UHD video and gaming that works without being a PITA is coming to Windows 11. For serious gamers that already have the hardware that could make Windows 11 a must, and/or prompt those on the fence to consider a hardware upgrade more seriously. And it should *I think* spur the sales of 4k UHD monitors, which are becoming more common and price competitive.
4k is here for consoles and gaming PCs. It’s already taken over the TV market, with very competitive pricing for all but the smallest size screens, and it’s on its way to taking over the market for the streaming movies & TV shows that you can buy. Nowadays 4k video also means UHD – an expanded dynamic range that gives you more levels of brightness between pure black and pure white. While technically white is white and black is black, what you see on-screen is blacker blacks and whiter whites, and with the increased levels of brightness, more details everywhere in between.
With all these 4k UHD TVs out there, it was only natural for gaming consoles to adopt 4k UHD, and that’s meant lots of 4k UHD games – Google UHD games for an idea of just how many. The number of people playing UHD games on a PC is still somewhat limited – graphics cards are still outrageously overpriced and hard to come by – but UHD gaming monitors are becoming more common, with prices that are often competitive with FHD [1080p] gaming monitors. But with Windows 10 there’s also been a catch…
The extra data that makes a UHD picture on your screen UHD is sent alongside the 4k picture – the UHD electronics decode that data and use it to display the UHD picture you see. That data has only been available in UHD games and streaming video – not in any software, including Windows. So, what happens when you turn HDR [Windows name for UHD] on, is your display typically goes to s*** (!) until you start playing something HDR/UHD. And that usually means a somewhat tedious routine of turning HDR on in Settings, then often setting the HDR mode on your monitor, each and every time you want to use it, then turning it all off afterward.
That’s changing, but how much and how well it will work remains to be seen. Even though it’s expected to be basically finalized this month for an October release, Windows 11 still has a Huge number of problems/issues, on top of still missing but promised features. And user testing with the Insider program is no where near what we’ve seen with Windows 10. It seems like Microsoft’s ship it then fix it policies, that have been so evident with Windows 10, are about to become their entire Windows strategy.
Today, with the latest Insider build of Windows 11, online photos in Edge look better than with Windows 10, though that’s of course purely subjective. Turning HDR on doesn’t trash the display, though mileage may vary depending on your monitor & settings. Whether photos and video edited in Windows 11 will look the same in Windows 10, or anywhere else remains unknown [AFAIK]. More seamless HDR/UHD video and gaming that really works are promised, as is a feature to use a sort of fake HDR for games that don’t support it natively.
It’s also OK, understandable if you’re skeptical – I was Very skeptical just last week. It was time to replace my old monitor, and just like many years ago when I bought it, I really wanted to get something color accurate for photo editing. Just like last time, I got stung – unlike last time it took a week [vs. a year or so with Dell] to get my money back from Amazon. I guess I’m stuck in predictable patterns, because just like last time I said: “screw it” and went after the best value I could find in a good monitor. This time that was a 28” 4k UHD monitor from Asus, and to be honest, I planned on running it at FHD or 1080p.
I was tremendously surprised to find that 4k is actually usable with Windows on that small of a screen. Windows automatically scales everything to 150%, and I had to increase text size to 120. With a few apps I’ve had to go into the compatibility settings to change the high dpi setting, and found once or twice that did not work. I had to figure out how to increase the window & text size with my VMs. Using display port – my dvi to HDMI cable won’t work for 4k – I had to turn off ULPS for my AMD graphics card so the monitor would wake from sleep. But overall, my experience has been positive.