Where are all the high rez monitors?

[theanimala]

So I want to get an mini due to the nonsense with he new iMacs and would like to pair it up with a nice 24" screen. What's annoying is that monitor technology hasn't t changed in ages, or at least the resolutions. I can get an iPad 4 or Nexus 10 with a higher rez screen then 27" monitors. That plus the machine itself costs less then just a good monitor alone. When can we see some nice high resolution external monitors at decent prices?

[Darby67]

I could be way off here, but I've been under the impression that the Retina displays were a challenge initially to get to the larger size. Now that they have achieved it I would guess we might be seeing some larger format. If I were betting I would't expect it any time in the near future.

[mfkap]

There is still some conversation if the graphics chip could drive a 27" retina display, the amount of pixels is like 5000 x 2500 or something similar

[Darby67]

Originally Posted by mfkap

There is still some conversation if the graphics chip could drive a 27" retina display, the amount of pixels is like 5000 x 2500 or something similar

Excellent point

[blanka]

Retina is not a fixed DPI. It is a combination of distance and detail. Your eye can see a maximum of like 3840x2400, and it does not matter if the screen with it is 24, 27, 30, 40 or 60 inch. The old IBM 22 inch Retina displays from 2005 had this resolution. DP can handle that, no problem, video card too. You can skip many anti-aliasing routines, which already downsample like 3840x2400 to 1920x1200, so it is not much more work.
Problem is, OSX was written from scratch to support fluent scaling, but since Apple never used its own potential, others did neither and this feature in OSX never took off.

But coming back to your question: there was Retina at 22 inch in history, but it did not succeed. It will return, be patient. Try Ebay for an IBM T220 or T221. Looks way better than TB displays too BTW!

Oh, and we want 30 bit colour too!

I seriously wonder what OS is going to support it. OS-es seem to drop professional support and move to consumer products. Windows had better high resolution high color support, but it took the fancy road with Windows 8 to follow iOSX.

For the time being: give your eyes some relieve and stick to 1920x1200 @ 24 inch or 2560x1600 @ 30 inch (hell that is a nice screen to work on!). The new 2540x1440@27 inch is way too tiny to my taste.

[sunandsurf]

blanka, would you give us some specific recommendations?


<For the time being: give your eyes some relieve and stick to 1920x1200 @ 24 inch or 2560x1600 @ 30 inch (hell that is a nice screen to work on!). >

[thekev]

This shouldn't really surprise anyone. The push for higher resolution displays started in an area of high growth, in this case phones. We'll eventually see something in larger displays. I'm just not sure when it will happen. Desktop displays have been an extremely stagnant market. It doesn't really have to be 5000 pixels wide. It just needs to be a significant visual improvement over what we have today. I'm not sure how long it will take. Complaints about uniformity and issues with heat affecting color stability become much more prevalent in larger displays.

[mfkap]

Originally Posted by blanka

Retina is not a fixed DPI. It is a combination of distance and detail. Your eye can see a maximum of like 3840x2400, and it does not matter if the screen with it is 24, 27, 30, 40 or 60 inch.

This is just incorrect. Retina has to do with PPI, with the eye not able to see higher than around
200-300 PPI. The resolution is directly tied to screen size. Imagine you had a billboard with 3000 pixels across it. Also, every iPad and laptop with retina display has a different resolution, 15" is 2800x1800, 13" is 2600 x 1600. A 27" retina would be upwards of 5000x2500, and as I said before, there is discussion if the graphics chip could drive it.

[philipma1957]

the bottom line is you need a hd7970 or a gtx680 to drive a 24 inch 3840 by 2160 screen in fact even they would be a bit short.

the reasoning is they will drive 3x 1080p screens pretty well but that is about 6k pixels not 8k.

Apple gets away with retina on a small 15 inch screen with a medium grade chip because a 15 inch screen has far less pixels.

Also any pc/mac guy knows Apple and gaming don't go hand in hand. Get yourself a MBP 15 inch retina load bootcamp and run a new game good luck with that at high settings.

Now if the amd hd8770 or the nvidva gtx 780 come out 40% better then the current gpus with a 15% power drop .

You will see better screens.

Look years ago 50 inch plasma tv's were $20,000. here is a 50 inch plasma delivered by amazon for $650

http://www.amazon.com/LG-50PA6500-50...50+inch+plasma


this just a question of gpu development. remember the rumor of apple putting out a large screen tv has floated around for years. so how about a 2160p 8k pixel tv with a killer computer interface to a mac mini say 2 or 3 years down the road.

[Moonjumper]

Originally Posted by mfkap

This is just incorrect. Retina has to do with PPI, with the eye not able to see higher than around
200-300 PPI. The resolution is directly tied to screen size. Imagine you had a billboard with 3000 pixels across it. Also, every iPad and laptop with retina display has a different resolution, 15" is 2800x1800, 13" is 2600 x 1600. A 27" retina would be upwards of 5000x2500, and as I said before, there is discussion if the graphics chip could drive it.

The onboard HD4000 can support 4096x4096 ( http://www.techspot.com/news/45539-i...solutions.html ). Discrete GPUs are much more powerful.

Graphics chips have the power to support retina, although they may not set up to support it. But if anyone can get the support sorted, it is Apple.

Thunderbolt is only at the first stage, it was designed to move up to much higher rates, so there is the potential for the bandwidth needed to support the connections as well.

[philipma1957]

Originally Posted by Moonjumper

The onboard HD4000 can support 4096x4096 ( http://www.techspot.com/news/45539-i...solutions.html ). Discrete GPUs are much more powerful.

Graphics chips have the power to support retina, although they may not set up to support it. But if anyone can get the support sorted, it is Apple.

Thunderbolt is only at the first stage, it was designed to move up to much higher rates, so there is the potential for the bandwidth needed to support the connections as well.

well supporting 16mb pixels is not the same as running it well.

this is just a case of the screen being a little ahead of the gpu . in 2 or 3 years they will be caught up and better res screens will come out.

[Moonjumper]

Originally Posted by philipma1957

well supporting 16mb pixels is not the same as running it well.

this is just a case of the screen being a little ahead of the gpu . in 2 or 3 years they will be caught up and better res screens will come out.

Computers have been running the current resolutions for quite a few years. Technology has advanced in that time. There will be a performance hit whenever they go retina, but there should be enough power available to create something very useable now.

For example, a retina 27" iMac would have nearly 3 times as many pixels as the retina 15" MBP, but the 680M GPU available in the iMac has 3 times the texture fill rate of the 650M in the MBP. I know it isn't that simple, but powerful enough GPUs are not 2 or 3 years away.

[LaunchpadBS]

Just imagine the processing power needed to handle a 4K screen! The mini would never handle that with the HD4000