Alienware 17 R3 4K Scaling Issues?

Hey guys,

So I've been doing a lot of reading lately regarding scaling issues with the 4K display. My only question is concerned with gaming. Does playing games that are down scaled to 1080p truly look as bad as people say it does on the 4K panel?

Many people have claimed to experience a distinct bluriness whilst gaming; while others claim that there are no scaling issues.

If someone could validate either claim it would be very helpful, or even provide pictures of this blurred phenomenon would be a great deal of help as well.

Thanks heaps!

 

I am about to receive this model in a few days so will be able to tell you.

However, I used to own a retina MacBook when they first came out and playing at quarter native res was pretty blurry due to the bilinear image scaling.
It would look better if it used nearest- neighbour scaling instead

Read this thread on Nvidia's site, it has some good comparisons that users have posted:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/844905/integer-scaling-mode/

 

Honestly, running 1080p for games on 4k res is blurry if you're sitting pretty close to the screen. As in leaning in to the screen. Otherwise if you're sitting at regular distance it is not as crisp, but for the most part you won't see a HUGE difference unless your eye sight is really good.

 

So what is the nearest neighbour scaling?
I have the 4k display and I have noticed a slight blur. Its no big deal but still slightly frustrating because I like 60fps and I am VERY fussy with how my games look!. I would like to find the best resolution that would give sharpest results but as close to 1080p as poss.

 

Don't think any scaling setting will help. You're simply not running at native res. And it's a lot lower res too. Though it theoretically should be a perfect downscale, I guess it doesn't work the way we imagined.

 

To be honest... When I first put my 4k on, I played everything at 4k 30fps, so I think I may have just got used to how much better it looks. Now I have played for a while in 1080p, im getting used to it and starting to think it does look like 1080p. Of course 4k looks so much sharper. I just got used to how sharp it was. I prefere 60fps though and 1080p still looks sweet

 

Yea 1080p honestly is fine. It only looks bad if you're getting really close to the screen. As sharp as 4k is, it's unfortunately not ground breaking for me. I wouldn't complain if I had to get a 1440p screen, or even a 1080p screen, though I would probably demand some heavy AA.

 

Thanks everyone for your reply. Everyone's input has been valuable to me as I do plan on purchasing an Alienware laptop; though I'm still contemplating the 4K display.

Mickbt26, I'd be so grateful if you could tell us how the display looks when you receive the laptop, I'm sure it would help a lot of people out.

 

Nearest neighbour from what I've read, means that each pixel will be copied to the nearest pixel exactly as is. Quadrupling it and giving it a cleaner but more pixelated look . Bilinear scaling applies filtering to each pixel as it scales and kind of stretches the pixel instead of copying it giving it a smudged look. I'm no expert though so I could be wrong.

This gives a good idea of the different methods.

Nearest neighbour scaling first then bilinear second:




Any Chance you could tell me the display code for your panel? (It will show in HWINFO)
I have read that there are 2 manufacturers making these for dell now.

 

The screen I got for my laptop is this: B173ZAN01.0 2DK4K
Is this what you are after?

 

Its fine. I run older games like League of Legends at 4K. For newer games like Starwars Battlefront i run at 1080 like others have said above.

For day to day programs. I run at 175% so i get extra screen resolution. All my regular programs Chrome, Office etc. Scale well. The only ones that don't are programming IDEs but they have work arounds.

 

Thanks! I think this is the AUO version. I have read that somebody had a Samsung and the quality was not as good the AUO

 

Well I'm raging, I recieved my 17 r3. All is not good.
The Motherboard died within the first 30 mins of setting it up. The whole computer froze. No mouse movement, keyboard or trackpad would not work, I had to hold power button down to restart but it won't come back on.
Removed the battery connector and did a power drain but still no joy.
Phoned dell support and they are sending a tech out to replace the board once they have it in stock in the UK. (5 days approx they said)
The screen did look amazing from what I briefly saw of it. Not had a chance to test games scaling yet though.

Gutted.

 

That sucks!! What screen do you get in yours? AUO?

 

Yep first thing I checked. Was AUO.

Very vibrant, perhaps a little too vibrant, but once I've got the thing working I will calibrate it with my spyder. I bought it mainly for Lightroom and photoshop editing with gaming on the side.

 

If you plan to use AGA then use BIOS version 1,2,2. I have recently found all my games run ALOT smoother with that bios version compared to any other. Even at 30fps running 4k!

 

Oh man what a let down. I don't think I can even comprehend how you must feel right now; I hope things go well with your machine I really do. But on a side note, it's good to hear you got the superior AUO panel, hopefully things work out and you'll be able to share your experience with everyone here?

 

Well, I'm back up and running after not 1 but 2 mainboard changes. The 1st replacement died within a few hours
I'm kinda thinking the latest BIOS may have something to do with it as I updated to it on them both. Not going to do it with the 2nd replacement.

Ive also figured out a way to make games use pixel doubling (nearest neighbor) scaling instead of the crappy bilinear for 4k displays, but there are a few caveats. I will explain my findings later after work.

 

It's good to hear that your Alienware's fine now, thanks for advising us not to update to the latest BIOS, hopefully something is done to fix it so it doesn't affect anyone else. Also, it would be amazing if you could tell us how you managed to run games with pixel doubling (nearest neighbour) scaling, I'm sure more people are just as interested as I am!

 

Ok guys, Quick guide to making games run in Nearest neighbour scaling in Windows 10 on the 4k - 3840x2160 panel


A few caveats first:

• The Game needs to be able to be run in windowed mode.
• Windows scaling has to be at 200% and at native resolution
• There is a slight performance drop compared to full screen mode.
• You need to know where your games executable files are.

First we need to make sure Windows 10 scaling is set to 200% in the display settings. (the default on my machine was 250%)




Then run the game as normal and dive into the games options and set the games resolution to 1920x1080. Then set it to run in windowed mode (borderless windowed would be even better)

Once that is done exit the game


Then we need to find the games .exe file – right click it. Go to properties and find the [Compatibility] tab and UNCHECK the “disable display scaling” box



Then run the game. It should be in pixel-doubled mode now.


One issue I have seen is that the .exe “disable display scaling” box will be re-ticked if you launch the game in full screen or change resolutions in game after it was unchecked. Simply untick it again if it happens. I haven’t found a way to prevent that yet.


I used The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 to test and it works fine, Other games may not.


There is a slight performance drop when running games like this due to it being in windowed mode and if you look closely you can see larger pixels, but overall, I prefer this mode due to how much clearer it looks over the horribly smudged, bilinear scaling that normally happens when the game is not at native resolution.

Of course, It still wont compare to native 4k but I think it will be a while before all games run comfortably at that resolution on a laptop

 

Does this really look better than just setting your game resolution to 1080p when running normal 4k?

 

You know what? I think the answer to that is neither looks as good as native would.
Since my last post on this thread I have been gaming at 1080 using normal scaling and I can get used to it for sure. With the DPI being so large the bilinear blur is nowhere near as bad as it would be on a lower res monitor at a 2-3 foot distance.

My son bought a 17r3 with the 1080 screen recently. Comparing them side by side, you can clearly see how much brighter and more vibrant the 4k is. The whites are whiter, colors pop and using it for photoshop and lightroom the 4k blows away the 1080 even after I calibrated them both.

The only good thing about the 1080 is that games can run better at native resolution and there is zero scaling issues in windows apps.

 

Hey bro, thankyou for your tutorials. so, finally can u confirm that bilinear scaling can be good right?? Compared to 1080p display, it is not blurier at a normal distance from the screen?