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OCDMacGeek

macrumors 6502a
Jul 19, 2007
580
79
Regarding Far Cry 4:

1440p, High settings, runs like butter.
Only when driving fast I can see little stuttering, might be even driver related.

COD:AW 1440p, High -> runs like butter (finished campaign with 0 issues)

I am severely impressed by the graphics performance of the riMac, I certainly did not expect such results.

When playing at 1440p on the Retina iMac's 5k screen, the image appears a little bit blurred because it is upscaling like that, correct? No possible way it runs smoothly at 4k, right? I am playing in BootCamp on a nMP w/ D500s on a 4k screen, and the best I can do is 1440p as well. Looks good, and is super smooth, but the upscaling does look a little bad. At 4k, it barely even functions, so that's as high as it can go.
 

imacken

macrumors 65816
Feb 28, 2010
1,232
127
When playing at 1440p on the Retina iMac's 5k screen, the image appears a little bit blurred because it is upscaling like that, correct?

I don't understand why some people say this. Surely there is no upscaling going on, just 4 pixels instead of 1. 2560x1440 should look exactly the same on a 5k as it does on a 'normal' 27" display.
 

ikaka

macrumors regular
Mar 5, 2009
141
47
Regarding Far Cry 4:

When playing at 1440p on the Retina iMac's 5k screen, the image appears a little bit blurred because it is upscaling like that, correct? No possible way it runs smoothly at 4k, right? I am playing in BootCamp on a nMP w/ D500s on a 4k screen, and the best I can do is 1440p as well. Looks good, and is super smooth, but the upscaling does look a little bad. At 4k, it barely even functions, so that's as high as it can go.

It looks absolutely perfect.
I think you might be having more issues as
4k is 3840 X 2160
5k is 5120 X 2880

1440p is 2,560 x 1,440

On a 5k display 1440p is 2^2 which effectively is 4 pixels per 1 pixel at 1440p resolution

On a 4k display, 1440p is 1.5^2 which would be 2.25 pixels for 1 (thank you imacken)

I would recommend you to play at 1080p on a 4k display for best results.
 
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imacken

macrumors 65816
Feb 28, 2010
1,232
127
It looks absolutely perfect.
I think you might be having more issues as
4k is 3840 X 2160
5k is 5120 X 2880

1440p is 2,560 x 1,440

On a 5k display 1440p is 2:1 which effectively is 4 pixels per 1 pixel at 1440p resolution

On a 4k display, 1440p is 1.5:1 which I believe would be 3 pixels for 1

I would recommend you to play at 1080p on a 4k display for best results.
No. A 4k display will have 1.5^2, i.e. 2.5 pixels for 1. A 5k display has 2^2, i.e. 4.
5k has exactly 4 times the number of pixels than 1440p, and 4k has only 2.25 times that of 1440p. 5k has (almost) twice as many pixels than 4k.
That is why there should be no 'upscaling' artefacts going on, between 5k and 1440p, as there is exactly a 2x2 grid for each pixel. Not the same with 4k when there will be upscaling calcs going on.
 

ikaka

macrumors regular
Mar 5, 2009
141
47
No. A 4k display will have 1.5^2, i.e. 2.5 pixels for 1. A 5k display has 2^2, i.e. 4.
5k has exactly 4 times the number of pixels than 1440p, and 4k has only 2.25 times that of 1440p. 5k has (almost) twice as many pixels than 4k.
That is why there should be no 'upscaling' artefacts going on, between 5k and 1440p, as there is exactly a 2x2 grid for each pixel. Not the same with 4k when there will be upscaling calcs going on.

Thank you for doing the math :) I doubled instead of squared which was the right way to go.
 

steve62388

macrumors 68040
Apr 23, 2013
3,090
1,944
No. A 4k display will have 1.5^2, i.e. 2.5 pixels for 1. A 5k display has 2^2, i.e. 4.
5k has exactly 4 times the number of pixels than 1440p, and 4k has only 2.25 times that of 1440p. 5k has (almost) twice as many pixels than 4k.
That is why there should be no 'upscaling' artefacts going on, between 5k and 1440p, as there is exactly a 2x2 grid for each pixel. Not the same with 4k when there will be upscaling calcs going on.

Until very recently I thought the exact same thing, that a 5k screen should be able to perfectly display a 2560*1440 image because it's an exact 2* multiple. It appears that is not necessarily the case though.

In theory, some resolutions could work well, if they are exact multiples of smaller image sizes. For example, a 1600×1200 LCD could display an 800×600 image well, as each of the pixels in the image could be represented by a block of four on the larger display, without interpolation. Since 800×600 is an integer factor of 1600×1200, scaling should not adversely affect the image. But in practice, most monitors apply a smoothing algorithm to all smaller resolutions, so the quality still suffers for these "half" modes.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_resolution
 

OCDMacGeek

macrumors 6502a
Jul 19, 2007
580
79
It looks absolutely perfect.
I think you might be having more issues as
4k is 3840 X 2160
5k is 5120 X 2880

1440p is 2,560 x 1,440

On a 5k display 1440p is 2^2 which effectively is 4 pixels per 1 pixel at 1440p resolution

On a 4k display, 1440p is 1.5^2 which would be 2.25 pixels for 1 (thank you imacken)

I would recommend you to play at 1080p on a 4k display for best results.


Thanks for the advice. I tried changing to 1080p, but for some reason on 16x9, it will only allow two options: 1280x720 and 3840x2160 (unplayable). I'm playing on a nMP with D500s and an ASUS PQ321Q 31.5". Not sure why. It still looks good, and smooth, mind you. It's just a little bit pixelated.
 

jj Abrams1234

macrumors newbie
Feb 3, 2018
5
0
Denver, CO
Games are looking fine. Able to play the new CoD at 1440p with almost everything at max.
I have had a Imac 2017 5K for a while and it's been pretty good I could do with something that isn't $4000 but it's worth it if you want everything a mac has plus 150+ fps when playing GTA V (I sometimes use my second ssd for windows). My top for FPS has been 200 for GTA and 400 when playing CS:GO. It has the Radeon Pro 560 and 8 gb of ram (im looking to upgrade but its still good) ALSO don't use safari unless you want IE like experience. And im able to play anything at max res
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,611
8,537
Hong Kong
I have had a Imac 2017 5K for a while and it's been pretty good I could do with something that isn't $4000 but it's worth it if you want everything a mac has plus 150+ fps when playing GTA V (I sometimes use my second ssd for windows). My top for FPS has been 200 for GTA and 400 when playing CS:GO. It has the Radeon Pro 560 and 8 gb of ram (im looking to upgrade but its still good) ALSO don't use safari unless you want IE like experience. And im able to play anything at max res

Play GTA V at 5120x2880 with 150+ FPS on an iMac? Sounds quite impossible to me especially the monitor itself is limited to 60Hz.
 

klatox

macrumors regular
Dec 24, 2015
116
94
1440p looks absolutely fine on my iMac 5K. It's my preferred gaming resolution. I never even try to run anything higher. Might be possible in some titles, but I don't bother.
 

h9826790

macrumors P6
Apr 3, 2014
16,611
8,537
Hong Kong
Just found this good free official gaming benchmarking software (FFXV for Windows).

http://benchmark.finalfantasyxv.com/na/

It's simple, just select High Quality, 3840x2160, Fullscreen, then Start to enjoy some gaming scenes, and wait for the result.
FF XV 4k High.JPG


It's a real gaming benchmark, not the artificial one like Unigine Heaven.
It's free, so everyone can run it.
It's simple, not many setting allowed, so, easy to compare.
It's demanding, so, a good test for the iMac
 
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