Future Support for 4K Resolution

[Bandock]

Reason why I have brought this up is because I have actually been playing around with nVidia's recently released built-in downsampling feature for certain Geforce cards called Dynamic Super Resolution. It actually works great under 3840x2160 (4K Resolution) which is twice my native resolution (being 1920x1080 as 1080p resolution). However, the UI and text are incredibly small as well as some minor glitches with highlighting (which could be the result of using DSR). Now, I know this could wait until after 1.0 as bugs and other features still need to be added before bothering with 4K resolution (way low on the priority list for any game).

Graphically, it has definitely improved with various portions of the game. Here are two screenshots representing different resolutions (spoiler tags included to prevent accidental bandwidth exhaustion):

1080p Screenshot: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v458/Bandock/Screenshots/KSP1080p_zps5e9b70ec.png

2160p (4K) Screenshot: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v458/Bandock/Screenshots/KSP2160p4K_zps8660116a.png

Notice that the Mun looks better under 4K (and yes, my smoothness under nVidia's DSR has been set to 0%). There is of course a hack that several of y'all probably know or even use that is handy for AMD/ATI card users. All that really needs work is the UI that is Unity styled as the Main Menu works great at scaling. For any fellow KSP players out there with any capability of testing out 4K (through native solutions (very rare and expensive at this moment), driver solutions, or hack solutions), feel free to post any screenshots or test results here. I know this kind of suggestion is of very low priority, but I thought I would put it on the table for future access.

Edited October 25, 2014 by Bandock
Changed the links around to consume less bandwidth.

[Red Iron Crown]

If you want to save bandwidth, link the images. Inlined images behind spoiler tags still load with the page.

That said, I don't see a lot of difference between the two Muns in the shots. Though supporting 4k is definitely a good idea, the monitors are getting more and more common.

[sal_vager]

The UI can be scaled, there's an option in the settings menu, and default resolution support is really down to what the Unity game engine detects from your graphics card.

Scaling the UI further and scaling the text is something that should be done though, but it's not a priority at this moment in time, you can force KSP to run at (nearly) any resolution you want though by manually editing the settings.cfg

[Bandock]

Alrighty, I'll keep an eye for it then. ;D

And I changed the first post where they are links instead.

[WuphonsReach]

Hopefully this will be something made easier by the move to Unity 5 in KSP 1.1.  I'm also getting ready to move to a 4K display (there's a nice Dell for ~$500now).

[Bandock]

Yep, I can't wait for KSP 1.1 to come out.  With the upgraded UI features provided by Unity 5.x; that should make for some interesting tests involved with 4K (and possibly even greater).

[Bandock]

I am now here to confirm (after having to mess around with a wide range of settings) that 4K resolution is properly supported.  I was able to successfully navigate the UI without any issue thanks to Unity 5.x.

 

Edit 2:  It is scaled right.  It turns out it doesn't align right the first time, but corrects it the second time.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Bandock
Found a few issues at loading, but nothing important.

[The_Rocketeer]

On 25/10/2014 at 7:57 PM, Bandock said:

Reason why I have brought this up is because I have actually been playing around with nVidia's recently released built-in downsampling feature for certain Geforce cards called Dynamic Super Resolution. It actually works great under 3840x2160 (4K Resolution) which is twice my native resolution (being 1920x1080 as 1080p resolution). However, the UI and text are incredibly small as well as some minor glitches with highlighting (which could be the result of using DSR). Now, I know this could wait until after 1.0 as bugs and other features still need to be added before bothering with 4K resolution (way low on the priority list for any game).

I don't get it. I really don't get it.

Why, oh why would you want that many pixels, that close to your face, if your naked eyes aren't capable of processing that level of sensory information?!

And they call it 'progress'

[moogoob]

30 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I don't get it. I really don't get it.

Why, oh why would you want that many pixels, that close to your face, if your naked eyes aren't capable of processing that level of sensory information?!

And they call it 'progress'

Have you seen a 4K screen in real life? Forget games, forget movies. They are AMAZING for text. Text and line art. Heck, I'd love one just for Adobe Illustrator.

[Alshain]

56 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I don't get it. I really don't get it.

Why, oh why would you want that many pixels, that close to your face, if your naked eyes aren't capable of processing that level of sensory information?!

And they call it 'progress'

Just curious, how would know it is close to his face?  My computer has a direct HDMI link to my 50 inch TV, and resolution perception is dependent on pixels per square inch, not pixels per screen.  So if you had a big enough screen, even 4k resolution could still be perceived.  That is why Apple calls it "Retina", it's the maximum number of pixels per square inch on any given screen size that can be perceived by the human eye... but Apple isn't dealing with 50 and 60 inch TV's, they have 10 inch iPads.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Alshain

[The_Rocketeer]

9 hours ago, Alshain said:

Just curious, how would know it is close to his face?  My computer has a direct HDMI link to my 50 inch TV, and resolution perception is dependent on pixels per square inch, not pixels per screen.  So if you had a big enough screen, even 4k resolution could still be perceived.  That is why Apple calls it "Retina", it's the maximum number of pixels per square inch on any given screen size that can be perceived by the human eye... but Apple isn't dealing with 50 and 60 inch TV's, they have 10 inch iPads.

Practically all displays we read from are relatively close to our faces. We're not talking about cinema displays here, we're talking about hand-held devices and desktop computer displays. You just don't need that many pixels for anything at that proximity, and if you can't read text that uses a typical number of pixels, you clearly can't differentiate between several pixels of strikingly different colours and one pixel that's the average RGB of those too-small pixels occupying the same space. This "maxiumum number of pixels per square inch... that can be perceived by the human eye" is rubbish.

[Alshain]

4 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Practically all displays we read from are relatively close to our faces. We're not talking about cinema displays here, we're talking about hand-held devices and desktop computer displays. You just don't need that many pixels for anything at that proximity, and if you can't read text that uses a typical number of pixels, you clearly can't differentiate between several pixels of strikingly different colours and one pixel that's the average RGB of those too-small pixels occupying the same space. This "maxiumum number of pixels per square inch... that can be perceived by the human eye" is rubbish.

But we aren't talking about what we read, we are talking about playing KSP, which can be done on a big screen TV with a desktop PC.  The person you quoted said nothing about using a desktop monitor, and hooking a desktop gaming quality desktop PC to a large television is a very common thing these days. 

As for your "rubbish" comment, well that comment is rubbish. If I have 20" Monitor at 1080p, that is 1920x1080 on an ~2 million pixels on the screen.  Now lets say I have a 50" TV, it is also 1080p, which means it has the same 2million pixels as the 20".  How do you suppose it fills a screen that is an extra 30" diagonally with the same number of pixels?  Simple, it makes the pixel bigger, it stretches them out, and the bigger they are, the more noticeable they are to the human eye.

So how do you make the two screen sizes an equivalent viewing quality?  You have to bring it down to a common denominator, and that is the screen size.  So instead of thinking of it as a 20" and a 50" TV, you instead concentrate on the number of pixels per square inch, because that doesn't change based on screen size.  A 20" screen with the same pixels per square inch as a 50" screen will have a much lower resolution but the visual clarity will be identical.  This is why bigger resolutions like 4K are important, but only on large screens.  Since we don't know what the OP has is desktop hooked up to, why would you question his need for 4K?

 

[Kerbart]

42 minutes ago, Alshain said:

(...) Now lets say I have a 50" TV, it is also 1080p, which means it has the same 2million pixels as the 20".  How do you suppose it fills a screen that is an extra 30" diagonally with the same number of pixels?  Simple, it makes the pixel bigger, it stretches them out, and the bigger they are, the more noticeable they are to the human eye.

So how do you make the two screen sizes an equivalent viewing quality?  You have to bring it down to a common denominator, and that is the screen size.  So instead of thinking of it as a 20" and a 50" TV, you instead concentrate on the number of pixels per square inch, (...)

Actually, the real denominator is the angular size per pixel. This is why electronic billboards get away with a pixel size measured in centimeters (or inches if that's your thing). Yes, the pixels are huge, but so is the viewing distance, making the apparent size per pixel rather small.

This goes back to the question how close are you sitting to your screen. If you're viewing a 20" screen from a distance of, say, 30" then you're getting into the territory where 1080p is already retina territory. (Apple's "retina" definition is based on pixels/square inch held at arms' length). For a screen that small, 4K is going to do very little.

Similarly, if you have a 1080p TV screen that is 50" and you're watching if from, say, 3m or around 10', it's equally unlikely that 4K is going to be 4× “better.”

But... if you’re sitting right on top of that 50" screen because you’re using it as a monitor, 4K will make a difference.

The angular resulotion of the human eye is about 1 arc minute, which translates to 0.0003 radians. So, at a distance of 50cm, that translates to a pixel size of 0.15mm (distance × angle; it works only for small angles). Assuming you have a 27" screen, that means (at a 16:9 ratio) that the screen height is 33.5 cm. A retina display would have 335 / 0.15 = 2233 lines. Anything beyond that simply out-resolves your eyes. Unless, of course, you're going to inspect the monitor really close, but that's not day-to-day useage. So yes, in a case like that, upgrading from 1080p to 4k will make a difference; but upgrading from 2k (if there is such a thing) to 4k will not. But it's something you have to look at on a case by case basis. Use a 20" monitor at the same viewing distance and the 4k advantage becomes really, really small. Use a 50" monitor and the 4k advantage becomes significant. But you cannot judge resolution by the screen size alone; you have to take viewing distance into account.

 

Edited May 18, 2016 by Kerbart

[The_Rocketeer]

@Kerbart, thanks for taking the time to post this, I lack the patience today.

[Alshain]

7 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Actually, the real denominator is the angular size per pixel. This is why electronic billboards get away with a pixel size measured in centimeters (or inches if that's your thing). Yes, the pixels are huge, but so is the viewing distance, making the apparent size per pixel rather small.

This goes back to the question how close are you sitting to your screen. If you're viewing a 20" screen from a distance of, say, 30" then you're getting into the territory where 1080p is already retina territory. (Apple's "retina" definition is based on pixels/square inch held at arms' length). For a screen that small, 4K is going to do very little.

Similarly, if you have a 1080p TV screen that is 50" and you're watching if from, say, 3m or around 10', it's equally unlikely that 4K is going to be 4× “better.”

But... if you’re sitting right on top of that 50" screen because you’re using it as a monitor, 4K will make a difference.

The angular resulotion of the human eye is about 1 arc minute, which translates to 0.0003 radians. So, at a distance of 50cm, that translates to a pixel size of 0.15mm (distance × angle; it works only for small angles). Assuming you have a 27" screen, that means (at a 16:9 ratio) that the screen height is 33.5 cm. A retina display would have 335 / 0.15 = 2233 lines. Anything beyond that simply out-resolve your eyes. Unless, of course, you're going to inspect the monitor really close. So yes, in a case like that, upgrading from 1080p to 4k will make a difference; but upgrading from 2k (if there is such a thing) to 4k will not. But it's something you have to look at on a case by case basis. Use a 20" monitor at the same viewing distance and the 4k advantage becomes really, really small. Use a 50" monitor and the 4k advantage becomes significant. But you cannot judge resolution by the screen size alone; you have to take viewing distance into account.

 

Yes, you are right, I had forgotten to mention distance, and I do agree that 4k on a 50" TV is not necessary but the 50" and 20" were just examples to facilitate the explanation.  TV's are getting bigger and bigger, and the average room only has about 10 feet of viewing distance.  So the higher pixel count allows for the larger screens to be used in these rooms.  Now as to whether you NEED something that large, well that is certainly up to the opinion of the user.  Personally I think my 50" is as big as it needs to be, but I don't think I'd want to go any smaller either.  Some people may question why you would need anything bigger than the 20", but it is all personal preference.

(Oh and 2k is 1080p, it's the same thing, just a marketing name)

Edited May 18, 2016 by Alshain

[Kerbart]

17 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@Kerbart, thanks for taking the time to post this, I lack the patience today.

Thank you. I have the same kind of discussion of photography forums, where a lot of fools misguided souls insist they need at least 25 MP. We tend to view printed photographs at a distance of 5-10× the length of their diagonal; only at trade shows are wall-sized images inspected from 10cm away (and preferably with a loupe). From that distance, you rarely ever need more than 5-6MP for a sharp image. More pixels gives more room for editing of course, but when looking at sharper prints it does absolutely nothing. The camera industry, on the other hand, will work very hard to make you believe otherwise.

Likewise, it's to be expected that the monitor industry (and the graphic cards manufacturers in tandem) will work very hard to make you believe that upgrading to 4K is a religious experience.

 

15 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Yes, you are right, I had forgotten to mention distance, and I do agree that 4k on a 50" TV is not necessary but the 50" and 20" were just examples to facilitate the explanation.  TV's are getting bigger and bigger, and the average room only has about 10 feet of viewing distance.  So the higher pixel count allows for the larger screens to be used in these rooms.  Now as to whether you NEED something that large, well that is certainly up to the opinion of the user.  Personally I think my 50" is as big as it needs to be, but I don't think I'd want to go any smaller either.  Some people may question why you would need anything bigger than the 20", but it is all personal preference.

(Oh and 2k is 1080p, it's the same thing, just a marketing name)

Foolish me! I always thought that 4K meant "4k lines," just as 720p and 1080p. I just saw that 4k is double the line resolution of 1080p which, as you stated, is called 2k. 

To add to further fire to the discussion, the required resolution for moving images is significantly less than for static images*. If one is watching movies, then 1080p on that 50" TV screen should be enough, and it's unlikely that 4k will look any better. But... if you like to watch the Yule Log on christmas eve, or you like watching baseball or NFL football, 4k is probably a good idea.

* For reasons; not just subjective impressions.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Kerbart

[Alshain]

15 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Foolish me! I always thought that 4K meant "4k lines," just as 720p and 1080p. I just saw that 4k is double the line resolution of 1080p which, as you stated, is called 2k. 

Well it is, but it is horizontal lines.  1080 refers to vertical lines, the horizontal lines of 1080p are 1920, or 2k.  You know how these marketing guys are, they always have to make it sound 'better' (I say that tongue in cheek, looking at you Squad ).

 

15 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

To add to further fire to the discussion, the required resolution for moving images is significantly less than for static images*. If one is watching movies, then 1080p on that 50" TV screen should be enough, and it's unlikely that 4k will look any better. But... if you like to watch the Yule Log on christmas eve, or you like watching baseball or NFL football, 4k is probably a good idea.

It gets worse than that though, Televison signals can not broadcast beyond a 720 progressive resolution.  They can only do 1080 if they interlace it, which may improve picture quality on slow moving images, but back to that NFL game, interlacing causes the annoying blockiness when a quick pass is made.  My personal opinion is 720p is superior to 1080i, sadly my local CBS affiliate disagrees, so my action scenes on my favorite network are always ugly as can be.

1080p and '4k' can only be achieved through direct media (Blu-Ray) or streaming.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Alshain

[Frybert]

Several posts have been removed. Please don't go making things personal.

[Kerbart]

24 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Well it is, but it is horizontal lines.  1080 refers to vertical lines, the horizontal lines of 1080p are 1920, or 2k.  You know how these marketing guys are, they always have to make it sound 'better' (I say that tongue in cheek, looking at you Squad ).

You are right of course. I was thinking "lines that go horizontal" but yes, that means vertical resolution. Doh.

And I work in marketing . Taking away services offered to customers? It's easier than ever to pick the right service for you!  One wonders why marketing has a bad name, hahaha.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Kerbart

[Faile]

As this topic has been quite severely derailed I'd like to add that proper 4K support would be _greatly_ appreciated, running at 1920x1080 with a modern PC rig just feels wrong, especially with a gorgeous and detail-filled game like KSP.

[kBob]

There are a lot of advantages to 4k (and yes a few disadvantages).  But on a large (55" for example) screen just a few feet away, they make a big quality difference.  After breaking my 58" 4k tv/monitor I had to go back to 1080p and it's just bad.  I see anti-aliasing all over the place, text, sd movies/tv, old games, new games.  I miss that inheirent anti-aliasing of 4k.  Anyway hopefully KSP will get full 4k support.  The tweakable user interface in the main screens is a good start, but the VAB and SPH also need help in that respect (unless I've missed a setting) as the text is too small on a 4k screen.  I'm moving back to 4k next month.  My 1080p set (which actually isn't really too bad it's just that I've been spoiled) will become my emergency backup (it's too big to be a secondary monitor).  I originally went 4k for the extra screen real-estate--especially like it when programming or researching--but it's the quality of games and video that is forcing me to go back.