Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about resolutions and how console gamers are unable to distinguish the difference between 720p and 1080p. And while most of you will raise your hand and say that you can easily notice the difference between these two resolution standards, Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts claimed that really high resolutions can’t be really appreciated when players are gaming on their HDTVs..
During AMD’s Developer Summit 2013, Chris Roberts said that while it is easy to appreciate 4K resolutions while gaming on the PC, it is really hard to appreciate these high resolutions when you are meters away from your HDTV set.
“A lot of people can’t tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on a HD set because at a certain distance you just can’t really appreciate the resolution. Now if you go right up close to the screen you can see the resolution (that’s one of the reasons why even on the Rift 1080p set you can see the pixels, cause it’s right by your eyes). And the thing is with the PC you have your monitor fairly close to your face so you can actually appreciate the resolution the way that you wouldn’t do on your living room. So I actually think 4K for PCs is actually a lot more compelling than it would be in living rooms.”
Roberts is actually right about it. Here is a small test you can do for yourselves. Start playing a low-res video and move away from your monitor. You will notice that at a certain distance, that low-res video feels actually pretty good. Sure thing, it won’t be as good as its HD cousin, but you won’t notice the pixels that can be easily spotted when you are up close to the monitor. Well, the very same thing – more or less – happens with aliasing.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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