Playing @ 1080p vs 4k , Pro's and Con's?

[FelixDaCat]

For the last week I have been putting together a improved PC setup, ready for tomorrow but during my testing I been looking at the right balance between quality of the graphics vs's performance.

I am using slightly older gear and either next week or at the end of July I will be replacing the CPU with the top i7 for the generation of hardware I am using.

Currently I have an i5 4670 running at 3.6GHZ, with 24GB DDR3 RAM (I will also be making this 32GB with matching RAM soon) and a GTX1080 Extreme with 8GB GDDR5 RAM. I run this through to my 43" LG Ultra HD HDR LED TV in Computer/Gaming mode with either 120mhz in 1080p or 60mhz in 4K.


In game I am able to have most of the graphics maxed out and in 4K I have a stable 58-61FPS and in 1080p with everything maxed, I am getting over 130FPS. I keep switching back and forth trying to judge how much of a difference in visual quality the two settings are.

For me, I don't do the big raid stuff very much and I am mainly running dungeons and enjoying the various quests and storyline (I know, I know, I'm a noob). Because I have major lower spinal damage, my nerves cause me a lot of pain, so I am always on a high amount of opiates for pain control, which makes me a bit slower with my reactions.

When playing, I have not noticed any big problems when in 4K and when I go over to 1080p, I do notice a smoother feel to everything. Originally I started playing FF14 on a PS4 and then a PS4-PRo, which is why I am blown away with how the PC version looks and feels.


On the Shadowbringers benchmark, the 4K settings scored 8000 and the 1080p scored 12850. Cause my benchmark for some reason is stuck in Japanese, I don't know if the 8000 is classed as good or bad?


So with the above info, what would you say is the better way to go, when the servers go live tomorrow?


Thanks to anyone who is able to give me some good advice on what to do with this.


Felix

[FallenArisen0990]

I like higher Resolution because it allows me to space out my UI much more compared to 1080p. Only problem I have with it, is that when the game zooms in on textures, they look really disgusting (imo) and that bothers me. Obviously the lower the Resolution, the less stress you put on your Rig but with high FPS, it could allow you to use things like Reshade to make your XIV experience better. Use whatever gives you the most stable experience.

[SerLuke]

You'll get less jaggies at 4k, the downside is you will get more framerate drops if you are in super crowded areas of if a lot is going on, on screen(I have a super decorator friend and my frames drop the moment I got into her house XD).

[enthauptet]

Running 14 on high resolution is kind of crappy to be honest, the UI scaling is terrible so text looks garbled at many scaling options. If you run fullscreen it'd probably be better to use lower resolution that it is optimized for like 1080p. I use windowed on my 4k monitor at actual resolution (no scaling) so running 1080p is very small on the screen so I run mine bigger but it's not the greatest. It worked better on my old 1440p screen but I'd rather not revert at this point lol.

[Naria]

I think the game looks just fine at 4k most of the time, but sometimes it can become very pixalated. I usually notice it on NPC armor.

Your frame rate will drop. In very busy areas my frame rate can drop to around 45 frames while its usually around 55+ frames in most areas. Currently I run it on unlimited with v-sync on and set to fast, but when I've played with the in-game limiter it usually goes between 50-55 frames so I guess I'll see if that changes with the new update. I have an i7-8700K @3.70GHz, 32gigs of RAM and a 1080Ti. My Shadowbrings benchmark with at max settings was around 8500, which is "Extremely High".

Honestly if you are only wanting 4k just for FFXIV I wouldn't do it at this point. The game runs fine and they have done a lot of updates to scale the UI for it but the graphics aren't really optimized for 4k and sometimes it can become very distracting (I'm looking at you Hein and Nidhogg-Estinien).

[Cerick]

The upgrade you have planned to go from 24 - 32 for your ram is not worth the money. Anything over 16 is useless when gaming. Their are plenty of benchmarking videos that show resources used and performance at various levels of ram. 16 is still overkill for all gaming these days and likely won't change anytime soon. Spend that money on something else or save it for a new build in the future.

8000 benchmark isn't bad, and I believe that still scores you an Extremely High score according to the benchmark. That should be enough answer for you that your system at 4k will still perform quite well in most situations.

I believe a PPI / Pixel Per Inch of around 110 is the desired ratio, but it ultimately comes down to preference. Your 4k 43 Inch TV is 102.5 PPI which if you notice things being a bit too small, it's because of that. If you find yourself scaling the UI, Fonts, etc... to be larger than running 4k is a waste.

My advice and please note it's just advice. Don't move forward with your upgrades at all. Save the money for building a new system in a year or two. What you have will play FF14 at 1080p or 4k well enough to enjoy the game.

[Seraph522]

The upgrade you have planned to go from 24 - 32 for your ram is not worth the money. Anything over 16 is useless when gaming. Their are plenty of benchmarking videos that show resources used and performance at various levels of ram. 16 is still overkill for all gaming these days and likely won't change anytime soon. Spend that money on something else or save it for a new build in the future...

My advice and please note it's just advice. Don't move forward with your upgrades at all. Save the money for building a new system in a year or two. What you have will play FF14 at 1080p or 4k well enough to enjoy the game.

Agreed; you usually benefit from more than 16GB when doing workstation-type work (rendering, animation, etc.), but even brand-new, modern AAA games don't need more than 16GB right now. In addition, purchasing more DDR3 RAM will hinder your upgrade options in the future, as modern builds require DDR4 RAM and DDR5 will probably be available for regular builders in the next few years.

[FelixDaCat]

Thank you all for the very helpful replies, this just shows how good the FF14 community are when people are in need of help, and ask the right way and make the effort to thanks them (even if I got an answer I didn't want to see). Being a Brit and raised to be a bit "old school" and shows some manners aka P's and Q's!

Because I struggle to sit on a chair for more than 25mins, I actually lay on my bed and I am about 3-4 metres (10ft) from the screen, so I guess that's why I find 1080p to look really "good".

I think I will go with the 1080p 120hz , as I think the game areas are going to be very busy for the next few weeks, so it might be better to go in them with a less demanding config and where I have enough FPS that even with me dropping frames, the movement should still "feel" smooth?

I only learned about the software "reshade" earlier today and was meaning to get it installed on my PC (for all my Web/Streaming stuff, I am on my MacBook Pro which is next to me all the time).


With regards to the RAM and it not worth me having a matched 32GB set of 4 x 8GB , outside of FF14 I play a lot of racing games/sims (iRacing). I thought these really did benefit from well specced and matched RAM sets? My IT driven OCD will drive me mad with an uneven setup and also I would like to have my E-pein be like my real one, old, outdated and I'm the only one interested in using it these days.


Again, seriously, big thanks for your posts peeps. You've been a great help for me on this matter!


Felix

[Neoyoshi]

4k feels to me like something perfectly married to screenshots and high-quality production for fanmade videos, but as constantly game-play, it's not exactly ideal unless a setup really allows it to shine.

[Eriane_Elis]

I really like 4K but it stutters like in Eureka when 100+ others are fighting with you. It's not really noticeable but when you see someone next to you playing at 60fps at HD and look back, it becomes jagged. I would much rather play at 144hz at 1080p than 30~60FPS at 4K. It looks much more beautiful but it also negatively impacts the gameplay, immersion and reaction time.