changed since.

[aliengmr]

This tech is a long way off. When you consider all the other improvements that could be made in gaming(physics, AI, etc.), it just won't be at all practical for a while. Especially considering the hardware required to run games at that res far exceeds the actual reward.

The next gen consoles aren't going to support this res so right away the majority of gamers aren't going to use it. The highest end PC's might but the cost to see it is far from justified. At the very least it will be 5 years before it becomes practical.

I don't have a problem with it being a goal, but its going to take a while and plenty of price drop before I am at all interested.

[konohashin]

Interesting. To bad my stupid CPU is slowing down my PC Skyrim constantly goes down to 26 fps on my rig...

core2quad q9300 - 8gb ddr2 1066 - radeon 6870

[tubers]

Just don't forget that DISTANCE from the display is an important factor. So is INDIVIDUAL VISUAL ACUITY.

The media and tech industry will push this down our throats regardless. Make of that what you will.

[KrisButtar]

the way i see it as 7yrs/6yrs ago i bought a 360/ps3, they each had hdmi ports but the cheapest hdtv was still alot of money, today i have hdtvs now and the price of them were nowhere close to what they cost, when i was buying my systems. i can see the next gen systems having the port for 4k to future proof there systems so they last longer

[Rageanitus]

1080p monitors/tv only became relevant when blu-ray came into the picture.... it was the only thing that took advantage of that resolution.

for 4k resolution to be relevent we need the price to go down or something that can upconvert the current blu-ray's to that resolution.

4 K resolution is very HIGH and even today's computers games struggle to get beyond 1080p with descent fps

[Orionsangel]

This demonstration is pointless as will every 4K demo we watch, unless you're there in person in front of a 4K HDTV. Yes folks, no matter what. We're not looking at a 4K screen. Will never get the true experience of what it's like to see it in person. So this proves nothing.

[Petro]

Everyone who says that 4K is stupid, think of this, why do you need anti-aliasing on 1920x1080 resolution? Its because you can easily see individual pixels, so you need to use anti-aliasing to use tricks like anti-aliasing to blur the difference between pixels and this is crude explanation how anti-aliasing works. Anyway, in lets say 27" size you would need less anti-aliasing or possibly even you could disable it. At least I can say that 2560x1440 is not enough to disable anti-aliasing, but I can reduce it without seeing any difference.

[Petro]

This sentence almost makes sense, should read before posting

"so you need to use tricks like anti-aliasing to blur the difference between pixels and this is crude explanation how anti-aliasing works" corrected it

[GreenRanger]

It'll be another ten years before these TVs become affordable.