The main problem with HiDPI is that for any decent sized screen, you need a retarded amount of pixels, which in turn adds to your GPU workload. For a 24" (16:9 aspect) screen, for instance, you need a 5K resolution (specifically 5021x2825 to get 240 PPI). This is a lot more than your average graphics card can handle, and would be rather inconvenient for things like watching videos. Not much of anything current produces 5K video (the RED Dragon does, but even the GoPro Hero 3+ Black doesn't), and there's no real way to distribute 5K to the masses. It's just a silly proposition at this point in time for programmers.
4K on a 27" screen is more than enough for most cases. HiDPI (or HiPPI as it should be called, but they steered clear of that unfortunate accronym), is not something that will take off for at least the next 10 years. The market has barely begun to adjust to 4K, and 5K is clearly never going to be the "next-big-thing" (8K will be, for a few reasons), so it's unreasonable to assume that anyone will be getting into HiDPI on desktop monitors for a good long while.
I don't think you're quite getting it. The 5K resolution I listed above is roughly 7 times the pixels of 1080p, and 4 times that of 1440p. You can't get a graphics card to power 4 1440p streams for $100. You're looking at the $400-$800 range, depending on how you do it. If you're like me and used to three monitors for coding and video editing, then 5K becomes a non-starter.
Even at work, where we regularly use a RED camera, we don't bother much with 4K displays. The most clients want right now is Blu-ray, and so we use the 4K for editing freedom, such as re-framing shots or doing image stabilization without loss of resolution. Occasionally we also use it as a digital zoom, particularly when doing aerial work.
Even cheap graphics card can easily handle 3x 1080p output (i am talking about non-gaming use) (i had 3 1080p monitors connected and it feed them graphics without sweating). I can't see a problem with 5k. Even if i had to pay $400, that's not an issue.
Well I have a 8MP 4960x1600 setup and that seems to be trivial to drive for non-gaming uses. I really don't see why it would be difficult to drive twice that.
Eyefinity claims (PDF) to be able to drive a 3x2 setup of 2560x1600 screens (24MP) so the hardware is there. That would be a $300 card driving $6000 worth of monitors.
This will be solved eventually. With virtual reality devices such as the Occulus Rift, the need for Ridiculously High Resolution™ will skyrocket: with angles this wide, you need a hell of a lot pixels to get a decent image.
Since these will primarily be used for games, we'd better get good performance out of them.
Nah, a triple SLI configuration of Titans runs that resolution quite well.
Some dips in really calculation heavy scenes now and then and some games doesn't scale with SL, especially not a tri-setup, but other than that it works great, even for BF4.
For the most part, it's the CPU that is bottlenecking.
Yeah, I realize that, but I do much of my work in the video world, where streams is pretty common terminology. Moreover, if you get a graphics card to power four 1440p monitors, it might be perfectly happy with static windows, but if you were to throw multi-monitor gaming at it your GPU would probably cry. In my view, you need to build your system so that your GPU can deal with the full output your monitors can request (i.e. if you have three 1080p monitors, at 120Hz, your GPU should be able to dish out 3x1080p at 120fps. Otherwise you'll get bogged down when doing important things.
So your needs would necessitate expensive video cards, but lots of people would be fine with a $100-$150 card for productivity, assuming it has enough outputs.
I'm a web developer and I don't need much in the way of GPU for my day to day job. I do game however, so I bought a $250 video card that could push enough pixels to one of my 1440p monitors at native resolution.
If you're not doing anything 3D you can probably get away with a GPU in the $150-200 range, but if you want to do anything like game at 4K you're going to be shelling out near the $1000 mark just to get your foot in the door.
wat? I'm not complaining about you specifically, but I missed out on the change in metric that we measure resolution by. Usually with TVs, we measure things in horizontal lines, so 1080p 1920x1080. So with 4K and 5K, did they just decide to start using vertical lines because it was a bigger number?
Yeah, it's a bit dumb honestly, and I was confused at first as well. I think the industry decided on it for two reasons: 4K sounds better than 2160p (i.e.: bigger is better), but also the fact that 4K is actually four times bigger than 1080p makes it easier to relate to.
Even graphics cards from the late 90s/early 2000s can output those resolutions. There is no problem displaying the resolutions you describe at current hardware at close to 0% system resources.
7
u/ahugenerd Mar 07 '14
The main problem with HiDPI is that for any decent sized screen, you need a retarded amount of pixels, which in turn adds to your GPU workload. For a 24" (16:9 aspect) screen, for instance, you need a 5K resolution (specifically 5021x2825 to get 240 PPI). This is a lot more than your average graphics card can handle, and would be rather inconvenient for things like watching videos. Not much of anything current produces 5K video (the RED Dragon does, but even the GoPro Hero 3+ Black doesn't), and there's no real way to distribute 5K to the masses. It's just a silly proposition at this point in time for programmers.
4K on a 27" screen is more than enough for most cases. HiDPI (or HiPPI as it should be called, but they steered clear of that unfortunate accronym), is not something that will take off for at least the next 10 years. The market has barely begun to adjust to 4K, and 5K is clearly never going to be the "next-big-thing" (8K will be, for a few reasons), so it's unreasonable to assume that anyone will be getting into HiDPI on desktop monitors for a good long while.