How do you handle most games at 4K display?

I bought a 4K monitor a week ago, i already had a GTX 1080 Ti so i thought hey maybe its finally time to get a 4k display as my card would be able to handle 60fps at 4k in most games but as it turns out i was wrong.

2-3 years old games and its true, i can max out most games without AA and hover around 60-70 range but most newer games can't handle 4k quite well. For example in Fallout 4 i get around 40 fps during heavy fight scenarios sometime which is unacceptable, Geforce experience tells me to turn down TONS of settings like lightning quality to low, godrays off, shadow quality low, virtually 0 draw distance other then npcs etc which i don't think is worth playing at 4k. So basically my current rule is if i can't maintain above 55 fps with no AA and AF then i simply drop down the resolution to 1440p and max out everything and still enjoy buttery smooth 60fps.

Yes i know 4k looks absolutely gorgeous but i don't think its worth dropping so much settings which totally break immersion for me. Sun light without godrays looks awful to me. What do you prefer? Lower settings or lower resolution to improve performance?

Here are my specs:

CPU - Intel i7 6900K (8-Core) @ 4.2 GHz Overclock

GPU - Nvidia GTX 1080 Founder's Edition Overclocked

Memory - 64GB 2666 MHz Digital Storm Custom RAM

Storage - 2TB Samsung SSD

Motherboard - ASUS X99 Rampage V Edition 10

Nothing to sneeze at, but my GPU is probably holding the system back with the new Ti and Titan X on the market. I have a 4K TV that I use as a monitor too, but I rarely try to output at 4K because my system just can't run any modern, graphics-intensive games at that resolution. 4K is incredibly demanding still, even if you're on the bleeding edge. What I do settle for is 1080p @ 120Hz. It still looks pretty good, but the smoothness of the 120Hz look is the icing on the cake that makes me not miss 4K so much.

Other than fallout 4, what other games do you run at 4K and what framerates are you getting?

i play at 30fps locked

i refuse to turn down settings

The Witcher 3 is around 65-80 avg with lowest ~60 in Novigrad.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is 55-70 on ultra with Pure Hair on Very High.

Dragon Age Inquisition & Grand Theft Auto V is solid 60+ all the time on everything absolute max but the AA.

Mass Effect Andromeda requires fair amount of tweaking otherwise at max quality the FPS can go as low as 38 in some scenarios.

Just Cause 3 is in 75-80 range most of the time.

Tekken 7 has no problem maxing out at 4k and maintaining solid 60 fps.

These are some of my most played games recently. As you can see i am mostly an RPG/Open world lover and that's why i chose 4k over 1440p 144hz.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning is that i am using older haswell 4770k @ 4.3 GHz and 16 GB DDR3 RAM but i think at 4k processor doesn't matter at all, my gpu is always at near 100% usage.

@serialkisser: 1080Ti is the first card that I would say is worth buying for 4K display, but then again we're talking about nowday games, I don't think it'll last good in 2 years from now.

Look for game graphic guides that will show you how the game will look and perform on vary graphic settings, I did the same with Just Cause 3 and my old R9 290.

4K is bad for gaming imo. It requires too much power and upkeep for very little difference over 3K, which uses a lot less power. Unless your 4K monitor is 70 inch it's impossible to tell any differences. Ultra wide (3K) is best for PC gaming.

I have two GTX 1080s and I get a solid 100 FPS for nearly every game completely maxed at 3440x1440. When I do the small jump up to my 4K TV I get like half the FPS. It's just not worth it whatsoever.

@saintsatan: You are basically comparing 1440p vs. 2160p when matching aspect ratios. There is a very noticeable difference in detail and clarity with that resolution bump and it should not be downplayed. 1440p is nice though and it is why my main monitor is 1440p/144hz and I use my TV for 4K/60hz. I do think ultra wide is pretty badass and I have been tempted to get an ultra wide monitor myself.

I stick with 2K. I think we're a ways off from max settings in 4K, unless of course you have a ridiculous system.

With my current GPU I can only get 4k/60fps with games up to the mid 7th gen console games era, beyond that I start to stretch to the 50s and with the latest games definitely go below 30fps. I have 0 interest in 4k though seeing as I only have a 1080p monitor, which is more than good enough for the time being for me :P

I have a 1440p monitor and have tried 4kDSR on my 1080GTX. If native 4k resolution is the same performance then I will skip it and if really wanted it I would probably wait until the next NVidia graphic card come out with the TI version.

I set the resolution to 1080p, 4K is unrealistic if you want nice graphics settings and high frame rates. 1080p and 4K will scale perfectly so there is no issues with stretching or anything like that.

This is usually what I do in the living room since the HTPC only has a GTX 1060.

I am using a 65 inch Samsung KS8000 and I can definitely tell the difference with 4k.

Of course I sit around 6 feet away from my TV so I am close enough to see the extra detail.

I would agree with you about the size of the monitor and being able to see the difference if you didn't say 70".

Monitors are usually a foot away from your eyes at that distance on my 40" monitor I can tell the difference... Its very much worth it. TV's on the other hand that are 5-8 feet away then its hard to tell the difference between 1440p and 4k.... Which I can't on my 50" Samsung, hell I have a hard time telling the difference between 4k and 1080 on Netflix.

That being said I play most of my games on a Optoma projector at 1080p at 92"... Unless they are shooters. Still 4K at 40" on a 10bit MVA panel with 100% SRGB calibrated at 5K contrast ratio?... Yeah games look bloody nice.

Contrast ratio plays a big part in image quality to me as well as colour, its why I game on a projector 25K static contrast ratio fully colour calibrated at 92"... I can sit down and get lost in a RPG for days in my game room.

a netflix video is different from a video game.

so of course there is less of a difference in a netflix video compared to a video game.

I am very much aware of that... At what point did I not mention its all to do with viewing distance?... It was pretty much the gist of my post.

it is not all to do with just viewing distance.

The recording of real life made into a movie whether that be a 1080p capture or 4k is a lot different than rendering a video game at those resolutions.

Real Life is not restricted by pixel count only the captured footage is. This is a lot different than a video game which is rendered at a specific resolution from the start.

Easiest way I can explain it is that real life is like an infinitely high pixel count and the captured footage is downsampling that to fit with the recorded pixel count whether that be 1080p or 4k.

So that is why movies have less of a difference from 1080p to 4k, It would be even less of a difference than comparing a game running at 1080p downsampled from 4k to native 4k footage.

That really doesn't sound right OP. I have Fallout 4 running 4k with about 20gb of texture mods in addition to 50ish gameplay ones. I avoided the crappy official Bethesda high res dlc.

I have god rays set to medium, AA off and draw distance on high for 60fps 99% of the time, it's sure never dropped into the 40s. Diamond City drops it to 55 or so. I haven't been to Far Harbor yet to see if the fog tanks fps or not.

I run 4690k@4.5ghz and the 1080ti overclocked just a bit.

Hey, I don't use 4k display I use 144Hz display to play my favorite games. It provides clear images or better color contrast then any other. I like my monitor.

I prefer 1440p at +60fps G-Sync'd (i don't have that myself yet, but it's my next upgrade).

Plus i don't want a +30" screen on my desktop where 4K would start to be relevant.

@michaeljohnson1 4K doesn't provide better color contrast...

@groowagon: he's just a spammer