4K gaming on your TV: Time for a graphics card upgrade
PC gamers are ahead of the herd as usual: it doesn’t ridiculous amounts to build a rig that can provide smooth 4K gameplay right now.
Be warned, though, that we’re talking about a lot of heavy data processing. Although Tomb Raider and GTA V look pretty impressive in UHD on a PC, you’ll need a potent graphics card to run top-tier games at 4K without struggling. If your PC struggles at Full HD resolutions with the detail settings maxed out, then 4K gaming will be enough to push it over the edge.
In reality, you probably need to have at least an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 – or AMD’s potent new Radeon RX480 – if you want to even dabble with gaming in 4K. And bear in mind that this won’t be enough to run games with all the visual eye candy cranked up to the max. If you want the best 4K gaming experience on PC, then you’ll need a high-end processor, oodles of RAM and a graphics card that costs north of £300 – or ideally a pair of graphics cards in SLI or CrossFire for the best results.
Then again, you could just shell out £600 on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080. If you’ve got the cash, it’d be rude not to.
Buy a 4K-capable graphics card now from Amazon
The last recourse for watching 4K on your TV: Film it yourself
Capturing 3,840 x 2,160-resolution images turns out to be quite easy, with plenty of camcorders, still cameras and even smartphones recording in 4K.
It’s the action-cam market that’s really running with this one, though. Or should that be skateboarding, skydiving and free running? Just look at all the 4K footage appearing on YouTube and GoPro’s own channel. So my answer is to go out there and make your own 4K films until Hollywood and the hardware manufacturers are ready to release UHD Blu-ray.
READ NEXT: Here’s our guide to screen mirroring your phone, tablet or laptop with a TV
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