It still surprises me that gaming in 4K isn't more popular in 2025 than it is. Sure, 4K gaming has often been the dream, but back in 2016 when I bought my first proper gaming laptop, I got a 4K panel thinking it would quickly become the default.

4K gaming is still a challenge today, and there are plenty of reasons why, but despite that, I just can't seem to help myself. You'll pry 4K gaming out of my cold, dead hands at this point because going back to gaming at lower resolutions just hurts.

Benefits of 4K gaming

It just looks pretty, okay?

I started gaming in 4K on my old GTX 1060 laptop back in 2016 and I haven't looked back. I intentionally got a 4K monitor when I got my first desktop gaming PC with an RTX 3080, because I knew I wanted to keep gaming in 4K. Because, at the end of the day, 4K really does just look better. You've got more active pixels so you get much richer detail. Combined with higher graphics presets, and you get an incredibly immersive, lush gaming experience.

Single-player, story-driven games like Avowed are a prime example of why you want to game in 4K. There's so much rich color and contrast in the game if you're playing it at max resolution that gets lost if you dial back to 1080p or 1440p. Even console-focused games like Final Fantasy XIV just look better in 4K on PC even if I frequently play it on handhelds and laptops with 1080p max resolutions.

While 4K and rich detail is not always necessary for first-person shooters or MOBAs that are designed more for fast-paced, reactive combat, there's something about having all those extra details and textures in my gaming experience that I just can't ignore. It feels more realistic, and that is sometimes the only thing that keeps me playing a MOBA or shooter past the first few levels or co-op matches with friends.

Challenges of gaming in 4K

It's not just the resolution that causes issues

4K gaming always seems out of reach, and there are a few factors contributing to that. First, 4K gaming doesn't just mean you've got your game set to take advantage of all 3,840 x 2,160 pixels on your monitor. While jacking up the resolution to 4K will always put extra stress on a gaming PC, the other half of the equation is your game's graphics preset.

If you're putting the resolution all the way up to 4K, chances are you're not running your games at Low or Medium settings, because why would you? At that point, just drop the resolution down to 1080p or 1440p because there's no point in seeing each individual pixel when the settings are set to blur details. So it's 4K resolution and High to Ultra High settings that tend to cause performance issues.

We also have a tendency to benchmark using the most graphically intense games. The RTX 5090 struggles to play Black Myth: Wukong in 4K at Cinematic presets without DLSS 4 and 4x multi-frame generation. But any other GPU becomes a slideshow on Black Myth: Wukong using the Cinematic preset.

We're also constantly shifting the GPU goalposts every generation with newer and more intensive games. Which is why it makes more sense to look at a slightly older, but still intensive title like Cyberpunk 2077. While the RTX 5090 can still struggle with Cyberpunk, it depends heavily on which graphics profile you use. On the Ultra settings, even laptop GPUs can easily clear 60 frames-per-second at higher (1440p to 1800p) resolutions. Things get dicier when you move into Cyberpunk's ray tracing profiles, but even Ray-Tracing Ultra is more achievable on lower-tier GPUs than Ray-Tracing Overdrive which is still a massive stress test for most machines.

The final part of the 4K gaming challenge is game optimization. Game devs tend to optimize for the hardware they have on hand, which means the games can run poorly on PCs, since it's nearly impossible to control for every hardware variable on PC.

Regardless, I can't go back

It's one reason I can't truly hate frame gen

Frame generation is divisive among gamers, but it's generally intended to help lower-end GPUs close the performance gap against higher-end graphics cards. Frame generation and super sampling are also ideal technologies for handheld gaming PCs, since those run off integrated graphics rather than discrete GPUs.

Testing the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti (16GB) on my new desktop build and on the new RTX 50-series laptops helped get me fully on board with the frame-generation future. But it's not just my RTX 5060 Ti or Intel Arc B580 that benefits from frame generation. Thanks to some poorly optimized titles, my older RTX 3080 gaming PC also gets to enjoy the benefits of AI frames.

Because I refuse to give up on gaming in 4K, even with notoriously poorly optimized games, I end up turning on frame generation to smooth out performance in Monster Hunter Wilds even on my i9-11900K and RTX 3080 gaming rig. Because it's the only way I can keep playing Monster Hunter on PC, since I can't bring myself to lower the resolution to something more feasible than 3,840 x 2,160. And that is fully a character flaw. There's no real benefit to playing Monster Hunter Wilds in 4K with Ultra High graphics settings other than me being a spoiled baby about my visuals. It's not even the prettiest looking game I own. But Avowed is also a title that makes my RTX 3080 cry when put at Ultra graphics presets and 4K resolution.