4K or 32:9?

J

John R Denman

Registered
Getting ready for a monitor upgrade along with required hardware, maybe a few souls out there have some good advice. (VR is not an option).

About 75% of monitor usage is with SolidWorks and spreadsheets. Its that 5% usage with rF2 that's going to cost me.

A fast response 4K 60" curved would be the ideal solution, at least until it comes to graphic support hardware. Looks like its going to take $1000 just for a video card that can handle the crunch, and the jury is still out on which monitor, a few are promising.

Samsung has a 32:9 which provides the screen width I 'm looking for but only requires half the crunchrate and cost.

I'll also be upgrading CPU to i7, RAM to 16GB, and power to 750 watts and I'm attempting to be frugal. (HA!).

Anyone tried either or both?
Can you provide some feedback in terms of response or those fun little video aberrations you've had?
 
If you're trying to be frugal, are you sure you need i7? What do you have now? If you're not going VR i5 might well do the job and save you money or give you more to spend elsewhere. (obviously I'm only considering rF2 here; if the i7 will help with your programs, fair enough)

Screen size/ratio I think you need to decide what's best for you. So whether you gain much in your apps by having them in full 4k, or you'd want to display multiple and then do you use a quarter of your screen for each or try to make one take half the screen which could do weird things to its layout. With the 32:9 you quite neatly get two apps at normal 1080p res side by side, but obviously nothing more.

For rF2, if you're going to use proper FOV, the 32:9 (49"?)has I think the same physical height as a 27" 1080p, which is a bit limiting on your up/down view unless you have it quite close to you. The 4k gives more vertical view but unless you sit well above your desk/base it'll be largely showing you the sky. And assuming you're looking at curved screens for both sizes, be aware there will be a little warping out to the sides, whether it would be enough to bother you is another matter (probably not).
 
Thanks Lazza.

The i7 is more for Solidworks Stress Simulations, I have some that take about 20 minutes to run on an i3.

You make some interesting points about heights I'll have to try some viewpoint testing on a few monitors I have to see what sizing and visibility works best.
 
Lazza said:
For rF2, if you're going to use proper FOV, the 32:9 (49"?)has I think the same physical height as a 27" 1080p, which is a bit limiting on your up/down view unless you have it quite close to you. The 4k gives more vertical view but unless you sit well above your desk/base it'll be largely showing you the sky. And assuming you're looking at curved screens for both sizes, be aware there will be a little warping out to the sides, whether it would be enough to bother you is another matter (probably not).
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Seconding Lazza's comments.

There's also the issue that you'll be hard pressed to find a 4k TV that does more than 60 Hz vertical refresh. Not to mention they're notoriously difficult to find the mouse cursor on when you're using it for a desktop monitor. However, the view is pretty darn good as demonstrated by Mr. Pix (those are his gloved hands on a Fanatec steering wheel)
 
I'm sort of in the same uncomfortable position of being tired of my 60Hz monitor, but at the same time I feel it's too soon to jump on VR, I would really like a 144Hz monitor but I'm not the kind of person that buy a monitor to use it only 2/3 years.
 
Some updates after a bit of testing a 4K unit. Both tests run on i5 8GB RAM, GTX 980.

1080P 42" single monitor 21 mS latency clocks along at 60HZ just fine. Best FOV for me at most tracks is 36°.

4K 42" single monitor 24 mS latency clocks at 30Hz, enables FOV of 60°. Despite the lower frame rate I'm over 1 second a lap faster at most tracks despite the jitters.

Kind of wish I could test the 32:9 without buying one, the closest I could come was by setting up a dual 27" with under 18 mS latency, but my rig slows to about 50Hz at a 60° FOV equivalent. Lap times improved but not as much as with the 4K at 30Hz.

I bought a refurbished HP i7 16GB Ram & 650 watt supply for $180 so will use this as a dedicated rig. Looking at graphics cards it looks like the NV RTX 2070 will drive 4K with no trouble. Visited Best Buy and did some visual comparison between the Samsung 32:9 and 55" NU7300 curved TV. No doubt about it the 55" offers me a better option. Its a wider screen, low enough latency that it has minimal lag, and seems to handle 90Hz with RTX 2070 capability. Not to mention its about half the price of the QHD90 32:9.

So I think I've made my choice. 4K it is.
 
I don't understand how two 42" screens 'enable' different FOVs.

Does the i7+M/B support PCIe 3.0 x16?
 
Not sure if you're referring to the two 27's or the two different 42's.
27" Dual Setup
On a single 42" screen mark the boundaries of the outer edges @ 60°. Custom resolutions in the NVIDIA setup took some tweaking but I was able to get it to work as a 3840x1080 with an SVGA video splitter. That enabled rFactor2 Video setup to select a 3840x1080 as a single monitor. They were set up parallel. The FOV was first set to 60° which was almost dead on although 58° was dead on.

42" 1080 & 4K
4K resolution has a 4x improvement on distance detail, 2X vertical by 2X horizontal. At say 1000 feet from a braking point, the 1080 set to 35° the resolution of the braking point blurry compared to 60° on the 4K. Moving forward to about 100 feet before the braking point, traveling say 130 MPH (200 feet/second) you've got about half a second to late brake or spin off. At that 100 foot point the resolution and clarity of the 4K @ 60° is still better than the 1080 @ 35°. On an open wheel car you can see the threshold braking better on the 4K. With the 1080 at 35° you typically can't see the apex of a tighter turn (like turn 1 at COTA) until you've turned in and are about 1/3 the way into the turn. On the 4K its visible at the turn-in point.

I set the monitors about 24-28" away. These old eyes can't focus close enough for VR, not to mention I find VR to be a PITA.

Before testing this I figured the 32:9 QHD90 was probably the best setup for me, but now I find the improved resolution has a much bigger impact than I expected.

PCIe 3.0 x16
Now thats a good question, glad you asked. No its only PCIe 2 x 16, so its limited to 8GB/S xfer rate. At $180 this PC is a bargain although maybe a new motherboard will find its way into the box at a future date.
 
I’m also looking to buy a new monitor,
Would need help on this ,
Probably 32 to 35 inches curved ,
Only to be used for racing , mostly F1 ,
Now would I see my rear view mirror with
21:9 ratio ?
 
Turbonetick said:
I’m also looking to buy a new monitor,
Would need help on this ,
Probably 32 to 35 inches curved ,
Only to be used for racing , mostly F1 ,
Now would I see my rear view mirror with
21:9 ratio ?
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Assuming you mean rear view mirrors (being F1 mainly) you just need to do some math. Work out how close your screen will be, how much horizontal FOV that will give you (some FOV calculators do horizontal, so you can cheat with that) and then find out how much vertical FOV you need on your current screen to replicate that. Set the game to that and you'll see how far sideways you can see.

Curved screen will introduce a little perspective warp, but I can understand people do it to help fill your peripheral vision and it's probably close enough to not be offputting. Certainly still better than setups with high FOV.

John R Denman said:
1080P 42" single monitor 21 mS latency clocks along at 60HZ just fine. Best FOV for me at most tracks is 36°.

4K 42" single monitor 24 mS latency clocks at 30Hz, enables FOV of 60°. Despite the lower frame rate I'm over 1 second a lap faster at most tracks despite the jitters.
Click to expand...

This is the part I was referring to, was the first one 27"? It's all a bit confusing to be honest, I don't follow how the FOV seems to be reliant on resolution in your post, but I could be reading it wrong.

As for PCIe, 2.0x16 will hamper your framerate a bit, a later upgrade to 3.0x16 (which probably won't be all that expensive, most recent combos will do it) will give you a nice boost. (rF2 specific)
 
Lazza, in the first case a pair of 27" 16:9 were used but with a separate monitor pair splitter that emulates 3840x1080.
As for FOV, I have a bit of recent experience working with camera design & testing and feel pretty comfortable with what I came up with.

Yes, at this point framerate will be compromised by the PCIe2. Kind of tugs the wheel back to the 32:9 in a way.

So going back to 4K and lap times I realized that I went through several steps of optimization including positioning of monitor. On the workstation I've been kind of constrained to a 42" monitor parked 1.02 M from my face. At .6 M even the 1080 allows me faster lap times.

That's part of why I'm setting up a dedicated sim station. Next Level stand, probably going to order the Monitor extension next. For a while I'll still run rF2 on the workstation. Not in a rush to get done, at least I keep telling myself that... :)
 
Leisure time a little short lately but I managed to squeeze an hour of testing yesterday.
I figured the RTX 2080 may be worth the extra coins over the RTX 2070. Right choice.

At the highest fidelity levels, the average FPS is 58, with a low of 42 and high of 101. No tearing or stutter.

There is an added element of depth perception on the 4K, at least for me. That may be due to the improved resolution ahead, I recall the same thing happened in the rF1 days when screens went from 720 to 1080.

I have a 27" & two 24" screens that I'll be testing after I've done some optimization in 4K.

Bottom line is I'm quite satisfied with the performance of the RTX 2080. The RTX 2080 ti is no doubt the king kong with the lifespan of a bumblebee. The RTX2070 is too slimmed down to be of good value. $375 would be a better price IMO.
 
Yas Marina, COTA, Nordschleife, BT44, Dallara, McLaren MP4/8, 12 cars. I did one lap of Nordschleife in a 962 with 787's & C9's. Not much practice at that track and I'm slow but but can see much deeper when its not a blind approach.
 
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Each time I use this setup I'm a little more impressed. Been testing lots of various cars and tracks.
Vintage mods like Eve, Howston and Porsche 917 mods came alive with predictability.

Still have some configuration tasks to play with. As others have mentioned the taller height does give more sky but thats not a problem. However screen inserts like HUD, Mirrors, Status, all get parked at the fringes. The flip side is now I can see the in car screens so I've been working through those settings as well.
 
John R Denman said:
The flip side is now I can see the in car screens so I've been working through those settings as well.
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This, I feel, is the strength of large screens and allows for better immersion because your window on the world is different with each car, has greater variety because you're not looking through a tiny window framed by the same HUDs. One of these days, I need to drag the 55" TV over to my computer just to see the difference between using it and triple 27" screens.
 
I got the Samsung 32:9 49" monitor setup over the weekend and I love it. I don't notice the lesser DPI once I'm driving and the immersion is pretty amazing for a single screen. Hard to beat IMO for sims that don't use VR or for when I don't feel like using the headset, which is quite often as of late.
 
DaveS78 said:
I got the Samsung 32:9 49" monitor setup over the weekend and I love it. I don't notice the lesser DPI once I'm driving and the immersion is pretty amazing for a single screen. Hard to beat IMO for sims that don't use VR or for when I don't feel like using the headset, which is quite often as of late.
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Sounds intriguing.

If you don't mind, can you let me know the FOV range you prefer?

Also, how does the curved screen work out?
 
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