
Microsoft’s Windows 10 will support up to 8K displays - DiabloD3
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/201861-early-adopter-microsofts-windows-10-will-support-up-to-8k-displays
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robzyb
Why is support limited at all?

I would have thought that displaying up to N pixels - where N is much higher
than the number of pixels in an 8K display - would generally be possible.

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seanmcdirmid
My guess is that the OS assets would have to be redone after that. We are
still stuck using pixel art for lots of things, and it is nice to have some
standards until vector is good enough for everything.

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tormeh
Why isn't vector good enough?

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maccard
Because you still have to rasterise it, which is a relatively slow operation,
and considering rendering the OS assets is one of the most common tasks you
will perform, it probably needs to be a very fast routine

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tehmaco
Would it not be more efficient to produce the correctly scaled bitmaps once,
then cache the output?

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tormeh
Yeah, just render it on resolution change.

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bitL
It's not that simple. Normally you render significantly upscaled stuff in an
off-screen buffer and then downscale it for the best possible appearance for
_every single frame_. There are some ratios you need to keep, or you'd end up
with Linux-style graphics "quality" (try scaling factor other than 1.0). If
you just scale icon/bitmap once without thinking about this, it would look
most likely ugly after upscaling/downscaling steps (unless you got lucky).

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vidarh
That's mainly an issue at low resolutions.

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bitL
It's like when you learn how to notice aliasing artifacts in photos taken with
DSLRs. It cannot be unseen. So even if those issues are mostly noticeable in
low-res, you "cannot unsee" them in higher resolutions anymore either.

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wtallis
As depicted in the chart in the article, 8k resolution only makes sense for
displays that are very large or very close. 8k is where we stop increasing
resolution and start increasing field of view, which is going to require some
UI changes: games and movies will be about the only thing that should take up
the full screen, popup notifications in the corner of the screen might not
even catch the eye if you're working in a window on the other side of the
screen, and eye/head tracking might become really useful.

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seanmcdirmid
4K on a 28" monitor is only 150 DPI. It is a step up, but not as nice to look
at as a rMBP 220 DPI screen (you can see the pixels everywhere!). The retina
iMac has to go to 5K to look as nice as an rMBP.

After we go to 5K, why not 8K on a 27" screen?

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jacobolus
The “retina” iMac is 5120 by 2880 pixels at 27" diagonal, or 218 pixels per
inch. (And it’s amazing.)

4K (3840 by 2160) is pretty nice on a 24" display, but I’d rather have a
20–22" diagonal for it.

At “8K” resolution (i.e. 7680 by 4320 pixels), you’ll get a great result for a
display at like 40–44 inches diagonal (220–200 pixels per inch), or even 50",
as with such a big display you’ll tend to stay a bit further back.

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seanmcdirmid
I'm yearning for the day when we can't tell if something is printed or
rendered on a computer display. We need to get rid of the backlight, so maybe
e-ink or OLED, and then...8K might just be good enough.

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proveanegative
8K is unlikely to surface in consumer desktops and laptops within the duration
of Microsoft's usual OS upgrade cycle. Does this imply Windows 10 will be
supported for longer? I supposed it's either that or Microsoft finally intends
on pushing the resolution envelope.

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Macha
Or its some cheap future proofing like when they added support for 4k sector
drives in Vista, or 256TB drives in Windows XP?

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proveanegative
I agree that that is the most likely reason. I may have also overestimated how
likely the alternative interpretations were from the tone of the announcement.

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jobigoud
I'm more baffled by the 768 x 768 icons. That's more than the entire VGA
resolution.

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kristofferR
Apple has required 1024x1024 icons for all apps in the App Store since 2012:
[http://www.cultofmac.com/179738/apple-now-requires-high-
res-...](http://www.cultofmac.com/179738/apple-now-requires-high-
res-1024x1024-icons-for-every-mac-os-x-app/)

So it's not that baffling.

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jkot
Is not that just scaling issue? used 8k virtual display onh Windows 7 without
problems. (multi-display setup, thanks to AMD Eyefinity Windows see only one
large screen).

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cpkpad
Why not 16k? Microsoft has never done too well with the forward looking bit.
We were stuck at 1080p because software did not support more, and there was no
demand for monitors and vice versa. Cell phones and Macs validated the market,
and 5 years later, MS starts to catch up. 8k displays are now coming out, so
Microsoft adds support without looking forward another few years.

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adam12
How many people have 16k monitors? They can add that in Windows 11 or 12.

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codeulike
This would be for the Surface Hub presumably, which has an 84inch screen.
Future versions of it could easily get to 8k

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kemiller
8k is useful for vr headsets where you are just a few cm from the display, yet
need a wide field of view.

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JamesBaxter
Does this really mean anything until applications start supporting these
resolutions?

SQL Server Management Studio is basically unusable for me on my retina Macbook
Pro.

It will be nice to have proper text scaling however.

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perdunov
"Microsoft Windows will support displays with up to 8K resolution" would be
better, as using 8K displays would be only useful for the Matrix Architect.

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simi_
Of course, nobody needs more than 640K of memory either.

Seriously, though, although I'm sure 4K will become somewhat commonplace in 10
years, the rate of progress for desktop screens is ridiculous compared to the
mobile world. I still don't quite understand what stops us from making cheap,
large arrays, when we can make the tiniest, most colourful pixels to keep in
our pockets. Is it just the general market being completely
ignorant/indifferent to good monitors?

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spacemanmatt
I'm ready for my 4x8 panels to be installed directly against wall studs, in
lieu of drywall. Modern display resolution is jaw-dropping to me.

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gberger
For a moment I thought it would support 8 thousand displays simultaneously...
Could probably change wording to "displays up to 8K"

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prawn
Then for a moment would you think it was about extremely cold displays limited
to -265.15 degrees Celsius?

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acd
Will the icons and other text scale seamlessly or do I need a magnifying
glass?

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pavlov
They already do -- Windows 8.1 looks great on a high-DPI display and most apps
support it. (Although it's annoyingly obvious when you run an old app that
doesn't, because its window gets upscaled and the text is visibly blurry.)

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acd
Thanks Pavlov for pointing at the new high dpi support.

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perdunov
I'm looking forward for a 8K, 16 bit per pixel, 120 Hz, 3D display.

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xwintermutex
Up to 8K displays? Other than those Bloomberg terminal guys, who needs more
than 3 displays?

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bitL
8k is considered to be the _final_ resolution for digital displays as it
should be sufficient for people with the best vision.

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vidarh
I don't believe that for a second. My 5" phone has 1920x1080 resolution and it
was a very noticeable step up in quality. Assuming the _dpi_ of my phone is
near the limit of what is necessary, it'd take more than 8K to fill my field
of view with displays at the same DPI.

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bitL
How far do you hold your phone from the eyes? Now compare it to your regular
TV - how far do you watch it from? With 55" 4k UHD you'd get retina-style
appearance from 1.5m upwards.

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vidarh
Two issues with that:

For movie watching people keep wanting bigger screens. You can buy 80" TV's,
and then come projectors.

Secondly, my main screen use is for monitors, where I am only about twice the
distance away from how I typically hold my phone.

