KVR Audio

Ross21 · Post by **Ross21** » Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:43 am

4K/5K screens Vs. full HD screens (say for 27" at 1 meter working distance)

Are 4K/5K a dramatic upgrade for DAW (Ableton) use ?

Pros:
More pixels at the same screen surface provide higher resolution

cons:
Demands more computing power from PC/iOs GPU so burdens the system
Is the difference that big for animated graphics (Abelton\DAW ain't real pictures)?
Price

In theory - can a PC perform its audio better with fullHD than with 4K/5K due to less resources needed for the video (so more left for the audio processing) ?
Or does the graphic card take all the burden off CPU/MEMORY of PC ?

Blaster · Post by **Blaster** » Wed Aug 12, 2020 7:59 pm

Other thing you need to be aware of is that some software have fixed resolution and doesn't scale, meaning it will be tiny and hard to see and read on a 4K screen.

Personally I don't see any benefits of having a higher resolution at such a short distance on such a small screen. I don't think I can see individual pixels on full HD on a 27".

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:07 pm

The pixel density (ppi) at 2k on a small screen or 4K on a large screen is the same. Plugins will be bigger cuz screen is bigger. They only get tiny when the ppi increases. Compare using online ppi calculator.

jdnz · Post by **jdnz** » Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:14 pm

Blaster wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 7:59 pm Personally I don't see any benefits of having a higher resolution at such a short distance on such a small screen. I don't think I can see individual pixels on full HD on a 27".

I've used 27 fullHD (1920x1080) and 27 qHD (2560x1440) screens - and personally I _could_ see individual pixels at 1m distance on the 27" fullHD, it felt annoyingly blurry.

On a 27" qHD you've got the same pixels-per-inch as a 24" fullHD, which is a workable pixel density for me, and also means even the oldset plugins with small UIs are (just) managable.

Move up into true hiDpi screens (28" 4K, 28" 5K) and I find I have to run the windows UI scaled to at least 150%, and old non-scalable plugins start to look like postage stamps

If your DAW itself supports Hidpi (i.e. it's not cubase) a workable compromise can be to have two screens - one running hidpi and a non-hidpi screen for legacy plugin UIs. Some other DAWs are starting to support per-plugin scaling which can be another way to handle tiny ancient UIs

jdnz · Post by **jdnz** » Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:18 pm

Michael L wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:07 pm The pixel density (ppi) at 2k on a small screen or 4K on a large screen is the same. Plugins will be bigger cuz screen is bigger. They only get tiny when the ppi increases. Compare using online ppi calculator.

you'd have to go all the way up to a 43" 4K for that to be true - 24" 1920x1080 is about 95ppi, 27" 2560x1440 is about 110ppi, 28" 4K is nearly 160ppi and even a 32" 4K is just on 140ppi (43" 4K is back down to a non-hidpi 100ppi)

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:30 pm

Plugins are big & sharp on a 29” 4K. That’s the sweet spot for large screens. Get a good IPS one.
Here's Synth1 (which most people have) at 3840 x 2160 on a 29" matt screen in MuLab.

Synth1 4k 29".JPG

chai_all_day_long · Post by **chai_all_day_long** » Sun Aug 16, 2020 5:50 pm

If you're comfortable with 1080p then stick with that for a while. I run dual 4K screens myself (one 43 and one 27) and there are still a large number of plugins and programs that just don't scale properly on Windows. One big example is Native Instruments, all their stuff that I have, always looks really soft and doesn't scale well.

FL Studio runs great on 4K but Ableton Live is only catching up recently and their plugin auto-scale only works about 75% of the time. You'll also often have to change GUI sizing settings in a lot of the popular synths as many of then don't retain the GUI sizing selections. The same goes for a lot of plugins and some scale terribly/broken and super soft via Ableton's auto-scale.

With all this said though, I produce video tutorials for my work and those really benefit from being recorded at 4K and being resized to 1080p so, there are benefits. However, this can be negated by having to scale up to 150% to 250% to make things workable in DAW's. But like you said it can definitely make your screens feel less cramped in some applications. If you are light on CPU/GPU then hold off for sure as it will consume resources and be demanding in certain applications (e.g. games, creative applications).

wickfut · Post by **wickfut** » Sun Aug 16, 2020 10:18 pm

Ross21 wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:43 am 4K/5K screens Vs. full HD screens (say for 27" at 1 meter working distance)

Are 4K/5K a dramatic upgrade for DAW (Ableton) use ?

I use Cubase and Renoise. To me it's very worth it. Although I tend to drag small GUI's to the centre of the screen to see it correctly (screen is 49")

cons:
Demands more computing power from PC/iOs GPU so burdens the system
Is the difference that big for animated graphics (Abelton\DAW ain't real pictures)?

I use a 2080Ti GPU now which also runs games, I used a GT1030 which also does 4k60hz

In theory - can a PC perform its audio better with fullHD than with 4K/5K due to less resources needed for the video (so more left for the audio processing) ?
Or does the graphic card take all the burden off CPU/MEMORY of PC ?

Shouldn't make any difference as long as the GPU can run at the monitor frame rate.

Timfonie · Post by **Timfonie** » Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:50 am

My experience with 4k is excellent as long as you can have it close enough to your eyes. I prefer about 30cm distance between the eyes and the screen. I love the 4k screen estate! Only complication with audio is the speakers which can't hide behind the screen. That favors a small screen. So yeah, 4k is good unless the screen is too far away from you or too large in combination with the speakers.

lfm · Post by **lfm** » Mon Aug 17, 2020 5:15 am

27" at 1m is 33 degrees viewing angle on a 16:9 screen.
Referring to eyes resolution roughly 1 arc minute gives that 1080p screen will clearly be beneficial.
UHD with 0.5 arcmin you really don't benefit pixelwise, talking images and video etc.

An article here
https://www.red.com/red-101/eyesight-4k ... on-viewing

and crucial part is viewing angle on sides of the screen which is the larger distance.

Take ArcTan for half width of monitor divided by distance to monitor and you get half viewing angle.
So double that and get full viewing angle.

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Mon Aug 17, 2020 5:27 am

Demands more computing power from PC/iOs GPU so burdens the system

Actually, Ableton in 4K uses 0,7% of my budget GTX 1050

. Any card that has a 4K connector will run desktop apps with no sweat.

In theory - can a PC perform its audio better with fullHD than with 4K/5K due to less resources needed for the video (so more left for the audio processing)

Nope, it doesn't work that way.

midi_transmission · Post by **midi_transmission** » Mon Aug 17, 2020 9:28 am

I had only problems with Windows 10 and scaling daw related. Only 200% works without any problems here. 4k on large screens is a plague since it's too low for 200% usage and too small for 100%. I hope that we see 5k+ in the near future also for windows.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Mon Aug 17, 2020 9:34 am

Michael L wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 8:30 pm Plugins are big & sharp on a 29” 4K.

Depends if the GUI resizes and scales. Some older plugins are tiny on such a big resolution.

You surely resized Synth1 on the screenshot that you took.

kvotchin · Post by **kvotchin** » Mon Aug 17, 2020 10:13 am

You might also want to consider an ultrawide. I did, and that’s what I ended up getting. Primarily for audio production, with a bit of other light use.

And yes, the GPU should handle most of that.

Michael L · Post by **Michael L** » Mon Aug 17, 2020 10:14 am

chk071 wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 9:34 amYou surely resized Synth1 on the screenshot that you took.

You are correct. I did it so long ago that I forgot! Here are three old synths that do not resize, on a 29" 4K screen. If you get a large screen with the same ppi, the GUIs will remain proportionately the same.

Unresized synths.png

4K/5K screens for DAW