I just installed my new 4K monitor and the difference is amazing and the hit on the fps is not as bad as I had expected. The gauges on the instrument panels are easier to read and the colours are much more brillant.
Yes, that's what all those extra pixels will get ya. I had the same epiphany a few weeks ago. Even though my PC is somewhat middling, I still get pretty good fps after stepping up from 1440p.
One thing that I love about the ballast/track bed textures on DRA is that they seem to really use parallax mapping effectively, giving that 3D effect.
I don't know how is the situation in North America but I find the prices of good 4k monitors in Europe to be always above 1k € which is too much I would say. Of course, if you are not looking for HDR, 144 Hz, G-sync certification, a decent stand, over 30 inches diagonal you can find quite cheap 4k monitors. I went for a curved screen 1500R, ultrawide, 34 inches, 144 Hz and the immersion is great the fps are perfect over a wide range of games from RDR 2, BF V, Flight simulator 2020 to OMSI 2. To me, it feels like we need at least two more generations of graphics cards in order to have 4k fps consistent across demanding and not-so-demanding titles for those of us who play a variety of games. By then, the technology behind 4k screens should become more accessible and chaper. If you want high refresh rates, a good screen resolution, energy efficiency (from both the screen and the gpu) at a decent price, I think 1440p is the sweet spot right now and it doesn't feel like a compromise at all actually.
At least current generation at reasonable price. I run games on at FHD and can up screen% to 150% without any FPS drops on my 1070, but 200% - which is 4k, is an instant 100% drop in FPS, in TSW it is from 45-60 to 18-28 which totally stops anyone from buying 4K monitor . 1k Eu for monitor, 800 Eu for 3060... 500 Eu for the all rest components . Nope, just nope. At least in my 3rd world country with my monthly income of 550 Eu which is very good income by local standards.
I'm sure there will be plenty of people quick to tell me it's inferior in many ways, but I paid £250 for a 4K LG monitor a couple of years ago and with £360 for a PS5, it's running TSW2 in glorious 4K with no issues, so there's that option if you don't want to drop a year's salary on a new PC.
Must admit one of the reasons I much prefer running TSW2 on my Xbox Series X is that it's running at 4K at a great FPS - something my (not particularly poor) PC is not capable of doing. Matt.
TrainSim-Matt We are waiting for PCs to receive DX 12 as Xbox had received in the summer patch. Then we can compare a bit better apples to apples. It's not the magical solution to graphics and fps stability, but it certainly is the API more suitable to the current generation of CPUs and GPUs. For the ones that used or still use it on PC it always brought an increase in fps.
Mine struggles at 200% though. Have to knock it back to at least 130% which then makes the catenary shimmer worse.
It's always interesting to see what different players consider to be an acceptable or desirable FPS. I have a GTX 1070 6 GB and an I7 with 64 GB of RAM and a fast, dedicated SSD. With this middling rig I can average 45 fps at 4k. That's perfectly smooth and playable, but I see some people wanting upwards of 90 or more and I'm not sure why. What would such fps add to graphics and gameplay?
I tried this afternoon to run the game at higher graphics settings and less FPS (capped at 40 to make it more smooth) but it was horrible. 60 FPS is a minimum for me. It also depends on your monitor. Games will always look best when FPS is equal to or greater than the refresh rate. G-Sync or FreeSync help to make this less of a problem.
On paper, the human eye is happy with a minimum of 24 fps and this number represents the point from where it considers the succession to be rapid enough to look like a smooth movement. In reality, if you would try to leave with a monitor that refreshes at that rate you'll see a doctor pretty soon. Frame rate and refresh rate are different matters but they are connected to one another. If you have a screen with a high refresh rate but the graphics card can't produce enough frames to match it, you get screen tearing to name one issue. I've been using a computer for over 20 years. Until this year I only had 60 Hz capable screens ranging from CRT to TFT monitors. This year I moved to a 144 Hz and I instantly noticed the difference. Investing in a quality screen means caring for your eyes, your vision. Once you reach this point, playing games below 60 fps means you need to reduce the refresh rate to avoid tearing which cancels the advantage of a high refresh rate and leads to a waste of your money. You need to look at G-sync/Freesync to overcome this. TLDR, this is a complex matter and no technical material can explain it better than actually experiencing it yourself. I am the kind of person that does not buy things because the marketing team says I must have them and I keep components for at least 3 generations until the advance is significant enough to make a new investment. With this said, I made the leap to a high refresh rate screen because I genuinely saw a step in the right direction. Just go out and try one!
After reading the OP and several other posts of this thread, I shopped Amazon and ordered a 4K monitor for a little over $200. Like some other posters, I'm impressed by the appearance of TSW2in 4K; unlike some others, I'm not seeing any noticeable reduction in FPS.
I just want to mention one headache involved in adapting to a 4K monitor. Not an actual, physical headache -- more of a nuisance. My previous monitor was a 27" Acer; although my new 4K monitor measures only 1" larger diagonally, when I first connected it and turned on my computer, the Acer's 1920 x 1080 aspect ratio still applied and my desktop was a mess of gargantuan icons and a ridiculous looking taskbar. It didn't take me long to change the display ratio to a recommended yet astonishing 3840 x 2060 (!!), but doing so tossed my desktop icons all over the place. This is not a reason to avoid acquiring a 4K display -- just preparation for adjusting to doubling the size of your desktop real estate.