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Alright. I'll try to keep this simple. Basically im getting tired of my aging 24" TN panel
http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/monitors/LS24A350HS/ZA-specs

and would like to move into the IPS/PLS zone. I do not play competitively so im not interested in G-sync or refresh rates beyond 60-72hz (or any other "gaming hardware gimmicks"). Also something to keep in mind is that i do a bit of graphic design work.

So moving on to the question. I have pinpointed this PLS panel
http://www.samsung.com/in/business-monitors/s27h850/LS27H850QFUXEN/

As you can see it's a 1440p screen. So i'd like to ask owners of such screens. How does 1080p content look when
upscaled to 1440p?
Is it a blurry mess or does it look ok? I dislike gaming in windowed mode so this part is important.

Thanks in advance.
This question / problem has been solved by Lexorimage
For gaming purposes, 1920x1080 native looks just fine at 2560x1440 because the aspect ratio is the same. Anything that looks good at 16:9 looks good at 16:9, be it 1080p, 1440p, or 2160p (other, less common 16:9 ratios I can't speak about from experience).

The only thing you're likely to notice is that 1440p is almost twice as many pixels as 1080p, so if you don't upgrade your graphics options you may find a bit of a performance hit.
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OneFiercePuppy: For gaming purposes, 1920x1080 native looks just fine at 2560x1440 because the aspect ratio is the same. Anything that looks good at 16:9 looks good at 16:9, be it 1080p, 1440p, or 2160p (other, less common 16:9 ratios I can't speak about from experience).

The only thing you're likely to notice is that 1440p is almost twice as many pixels as 1080p, so if you don't upgrade your graphics options you may find a bit of a performance hit.
Thanks for your input.

For the games i play, my GTX 1070 is more than enough, my research has shown. Ofcourse that is in no way future proof but i shall cross that bridge when i reach it.
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Hikage1983: How does 1080p content look when upscaled to 1440p?
Is it a blurry mess or does it look ok?
Depends on your scaling - if you are going to use 1440p natively there will be no blur, if you are going to use smaller resolution 1080p scaled to 1440p there will be some blur but it's not noticeable. For not using native 1440p and upscaled 1080p with no blur you will need 4k monitor, not 1440p (4k is 2x amount of pixels in height/width, 1440p is "only" 1.3x so some approximation is needed which will lead to small blur).
Post edited June 10, 2018 by Lexor
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Hikage1983: How does 1080p content look when upscaled to 1440p?
Is it a blurry mess or does it look ok?
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Lexor: Depends on your scaling - if you are going to use 1440p natively there will be no blur, if you are going to use smaller resolution 1080p scaled to 1440p there will be some blur but it's not noticeable. For upscaled 1080p with no blur you will need 4k monitor, not 1440p (4k is 2x amount of pixels in height/width, 1440p is "only" 1.3x so some approximation is needed which resolve to small blur).
Yes i was afraid of that. I certainly do not have a 4K capable pc though.
Basically how i've been doing things is maintain native while upscaling lower res content via gpu driver (nvidia). That's on my current 1080p monitor. Not sure how well that method will work on the 1440p one...
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Hikage1983: Yes i was afraid of that. I certainly do not have a 4K capable pc though.
Basically how i've been doing things is maintain native while upscaling lower res content via gpu driver (nvidia). That's on my current 1080p monitor. Not sure how well that method will work on the 1440p one...
I'm using Dell U2515H (which I can recommend as it's very nice mon) and with native resolution there is no blur. I do not think you should expect more amount of blur in your scaled up games than you already have (as you probably have it there).
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Lexor: I'm using Dell U2515H (which I can recommend as it's very nice mon) and with native resolution there is no blur. I do not think you should expect more amount of blur in your scaled up games than you already have (as you probably have it there).
You have a point. I suppose if i can stomach a hard coded 720p, fast paced game (Caladrius Blaze) upscaled to my 1080p native, i should be ok.
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Hikage1983: You have a point. I suppose if i can stomach a hard coded 720p, fast paced game (Caladrius Blaze) upscaled to my 1080p native, i should be ok.
720p game scaled up to 1440p will even looks better (with no blur) than on your current 1080p as 1440p is exactly 2x 720p.
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Lexor: 720p game scaled up to 1440p will even looks better (with no blur) than on your current 1080p as 1440p is exactly 2x 720p.
Quite right. What do you think of the 1440p Samsung monitor in the original post btw? Unfortunately i cant find yours locally. Or even the 27" version of it.
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Hikage1983: What do you think of the 1440p Samsung monitor in the original post btw?
Well, I haven't seen your monitor so do not have opinion on but "Business Monitor" wording scares me a little as it can lead to more response time and more input lag (if you are going to play more fast paced games).
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Hikage1983: What do you think of the 1440p Samsung monitor in the original post btw?
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Lexor: Well, I haven't seen your monitor so do not have opinion on but "Business Monitor" wording scares me a little as it can lead to more response time and more input lag (if you are going to play more fast paced games).
Specs mention 4ms (GtG) so that should be fine . I mean yours is 8ms (GtG) and you sound satisfied with it.
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Hikage1983: Specs mention 4ms (GtG) so that should be fine . I mean yours is 8ms (GtG) and you sound satisfied with it.
First, "response time" and "input lag" are not the same and most official specs show only "response time".

Second, G2G parameter show only very specific response time and not typical one (how often do you see white-black flashing on monitor?)

Third, there are different methods of measuring these specs and on 90%+ official specs there is only that "minimum" value where (for me) "average" and "maximum" seem to be more important.
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Lexor: First, "response time" and "input lag" are not the same and most official specs show only "response time".

Second, G2G parameter show only very specific response time and not typical one (how often do you see white-black flashing on monitor?)

Third, there are different methods of measuring these specs and on 90%+ official specs there is only that "minimum" value where (for me) "average" and "maximum" seem to be more important.
You are right, i apologise. My brain got stuck on motion blur rather than input lag.

Also i wouldnt let the Business moniker affect me any more than i do the Gaming one.

Anyway, i guess i'll sleep on the matter for now and make sure i try the monitor out at the shop before purchasing.
Thanks for your time!
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Hikage1983: Anyway, i guess i'll sleep on the matter for now and make sure i try the monitor out at the shop before purchasing.
That's indeed good thing to do.

Do not forget there are programs you can put on USB to do the tests before purchase.
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Hikage1983: Alright. I'll try to keep this simple. Basically im getting tired of my aging 24" TN panel
http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/monitors/LS24A350HS/ZA-specs

and would like to move into the IPS/PLS zone. I do not play competitively so im not interested in G-sync or refresh rates beyond 60-72hz (or any other "gaming hardware gimmicks"). Also something to keep in mind is that i do a bit of graphic design work.

So moving on to the question. I have pinpointed this PLS panel
http://www.samsung.com/in/business-monitors/s27h850/LS27H850QFUXEN/

As you can see it's a 1440p screen. So i'd like to ask owners of such screens. How does 1080p content look when
upscaled to 1440p?
Is it a blurry mess or does it look ok? I dislike gaming in windowed mode so this part is important.

Thanks in advance.
I've owned a Dell U3011 30" display with a native resolution of 2560x1600 (16:10 aspect ratio) since Feb 2013, which I've done all of my gaming on since. This includes brand new releases all the way back to MSDOS games from the early 90s and everything in between. The games I've played include games running at resolutions as low as 320x200 up to the native panel resolution, and at various aspect ratios (16:10, 16:9, 4:3, 5:4, other oddities).

For the most part I use the monitor's built in hardware scaling default setup and rarely ever change anything for a particular game. I don't remember the last time I ended up experimenting with scaling options (either on the monitor itself or at the GPU level in the control panel).

Regardless of the resolution and aspect ratio of the given game, the results I get from monitor scaling have been great. 1920x1200 and 1920x1080 content scales to 2560x1600 or 2560x1440 well, and there are no visually unappealing artifacts. It's often hard to even tell that the resolution was even changed at those resolutions. Lowering it down further to 1280x800 or 1280x720 looks well also as that is an exact division of the native resolution, so all pixels are still square with no scaling interpolation at all.

Other resolutions like 1600x1200, 1024x768 etc. which are 4:3 aspect ratio look equally well whether scaled aspect-correct or scaled to fill the screen (stretched) in terms of pixel boundaries. Whether I go with aspect correct or fill depends on the game and whether the stretching visually matters to me for the given game. But in terms of pixelization, it all looks great and there are plenty of options to tweak the video either in the game itself, at the monitor settings or per-game in the GPU settings.

Additionally, if a game does not support the native panel resolution or simply does not look or work well at native panel resolution, there are often tweaks, hacks or patches that can be applied to the game to give additional options. The websites https://www.wsgf.org and https://www.pcgamingwiki.com have a lot of per-game information on how to get the best results out of each game's video resolution, aspect ratio and even multi-monitor support. So there are a lot of options available.

What you'll find is that in almost all cases, games look better at the highest resolution available, the native resolution of the higher res display. This is not always the case though, in particular with older games that were designed before such high resolution displays existed. With some games, the game scales to fit the full resolution but the user interface does not scale up and so it will get smaller and smaller on the screen. Whether that is ok or not depends on the game and individual preference as to how small is too small. The Age of Wonders games for example are very old but do in fact work at ridiculously high resolutions and even on double-head or triple-head setups believe it or not. I have posted screenshots of that game at 2560x1600 and 6400x1200 in the forums here in the past just for a laugh. The entire map of the game fits on the screen all at once and thus everything is incredibly small and hard to see. The user interface is shrunk down to the point it also is hard to see and would be hard to play. It's a cool party trick, and fun to see, but the game is technically unplayable at that resolution because it does not scale the graphics up to match the resolution better.

Another problem with some games similar to the above, is that they do not scale the font sizes depending on the dot pitch of the current display, so fonts can get incredibly small and hard to read. The original un-modded Baldurs Gate games are a good example of this. There are mods for the games that fix this problem however to a certain degree.

Another problem to which there usually is no workaround or solution, in most games the mouse pointer is of a fixed pixel size, either 32x32px or 64x64px or similar and that is not configurable. At high resolutions this means the mouse pointer can end up so small that you can't visually find it on the screen, in particular if there is a lot of special effects and animation going on such as an ARPG with many friendlies and enemies engaged in massive magical battles, good luck finding your mouse pointer to cast a spell on a specific enemy.

Conclusion: High resolution/high-DPI gaming is an awesome experience, and when a game can be configured either directly or through tweaks suggested by https://www.wsgf.org or elsewhere to support the highres monitor it can be a greatly improved experience, but it's not always the case. Regardless though, games can have the resolution tweaked to whatever will work best for that specific game and there are many more options available with such high-res displays. If the resolution has to be lowered, then it should still look great so long as the monitor's hardware scaling and/or the GPU's hardware scaling does a good job at it. Cheap monitors might or might not do good scaling, but in that case the GPU scaling can be used which is usually solid. In my case, the display scaling is itself top notch so I rarely ever use GPU scaling.

Bottom line: IMHO, you can do no wrong by getting a higher resolution display, go for it!