Gadgetory

according to recent steam surveys nearly 60% of users have a primary display resolution of 1920 by 1080 that's 1080p for short and according to a smaller survey conducted on our own Twitter handle at science studio YT by the way nearly 60% of sampled users said approximately two feet from their monitor or multi-monitor setup we tend to gravitate toward an optimal viewing distance from our display of choice right so if we can see pixels we back away and if it's too difficult to see anything on screen and move a little closer no two monitors are alike both in terms of size and resolution so what resolution then is the best for gaming and just a heads up it's not a straightforward answer I want to introduce you to this fancy little equation based on assumptions derived from the quote visual acuity a threshold a fancy phrase referencing how far we have to be from something before you can no longer to certain individual details if we assume 1 arcminute to be the limit of detailed discernment for the human eye from where we get things like the Snellen chart which I'm sure most of your classes have seen before then this equation will accurately calculate your optimal viewing distance now it seems like a mouthful upfront but the variables represent a simple plug and chug format VD here represents viewing distance D s is your displays diagonal size in HR and in VR are the displays native horizontal and vertical pixel counts and CVR is the vertical resolution of the image displayed on screen assuming your up scaling or down scale has what this accounts for so there's a really no complex math involved here just division multiplication power of square roots that's it so let's use the info we received from users earlier to calculate an optimal viewing distance given a resolution of 1080p and a common diagonal size of let's say 24 inches for a 1080p panel we can swap these variables for real figures VD equals 24 divided by the square root of 19 20 divided by 1080 squared plus 1 times 10 80 times the tangent of 1 over 60 and make sure if you do this equation in Excel that you incorporate the conversion between radians and degrees so in this case it comes out to approximately 37 and a half inches and what this tells us given these parameters is that you'll experience loss of detail when sitting further than this distance away from a 24 inch 1080p monitors playing a 1080p image if we replace the image on screen with something half as pixel dense in one dimension that's 540 P then the max distance before detail lost jumps from 37 inches to roughly 75 and this makes sense right if you have the resolution of the image displayed then you can double your viewing distance a comedy for that loss and lose no detail that's what this equation basically tells us it links resolution to viewing distance with respect to display size now if we shrink the diagonal display to let's say 18 inches right much smaller then the detail lost threshold shrinks from 34 to 28 inches so display size and viewing distance our of course directly proportional because PPI changes as that diagonal space right tends to shrink or expand and just one more example if we bump the display resolution from 1080p to Ultra HD or non cinema 4k then the loss threshold shrinks to a mere 19 inches 4k is a huge jump from 1080p book in terms of actual PPI and overall Hardware utilization which is why most 4k monitors on the market are larger than 24 inches so in this example you have to sit within 19 inches of the 24 inch 4k panel to actually reap the benefits of a true high intensity 4k image otherwise it's going to look the same as say a 1080p panel there are several complementing charts by the way linking the two this one here attempts to quantify the relationship between viewing distance panel size and optimal resolution in a visual manner by the way do keep in mind that this calculator of sorts should only really be used to determine maximum viewing distance you're likely to notice extra details on screen the closer you sit to the display up to a certain point of course then viewing angles becomes a huge factor in the fact that you can discern individual pixels when you get too close that means your resolution isn't high enough this is also why curved monitors make more sense for gamers and casual TV viewers you'd have to assume everyone watching the screen is sitting in the exact same place which of course doesn't happen not in a living room so curved panels favor a single viewer and while I'm not completely sold on them I mean it's kind of a separate topic but I wouldn't pay a great deal of money extra for curved panel I do notice slight benefits especially with ultra wide resolutions like the one behind me here this one is a 34 40 by 1440p panel so the best resolution for gaming depends entirely on your monitor size its resolution and your viewing distance from the monitor this ignores of course refresh rate which is an entirely separate topic explained right here by the way and the necessary hardware needed to adequately Drive these pixels again totally separate topic now if you ask me 1440p is a great sweet spot for a decent gaming rig I use the Asus 27-inch 1440p 165 Hertz monitor from my gaming rig and the resolution is almost perfect considering how far away from the screen I usually sit that's about two to three feet I also prefer a higher refresh rate over a higher pixel count so I would trade 4k for you know 144 it's 1080p any day of the week I can personally discern pixels on a 24 inch 1080p panel from about two feet away but when I step up to 1440p in the same format it's almost perfect the goal is to minimize resolution as much as possible to alleviate stresses on your graphics card and CPU while maintaining the maximum level of visual detail possible without being able to discern individual pixels that was a very long sentence and you may need to rewind it but you'll find most of this to be I mean common sense right save maybe the detail of the equation that we showed earlier I've linked a few excellent monitors by the way in the video description if you are in the market I invite you to take a look and comment down below with your current visual setup if you guys like this video give it a thumbs up you know what to do thumbs down for the opposite or if you hate everything about lighting click that red subscribe button if you haven't already and stay tuned for more content like this this is science video thanks for learning with us forget to breathe now this is good