I've been thinking about going premium, but just wondering about the difference in quality between 3k and 4k. Anyone able to show some comparison pictures side by side?

I pretty much recommend it for everyone that has (1) enough storage space (2Gig per card in 4K, twice that of 3K) and (2) a 4K monitor. Even with a QVGA monitor it is a bit better but it really shines on a 4K. I wish I could post a comparison but of course we can't here, and anyway the video still shots never look very good, but basically the 4K cards make 3K look sort of fuzzy. On average, anyway- there are some very sharp 3K and a few not so sharp 4K but most of the 4K cards are noticeably sharper.

For example, Joy Lamore in Beachside View is absolutely WRITHING on the screen in 4K right now, and looks amazing. And, and she seems to be oiled... Still more evidence that playing CARDS rather than clips can be a superior choice as I am sure I've never seen a lot of this.

@Bitwrangler,
I only download the cards in 720p (except the low resolution classics); never any higher resolution, even though I do have a 1080p screen.
(I guess to save space, though I am slowly running out of that)

I checked which cards can be downloaded in 4k. I found 882 cards in my collection. 415 in collection e; 467 in collection f. At 2 gb each, that is 1764 gb.
Wow! That is a lot of space just for the 4k cards.

The lowest card number in my collection in each collection available at 4k are as follows:
Li Moon, A Step above, Lesya, Cure for it all

I have a 1080 monitor and when I first joined here 5 years ago I downloaded cards in 1080 if they were available that way. However, there was an update that had some detection of my monitor and it set the suggested download to 720. I remember that a salesman at Best Buy told me that there is no difference in 720 and 1080 unless the monitor is 50 inches or more. Anything to that?

With the way inflation is now and my having prospects of major car repair if not replacement and having major dental work, I doubt I'm going to sink big money into a 3k or let alone 4k monitor.

@RonaldB,

told me that there is no difference in 720 and 1080 unless the monitor is 50 inches or more.

I think that was a saleman with some motive. The key issue is pixels per inch. I have 3 monitors. My main display is a 42" 4K. It's 37" wide and displays 3840X2160. That comes out to 103 pixels per inch. Number 2 is 30" and that's 25.25" wide with a resolution of 2560X 1600. That comes out to 101 pixels per inch. The smallest is my 27" iMac with a 6K retina display. It's 23" wide and displays 5120X2880. That comes out to 222 pixels per inch. It's crisper, but except with looking a high-quality images it is not noticeably better than the others.

Human factors researchers feel that anything less than 72 pixels per inch will product noticeable dots. Anything more and the pixels will be close enough that you wont notice them individually. The 72 is an average. Some people can resolve the pixels a bit better than others. For me 100 dots/inch produces an excellent image. The 222 dots/inch on my iMac is something I would not have bought as an add-on.

told me that there is no difference in 720 and 1080 unless the monitor is 50 inches or more,

Human factors researchers feel that anything less than 72 pixels per inch will product noticeable dots.

That, of course, depends on the viewing distance which will typically depend on what you are using the screeen for with the two main usages being as a computer monitor and as a TV screen. It is possible, I think probable, that the salesman was speaking about use as a TV screen (or, maybe through ignorance, had ignored the effect of viewing distance).

iStripper is by definition a pure luxury good. A pretty wonderful one, but luxury none the less. Displaying it to best effect has to come in a distant second to necessities. 4K is very nice but there is no denying that the equipment costs are substantial.

To be able to effectively See subtle difference in the Source resolution,
you need a device that has a resolution of at least 150% greater resolution than that of the Source resolution.

example:
if your Display is 1080p
and you switch from 1080p source files to 1400p files ( 3K )
you will not really notice the significant difference.
you might discern some subtle difference, but you won't see the major difference.

Because your Display is less resolution than the Source file resolution.
you can't see it.

The effects of having different source and display resolutions can be counter-intuitive. For example if the two resoluions match and then you switch to a higher resolution display the quality of the displayed image can be degraded from that when it was displayed on the lower resolution device.

Degredation due to mismatches between source and display resolutions occurs independently of whether the display resolution is higher or is lower than that of the source. You either have to discard details or interpolate and thereby blur them,

For typical device resolutions you may not notice especially when the display's resolution is high, but consider an extreme case of a 2x2 pixel image displayed on a 2x2 pixel display compared with the same image displayed on a 3x3 pixel display or a 3x3 pixel image on a 2x2 pixel display.

@SittingDuck

I've been thinking about going premium, but just wondering about the difference in quality between 3k and 4k. Anyone able to show some comparison pictures side by side

To reply to your original question: I can't post images and a screen capture is not the same as a moving model. If you have a 4K display of any size, the 4K cards will look a lot better than the lower resolution cards. If you don't have a 4K display, you probably won't see any advantage to 4K over 3K.

@TheEmu

That, of course, depends on the viewing distance

Yes. My main display is 22" from my nose. My critical use of my computer is to create software architecture diagrams. These involve lots of lines and symbols with associated text. Many of my diagrams are too large to be readable when zoomed to fit my screen, so I use a zoom setting as small as possible to show as much of the diagram as possible while the text is still readable. For me, 100 pixels per inch is about the maximum useful resolution. Although more pixels per inch would allow me to use a smaller zoom, the text size would be almost unreadable.

I have only 1080p monitor, but I not only do notice quite a difference anyway from a 1080p (which I consider as pratically unwatchable) show to its 3K version, but also from 3K to 4K (favouring 4K obviously). Personally I recommend to use the highest quality files everytime is possible, if your system can play it.

There were quality jumps from the "Standard" to Crystal Clear, and again to Crystal Clear Plus that are on top of the available resolution changes. Let's do an experiment with todays new card...


OK, the improvement in appearance for this CC+ card is very noticeable when the 3K and 4K version of this same card are compared on a 4K system. The 4K is sharp and crisp, the 3K not so much.