1080p gaming on 4k monitor

Can anyone tell me how well I can game in 1080p if I buy a 4k monitor? Or rather how well does scaling to lower resolutions work on 4k in general?

Im currently in the process of buying a new PC with GTX 1070.
I'm looking at 4k monitors because I like the idea of general use in 4k but I know I probably won't be able to play all games on high settings in 4k that's why I'm interested.

pic related(in OP) LG LED IPS 4K monitor 27UD58 that Im currently looking at

Is this a joke?

Nice if you can force integer scaling, soft and bit blurry otherwise.

Yes it will work. 4K is exactly 4 times the resolution of 1080p. Therefore, scaling should be no problem. However, you would have problems trying to 1080p on a 1440p monitor as its an awkward resolution.

so which is it? I'm asking because there's a lot of conflicting information on this topic.

There's some people that say that 1080 should scale well while there are others that say it will never look as good as it would on a native 1080 monitor and that 1080 even looks worse than 1440.

Thanks for the replies

Because it varies from monitor to monitor. Some scalars make it soft, for some inexplicable reason.

>how well I can game in 1080p if I buy a 4k monitor
perfectly fine
>how well does scaling to lower resolutions work on 4k in general
1440p on 4k looks better than downscaling from 1440p to 1080p. However it's mildly blurry and lacks the sharpness that a native 1440p monitor would have

i have the ud68 variant of this monitor, sadly it uses shitty scaling (for 1080p), so it's blurry, i guess there's some way of using a software upscaler or something (so it quadruples the pixels, cause 4k is essentially 4x the pixels of 1080p) tho

1440p gaming is fine, the upscaling is not that noticable, however i can only recommend gaming in native 4k resolution

>4k is essentially 4x the pixels of 1080p

...

What's your quibble? He's not wrong - 4k is exactly 4x 1080:
>1920*1080 = 2,073,600
>3840*2106 = 8,294,400
>2,073,600*4 = 8,294,400

Don't see what point you're trying to make, unless it's griping about the redundant use of "essentially."

so basically if I buy this monitor and use 1440p for games my gpu can't run at 4k and it should be OK?

I've also decided to go for a GTX 1070 Ti since I can get one for only 30€ more than the regular 1070.

Can you guys suggest a better monitor in that price range? Maybe 1440p?

we're not discussing video games

Except 4k resolution is less than 4,000 pixels in width.

It was a self-portrait.

I've also noticed that
basically contradicts
or is that just down to the monitor

And exactly what does that have to do with what he said?

>1080 even looks worse than 1440.
Of course it does, 2560x1440 has like 80% more pixels, it's much higher quality.

How nice 1080p looks will largely depend on monitor size. 1080p is really only fine up to 24", beyond that it's shit anyway. Most 4K monitors are at least 27", so 1080p will be visibly aliased/blurry. There might be some scaling artifacts, which will might make it look more blurry/aliased than a native screen of the same size.

People talking about the magic "4x the pixels" upscaling algorithm don't know that their magic is just nearest neighbor upscaling, which is pretty much the shittiest upscaler known to man. It produces "sharp" images with shitloads of aliasing and the image won't be sharp anyway because it's too low res for the screen size most likely, as I've mentioned. 2560x1440 looks much better but it's still blurry/soft compared to native 3840x2160.

Should I consider buying a 1440p native display then?

since I know I will not be able to run all games on 4k with decent framerates

That's not a bad idea, really. I have a 4K display but have 1080 SLI. The sharpness and much-reduced aliasing due to high DPI (on a 27" screen) are fucking amazing, but if your game is either going to stutter or look blurry because of a lower resolution, it's really not worth it at all. There's no point to go for 4K to get better graphics, when you're going to sacrifice a lot of other shit to get there, literally no point.

Just stick to what you can render natively, or increase your budget to fit a 1080 Ti at least, or wait until new shit is out (1st half of next year, probably).

>should be OK?
yes, perfectly OK. Still better than native 1080p on a 1080p monitor, and you're going to want 4k in the future unless you're going for 144hz.
no, that is a bad idea. Don't buy a monitor for the graphics card you have now, otherwise you'll have to get a new monitor when you update. If any part of your computer setup should be "future proof" it should be your CPU and monitor

You can always buy another monitor and use both. Having (at least) 2 monitors is amazing in terms of usability, probably the only major usability upgrade you can make after the HDD to SSD step, if there's even anyone still running HDD-only nowadays.

I haven't bought the GPU either. I am in the process of buying both.

then buy one for the next GPU you buy. 4k and 2k monitors are essentially the same price nowadays. Absolutely no reason not to get a 4k monitor now so you don't have to buy a new one in 2 years

The 'essentially' part is the only wrong thing I see.

It's like saying 1+1 is ~2.

Look dummy. It is all about ppi. Figure out what ppi you need to not see pixels and that's it.

Let me be very clear here. 1080p image on a 32" 1080p screen is exactly the same as the 1080p image on 32" 4K screen. NO DIFFERENCE.

Don't know about 4k but 1080p looks like shit on the 5k iMac screen.

ACTUALLY UHD is less than 4000 pixels in width, true 4K is 4096x2160 but to maintain 16:9 most TVs are 3840x2160 and manufacturers just call it 4K for being "close to 4000 horizontal pixels"

I have a 4K monitor and 1080p looks okay on it, I haven't tested it extensively though as I haven't needed to with my 1080Ti

You can but it will look blurry as shit

Why