Non-4K display for gaming on nMP?

[lesferdinand]

As the owner of a deceased iMac (it was just shy of its 6th birthday when its hard drive died in September), I'll require a display to go along with the nMP.

I can't really wait till 4K displays from Apple arrive (if that's not tomorrow) but even if they did, a 27inch model will probably cost more than I'm willing to spend at this point in time.

I'm thinking of getting the current Thunderbolt display in the interim, figuring that I'll be adding a 4K display to it in the next year or two for photo/video editing. I'd keep the non-4K display around for gaming purposes, assuming that even the D700's would struggle to maintain a 60FPS framerate at 4K resolution and a 'native' 2560x1440 screen would look better than a non-native resolution on a 4K display (and the latter may also introduce scaling lag). Does this reasoning make sense?

 

[hwojtek]

Yes. On top of that, you're just pissing people off

 

[lesferdinand]

Thanks! Why am I pissing people off though?

 

[jondunford]

Thanks! Why am I pissing people off though?

because most of the readers on here think us non-professional nMP buyers have no right to purchase the machine :-/

 

[lesferdinand]

because most of the readers on here think us non-professional nMP buyers have no right to purchase the machine :-/

OK, interesting... I'll be using the nMP primarily for photo and video editing and some 3D rendering (Blender). They're hobbies: I don't expect to be making money with any of that work. But I value my free time more than my bank account.

And I'll also be playing the occasional game and I was thinking for that purpose, a non-4K display may actually have some long-term benefits. Guess I'm trying to justify spending $1K on old technology.

 

[JeffiJers]

Yes. On top of that, you're just pissing people off

he didn't piss me off.

 

[woodhouse]

The snobbishness is just stupid – don't listen to anyone who tells you that a non-pro can't buy this machine. No one would ever tell you that you don't have a right to buy a Mercedes if you wanted to, and could afford it. This is no different than a Mercedes in my opinion: a high-powered, very functional yet well-designed and aesthetically pleasing piece of high-end technology.

And then, on other message boards with a lot of PC users, I keep reading about how stupid it is to drop huge sums on a "trash bin", and how anyone who does is some lemming drawn to Apple products because of their trendiness and form-over-function design. My Mercedes analogy holds true in this regard as well: a car is a machine that gets you from one place to another, whether you use that car for business or pleasure. The people I know who own Mercedes cars are people who can afford them, yes, but also are people that value both aesthetics and functionality/reliability.

I have a 2008 Mac Pro that's run nearly every single day for five years straight without so much as a single hitch. I'm a "pro" who makes a living off of design, 3D, motion graphics, and video. I also use my machine as a hobbyist to make music and work on photography.

Whatever you want to do with this machine, it will do for you, and if you can afford it, you have every right to purchase it whether you're making a living from it or not.

 

[lesferdinand]

Whatever you want to do with this machine, it will do for you, and if you can afford it, you have every right to purchase it whether you're making a living from it or not.

Yes, agreed. I don't understand the snobbishness. I have no issue with people trying to provide someone with genuine advice though: A nMP may not be the best solution for everyone and a proper discussion may actually help someone make a more informed and better buying decision.

Given that I want a machine that will last me a while, an iMac just doesn't make sense for me. Configured the way I want it, it's over $3,000 and then I'm stuck with a non-4K display for the next 5 to 6 years. Replacing the iMac after 3 years with a new one will cost me about as much as a nMP, assuming it'll last me 6 years.

 

[woodhouse]

I think the nMP will be the most future-proof for you. I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all machine, which is where some of the criticisms lay. For instance, dual GPUs might be overkill for someone doing music, but also, from what I'm reading, software is going to more and more leverage GPU for tasks.

For me, I do a ton of different things, so it's a no-brainer.

I've become afraid of asking for advice, however. I asked about the nMP on the CG Talk message boards for Cinema 4D – because I use C4D in almost all of my motion graphics work for clients – and even though I politely asked to not be flamed, I still had some people responding about how the "trash bin" was NOT A PRO MACHINE!!!! Lack of expandability, etc. etc.

I don't know why people can't just keep this stuff to themselves. It doesn't benefit anyone.

I'm buying the ******** trash bin, whether they like it or not, now I just want advice.

 

[lesferdinand]

I think the nMP will be the most future-proof for you. I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all machine, which is where some of the criticisms lay. For instance, dual GPUs might be overkill for someone doing music, but also, from what I'm reading, software is going to more and more leverage GPU for tasks.

Yes, that's what I'm counting on a bit. If the machine sells well enough, software developers will adjust their applications. Happy to contribute to that. It may benefit the pros as well.

 

[Yahooligan]

I think this is the first time I've heard someone use the excuse of a dead HDD to buy a whole new computer. Stranger things have happened, though.

Enjoy the nMP.

 

[wildmac]

OK, interesting... I'll be using the nMP primarily for photo and video editing and some 3D rendering (Blender). They're hobbies: I don't expect to be making money with any of that work. But I value my free time more than my bank account.

And I'll also be playing the occasional game and I was thinking for that purpose, a non-4K display may actually have some long-term benefits. Guess I'm trying to justify spending $1K on old technology.

Well, to really throw some folks into conniption fits.. what games?

I'd argue that a lot of the Mac titles (especially the Blizzard ones) won't benefit at all from a 4k display, and might look a lot worse, since their texture maps aren't designed for that sort of display.

You'd likely get a better gaming experience from a standard HD monitor with higher framerates, than from attempting to move up to a 4k.

Edit: missread the first post a bit. But yeah, no 4k for games..

 

[DanielCoffey]

You could have the 4k display for working on and use it at full-screen but half-native resolution for gaming.

 

[Derpage]

because most of the readers on here think us non-professional nMP buyers have no right to purchase the machine :-/

You have every right to buy the machine. I have every right to categorize you as somebody with more money than sense. Sure I can buy a fleet of dump trucks to take the trash out to the corner, but I don't.

 

[lesferdinand]

I think this is the first time I've heard someone use the excuse of a dead HDD to buy a whole new computer. Stranger things have happened, though.

Enjoy the nMP.

I don't think a 6 year old iMac warrants having Apple replace the HDD. I was planning on getting a new machine anyway but was kind of holding out for a retina iMac.

But I'm sure I'll enjoy the nMP

 

[wildmac]

You have every right to buy the machine. I have every right to categorize you as somebody with more money than sense. Sure I can buy a fleet of dump trucks to take the trash out to the corner, but I don't.

You have a right to disparage someone? Free speech I guess, still makes you an ass. (I have the right to categorize you for categorizing someone...)

I really can't understand the angst here when people have tizzy fits because someone MIGHT be buying more computer than they need.

 

[deconstruct60]

.... I'll require a display to go along with the nMP.
....
I'm thinking of getting the current Thunderbolt display in the interim, figuring that I'll be adding a 4K display to it in the next year or two for photo/video editing.
.....
Does this reasoning make sense?

It doesn't make sense unless you need the docking station abilities of the TB display to add to the set of ports on your Mac Pro 2013. If not, you would probably save more money more quickly by just going with a quality 3rd party monitor that has DisplayPort connectors on it than the TB docking station/display. The more money save the faster the evenutal path to a 4K display.

If the rational that Apple's 4K monitor will look like an "identical twin with just a better LCD panel" to the current TB monitor ... there isn't alot of weight to that. They probably are going to look different. More alike than a 3rd party's design but different none-the-less.

With a long term objective as gaming monitor the Apple monitors don't really have differentiating properties. Secondary monitors often have more demands for height/aspect/etc adjustments because the primary is in place and the secondary monitor has to fit around that. 3rd parties are typically better at that than Apple's monitors/docking stations are.

Not being an "Apple only" monitor also means can later sell it more easily if decide that just having a newer 4K monitor is good enough. ( sell the "older" one to help pay for the newer one at that point. )

 

[wildmac]

There's also the simple fact of that we just don't know enough about the 4k displays yet to know what they will cost, and if they will really be great for monitors with our current software.

 

[Yahooligan]

I have the ATD and love it, but it would be a downgrade when connected to the nMP since it only has TB1 and USB2.0.

Monoprice has these displays which use the same panel as the ATD and are also a glass front like the ATD. They were on sale for Black Friday (<$400) and have completely sold out, but if I were in the market for a display to connect to the nMP it would be one of these, provided there were no ATD2 launched.

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=113&cp_id=11307&cs_id=1130703&p_id=10489&seq=1&format=2

 

[lesferdinand]

You could have the 4k display for working on and use it at full-screen but half-native resolution for gaming.

But wouldn't that potentially introduce input lag as the monitor's scaler would have to upscale it to the native resolution?

 

[Derpage]

You have a right to disparage someone? Free speech I guess, still makes you an ass. (I have the right to categorize you for categorizing someone...)

I really can't understand the angst here when people have tizzy fits because someone MIGHT be buying more computer than they need.

No angst here. Just amused and slightly bewildered. Most people don't go buying front end loaders when they need a shovel for their yard. If your neighbor (virtual or real) were to do so, if you didn't chuckle and think "What a nut." more power to you I guess.

 

[jondunford]

You have a right to disparage someone? Free speech I guess, still makes you an ass. (I have the right to categorize you for categorizing someone...)

I really can't understand the angst here when people have tizzy fits because someone MIGHT be buying more computer than they need.

a lot of americans think they have a right to completely free speech even if exercising this free speech involves ignoring someone else's rights

 

[deconstruct60]

I have the ATD and love it, but it would be a downgrade when connected to the nMP since it only has TB1 and USB2.0.

Not really. There are 6 TB ports. Who cares if just one of them are tagged with a TB v1 chain of devices? You'd still have 2-5x as many TB v2 ports than any other system out right now.

I'm sure there are USB 2.0 devices. ( keyboard , mouse , dongle software/locks , etc. etc.) that most folks can use to populate those USB 2.0 sockets. Segregating USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices onto different USB controllers is a good thing; not a bad one. The older docking station/display can be put to use doing exactly that.

Sure folks with 5-6 USB 3.0 devices would need a better docking station display, but how big of a market is that? Folks crying the blues about not enough USB ports on Macs typically have gobs of legacy stuff they want directly attached; not the bleeding edge stuff.

It the docking station/display would have more long term viability if it had 3 USB 3.0 , FW 800 , Ethernet ports but the current on isn't that big of a deal on a Mac Pro.

On a 1 port MBA there is a difference. Those laptop systems with just one (maybe two) TB ports. Right now though, all TB v2 capable Mac systems have at least 2 (which reduces daisy chain pressure). The Mac Pro is in another whole different zip code from the rest of the line up.

 

[lesferdinand]

It doesn't make sense unless you need the docking station abilities of the TB display to add to the set of ports on your Mac Pro 2013. If not, you would probably save more money more quickly by just going with a quality 3rd party monitor that has DisplayPort connectors on it than the TB docking station/display. The more money save the faster the evenutal path to a 4K display.

Yes, I was actually looking into a Dell monitor first (the U2713HM). But I heard it's not calibrated out of the box like the Apple monitors are and (arguably more importantly) my wife made it known that we will not have a Dell monitor in the living room, no matter what the cost savings...

Also, with our family living in Europe, we used to use the built-in webcam on the iMac a lot for FaceTime. The fact that that's built in is another plus for the Apple display.

 

[theSeb]

Apple displays are not calibrated out of the box. The Dell u2713H is. (Note that the HM is the cheap version. The H version is the one you want). I would also not let my wife make my computing purchases forcing me to buy inferior stuff just because it looks prettier.