It's about time... ultra high resolution displays... for the next Macs xD xD

[Icyculyr]

The next MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and iMac are all rumoured to have 'retina' displays. That's resolutions starting at 2560x1600 for the 13 inch MacBook Pro up to 5120x2800 for the 27 inch iMac.

I thought you'd all want to know immediately! Yay!

lol xD

[dilettante]

Ouch, I think I sprained my jaw yawning.

[abhijit]

That's the most exciting news I have heard all day.
I plan to book all three of these as soon as they come out.

My credit card won't let me buy these, so I need to plan a heist.

[dilettante]

Maybe grow a grungy beard, put on a black turtleneck, wear a fake Madonna-esque wireless headset/mic, and play a few Steve Jobs Impersonator Act gigs in Vegas? The Apple Corps will probably throw money at you on stage.

[baja_yu]

Maybe grow a grungy beard, put on a black turtleneck, wear a fake Madonna-esque wireless headset/mic, and play a few Steve Jobs Impersonator Act gigs in Vegas? The Apple Corps will probably throw money at you on stage.

A little late for that. Ashton Kutcher is already doing it.

[Icyculyr]

That's the most exciting news I have heard all day.
I plan to book all three of these as soon as they come out.

My credit card won't let me buy these, so I need to plan a heist.

I know, I considered that too... I may go and work at a local Apple store and then turn the staff against them!

TAKE ALL THE MACS!

[dilettante]

A little late for that. Ashton Kutcher is already doing it.

Yeah I'm always slow with the million dollar ideas.

Ashton's probably taken his act on the road playing LOAF (Legion Of Apple Fanboys) chapter meetings by now.

[Icyculyr]

Gaming on the systems with Intel HD 4000 graphics is going to be a real treat at native resolution... you can muster a whopping 5 FPS in the Sims 3 on lowest settings! lol

[kregg]

[Icyculyr]

[dilettante]

C'mon, put Steve back in his box.

[Icyculyr]

[dilettante]

iBorgs?

[Icyculyr]

I... what? Is that? o.O

[dilettante]

iPod, iPhone, iPad, iKat, iDawg, IHOP, retina, EyeBorgs

[baja_yu]

This summer, A Steve Jobs biopic written by Aaron Sorkin. Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs, in... Dude, Where's My iPad! Coming to theaters near you.

[Icyculyr]

iPod, iPhone, iPad, iKat, iDawg, IHOP, retina, EyeBorgs

Lol...

This summer, A Steve Jobs biopic written by Aaron Sorkin. Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs, in... Dude, Where's My iPad! Coming to theaters near you.

Rofl! That's funny lol.

>>>>>

How many framies will I get at 5120x2880 in The Witcher 2 on ultra (uber off)? Does anyone know?

[Justa Lol]

5120x2800 px? what graphics card can run that?

[Icyculyr]

5120x2800 px? what graphics card can run that?

The mid and high end GTX 600 series and AMD 7000 series -- I think the 77xx, 78xx and 79xx can all handle 7680x4320 which is 33 million pixels.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Does it even matter? Are there any games that support resolutions that high, or is this just so that you can have an obscene number of columns in Excel, or something?

[baja_yu]

I seriously doubt they will be using such high resolutions. There's really no point since at standard viewing distances for a computer monitor, the resolution currently in the 27" iMac (and other screens) are pretty close to what would be considered "Retina", meaning the pixels aren't discernable.

[thebuffalo]

1920x1080 is good enough for me.

[Icyculyr]

Does it even matter? Are there any games that support resolutions that high, or is this just so that you can have an obscene number of columns in Excel, or something?

Of course, games don't have resolution limits afaik. Even today SSAA is still the best quality anti-aliasing, it's just that it's such a performance hog that it's been replaced by many others.

Say you've got a 1920x1080 resolution and you've got SSAA set to 2x, it would render the game at 3840x2160 and then downscale it to 1920x1080. And as I said, it's absurdly demanding.

With these displays games will actually be rendered at that resolution and displayed on the screen fully -- it'll look even better.

I seriously doubt they will be using such high resolutions. There's really no point since at standard viewing distances for a computer monitor, the resolution currently in the 27" iMac (and other screens) are pretty close to what would be considered "Retina", meaning the pixels aren't discernable.

Just because you can't see an individual pixel doesn't mean there's no benefit to a higher PPI, I sit 18 inches from my 21.5 inch 1080p iMac and I can still see jaggies on text, images, and especially in games.

[dilettante]

Time to move out of Mom's basement I'd say.

[SJWhiteley]

Having experienced the 'retina display', i must say that it is a lot easier on the eyes. i have the iPhone, and have played around with the latest iPad. Reading on these devices seems less stressful. But then, I'm a *user* not a *power user* of such devices.

[baja_yu]

Just because you can't see an individual pixel doesn't mean there's no benefit to a higher PPI, I sit 18 inches from my 21.5 inch 1080p iMac and I can still see jaggies on text, images, and especially in games.

Actually, that's pretty much what it means. It's like saying video should be 100 frames per second, when the eye can't really notice the difference from 30 fps.
Once you can't discern pixels at your standard viewing distance that's it. Right now it's still not there, but it doesn't need a quadrupled resolution to achieve it.

[thebuffalo]

I don't see any pixels in my screen, even if I move close.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Of course, games don't have resolution limits afaik.

My information is probably dated, but I thought ALL games had resolution limits above which they don't support. If they had no resolution limits, wouldn't that mean that all textures would have to be near-infinite resolution?

Suppose you had a character on the screen in a game such as Skyrim. If that character is a certain height at 1900x1200, then you changed the resolution to four times that, there are only two options:
1) The character gets MUCH smaller.
2) The textures that make up the character have to be MUCH larger.

Obviously, the first alternative is silly, so it would have to be the second. The only way to do that would be to either provide a texture with a much higher resolution, or programatically stretch a lower resolution texture to the larger number of pixels...which will look like muddy hell.

Am I mistaken on this?

[thebuffalo]

Most games have resolution limits, I actually haven't played a game that goes over 1600x1024 and its usually 1600x900.

Diablo 3 for example, doesn't get 1920x1080

[abhijit]

My information is probably dated, but I thought ALL games had resolution limits above which they don't support. If they had no resolution limits, wouldn't that mean that all textures would have to be near-infinite resolution?

Suppose you had a character on the screen in a game such as Skyrim. If that character is a certain height at 1900x1200, then you changed the resolution to four times that, there are only two options:
1) The character gets MUCH smaller.
2) The textures that make up the character have to be MUCH larger.

Obviously, the first alternative is silly, so it would have to be the second. The only way to do that would be to either provide a texture with a much higher resolution, or programatically stretch a lower resolution texture to the larger number of pixels...which will look like muddy hell.

Am I mistaken on this?

as far as i know, that's how it works with photographs.

[Icyculyr]

Time to move out of Mom's basement I'd say.

Ah you've not left yet? I commend you on your move towards independence though

Actually, that's pretty much what it means. It's like saying video should be 100 frames per second, when the eye can't really notice the difference from 30 fps.
Once you can't discern pixels at your standard viewing distance that's it. Right now it's still not there, but it doesn't need a quadrupled resolution to achieve it.

Let me use games as an example: you can clearly see aliasing is games, and at a higher resolution it will be much less noticeable and that's definitely an improvement.

That aside, if you sit closer than the maximum viewing distance for your display then you'll still be able to see improvement from a higher resolution for more common things. This site helps you calculate that: http://bhtooefr.org/displaycalc.htm, apparently the normal viewing distance for a 21.5 inch 1080p display is 33 inches with a visual acuity of 20/20, but I sit around 20 inches from my display.

Btw, you can actually notice the difference between video filmed at 30 FPS and 100 FPS -- the difference between 24 FPS and 48 FPS is very substantial, and in games even up to 120 FPS shows significantly smoother... everything.

My information is probably dated, but I thought ALL games had resolution limits above which they don't support. If they had no resolution limits, wouldn't that mean that all textures would have to be near-infinite resolution?

Suppose you had a character on the screen in a game such as Skyrim. If that character is a certain height at 1900x1200, then you changed the resolution to four times that, there are only two options:
1) The character gets MUCH smaller.
2) The textures that make up the character have to be MUCH larger.

Obviously, the first alternative is silly, so it would have to be the second. The only way to do that would be to either provide a texture with a much higher resolution, or programatically stretch a lower resolution texture to the larger number of pixels...which will look like muddy hell.

Am I mistaken on this?

You're pretty much correct.

The content in the game doesn't get any smaller with a resolution increase, so as the resolution increases higher resolution textures are required else it just streches the lower resolution textures and in normal circumstances that would result in blurrier textures as you said, but since the resolution is increasing (by two fold) but the screen size is remaining the same, the stretched textures end up looking the same as they do on a standard display because everything is physically the same size.

However we don't know what resolution textures are included with games, but considering how popular 2560x1440 is I expect most, if not all games, supply the appropriately sized textures. On top of that, resolutions like 7680x1600 with multi-monitors still look and work great as well otherwise people wouldn't use them.

[thebuffalo]

How do I get these super fat resolutions you guys speak of? I need a new video card? I have a Nvidia 560m, 1920x1080 is the highest I can get without going 'past' windows supported resolutions, which when I tried this, I did not succeed.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Ah you've not left yet? I commend you on your move towards independence though

Good answer.

but since the resolution is increasing (by two fold) but the screen size is remaining the same, the stretched textures end up looking the same as they do on a standard display because everything is physically the same size.

The increase is four fold, since doubling both dimensions would square the total pixels. Doubling one dimension would fatten the image, not phatten them.

I see what you are saying, but I think it won't work that way. If your texture had a single pixel at point (100,100) that was blue, and you doubled the horizontal and vertical, then to keep the image the same size, there would have to be four pixels that were now blue. If you could figure out which four, then the image should remain the same, as you say, but which four pixels would now be blue? Do you copy to the right and down? That would shift the total image. Do you take the single blue pixel that was at (100,100), map that to the new screen coordinates then average the pixels around that point? You can't simply say, "It was (100,100), so set (x,y) to that color along with the pixels around it.", because there would be nine pixels of that color rather than the four you need. If you chose only four of the nine, then the image would shift slightly in one direction or another. The latter is clearly preferrable to the former, but neither is quite correct, so it seems like there would have to be some distortion that would result.

[Icyculyr]

How do I get these super fat resolutions you guys speak of? I need a new video card? I have a Nvidia 560m, 1920x1080 is the highest I can get without going 'past' windows supported resolutions, which when I tried this, I did not succeed.

You need a monitor which supports such high resolutions, and then a GPU which supports it as well.

Good answer.


The increase is four fold, since doubling both dimensions would square the total pixels. Doubling one dimension would fatten the image, not phatten them.

The pixel increase is four fold, but the resolution increase is two fold. For example if you double 480x320 you get 960x640 which is twice the resolution as 480x320, but the pixels are quadrupled.

I see what you are saying, but I think it won't work that way. If your texture had a single pixel at point (100,100) that was blue, and you doubled the horizontal and vertical, then to keep the image the same size, there would have to be four pixels that were now blue. If you could figure out which four, then the image should remain the same, as you say, but which four pixels would now be blue? Do you copy to the right and down? That would shift the total image. Do you take the single blue pixel that was at (100,100), map that to the new screen coordinates then average the pixels around that point? You can't simply say, "It was (100,100), so set (x,y) to that color along with the pixels around it.", because there would be nine pixels of that color rather than the four you need. If you chose only four of the nine, then the image would shift slightly in one direction or another. The latter is clearly preferrable to the former, but neither is quite correct, so it seems like there would have to be some distortion that would result.

I don't entirely understand your example -- if you take a 100x100 image and set it to fill a 200x200 picture box, every pixel in that image will be quadrupled automatically, you don't need to do anything about it. The very top left pixel, which might be blue for example, will now have a blue one to the right of it, to the bottom of it, and then to the bottom right of it.

What you'll see in that form is that the image becomes blurry, but when the resolution of the monitor is doubled, then there's four times as many pixels in the same area as one on the previous display, so even though there's four blue pixels, they're only talking up the physical size of one pixel on the old display. So you can't see a difference.

Does that make sense?

[baja_yu]

The pixel increase is four fold, but the resolution increase is two fold. For example if you double 480x320 you get 960x640 which is twice the resolution as 480x320, but the pixels are quadrupled.

Yeah, no.

[Icyculyr]

Yeah, no.

Yeah, yes.

If you've got a resolution of 480x320 and you double it, you get 960x640 which is four times as many pixels as 480x320.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Well, I'm not a good enough artist to know whether it would look the same. The point is that if the pixel at 0,0 is blue, with no other blue around it, then when you double the dimensions, there will still be a blue dot in the upper left corner, but the center of the blue dot is no longer at 0,0, but shifted down and to the right. 0,0 is still part of the dot, but that doesn't matter. To the viewer, the center of the dot is shifted, so the dot will appear shifted, as well.

[baja_yu]

Yeah, yes.

If you've got a resolution of 480x320 and you double it, you get 960x640 which is four times as many pixels as 480x320.

Actually, no. The resolution refers to the total number of pixels, which are for various reasons in some situations, by convention represented by two numbers corresponding to the number of pixel rows and columns. Doubling the resolution means doubling the total number of pixels, not doubling the number of pixel rows and columns.

[Icyculyr]

Well, I'm not a good enough artist to know whether it would look the same. The point is that if the pixel at 0,0 is blue, with no other blue around it, then when you double the dimensions, there will still be a blue dot in the upper left corner, but the center of the blue dot is no longer at 0,0, but shifted down and to the right. 0,0 is still part of the dot, but that doesn't matter. To the viewer, the center of the dot is shifted, so the dot will appear shifted, as well.

Actually because the image is being stretched (and every pixel is thus quadrupled) there is now four blue pixels in the same area of space as that one blue pixel on the display with the half resolution, at 0.0, 0.1, 1.0 and 1.1.

Have a look at this:



The top is a 100x100 image on a 100x100 display, and the bottom is a 100x100 image stretched over a 200x200 display, in which the pixels are quadrupled. The cluster of blue pixels on the bottom is the same physical size as on the top, so to the eye there's no difference.

That's why assets such as images or video suited to 1080p on a 21.5 inch display will look the same on a 2160p display.

Actually, no. The resolution refers to the total number of pixels, which are for various reasons in some situations, by convention represented by two numbers corresponding to the number of pixel rows and columns. Doubling the resolution means doubling the total number of pixels, not doubling the number of pixel rows and columns.

The resolution refers to the number of pixel rows and columns and that's it. From that you can determine how many pixels are in said resolution, but you don't refer to differences in resolution by the pixels.

You're treating this like mathematics -- if someone asks what's 10x10 I'd say 100, if they asked what's double 10x10, I'd say 200 -- because we're talking about the result. But if someone asks me what's the resolution of my iPhone 3GS I'm going to say 480x320 not 153,600 and if they ask me what's double the that resolution I'm going to respond 960x640.

Look at the official term for the 7680x4320 resolution -- it's QHD, and four times (the resolution) 1920x1080 is 7680x4320 even though there's sixteen times more pixels in QHD than FHD.

[baja_yu]

The resolution refers to the number of pixel rows and columns and that's it. From that you can determine how many pixels are in said resolution, but you don't refer to differences in resolution by the pixels.

You're treating this like mathematics -- if someone asks what's 10x10 I'd say 100, if they asked what's double 10x10, I'd say 200 -- because we're talking about the result. But if someone asks me what's the resolution of my iPhone 3GS I'm going to say 480x320 not 153,600 and if they ask me what's double the that resolution I'm going to respond 960x640.

Look at the official term for the 7680x4320 resolution -- it's QHD, and four times (the resolution) 1920x1080 is 7680x4320 even though there's sixteen times more pixels in QHD than FHD.

Just because you call it that, doesn't mean it's right.

I didn't know what QHD you were mentioning stood for, so I looked it up. And see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QHD#qHD_.28960.C3.97540.29

qHD is 960×540 called that because it's the quarter of the pixels of full HD.

For 7680×4320 it says it's called UHD (ultra high definiton) and it says it's 16 times the full HD resolution, not 4 times the resolution and 16 times the pixels.

QFHD on the other hand is quad Full HD, and the resoltuion is 3840×2160.