Higher Resolutions much better?

[Jiehfeng]

This might sound obvious but hear me out. Why are higher resolutions when using emulators look much better? All this time I had set RPCS3 and Dolphin to 1440P as that's what my monitor is, but recently I went and put the max I could and it looks sooooo much better.

I thought going upwards from 1440P would be seriously diminishing returns? I've seen people say 4K is not much of an improvement from 1440P, then why do these emulators look so good at 4K?

Also, is this the same for normal PC games? Would I also see such an improvement if I upgraded to a 4K monitor and playing games natively at 4K? Would it be as drastic as these emulators?

EDIT: Just tried Nvidia DSR and going from 1440P to 4K didn't yield much of a difference, so is this only for emulators?

 

[Joom]

Well, you have to imagine that the games you're emulating were meant for 480p or less. These emulators use very intricate upscaling to make these games "HD" (and with the case of Dolphin at least, you need a 16:9 AR/Gecko code in order to make the game not look stretched when performing the upscaling). There's also texture and model packs to go along with these enhancements to make these games truly HD. Because of their already small footprint as well, it's nothing to make these older games beautiful so long as you have the GPU and RAM to back them up. It's why I love Dolphin so much. Wind Waker, for a perfect example, can be made to look more beautiful than the WIi U remaster. Thousand Year Door is another game that looks absolutely gorgeous with the proper enhancements.

 

[Jiehfeng]

Well, you have to imagine that the games you're emulating were meant for 480p or less. These emulators use very intricate upscaling to make these games "HD" (and with the case of Dolphin at least, you need a 16:9 AR/Gecko code in order to make the game not look stretched when performing the upscaling). There's also texture and model packs to go along with these enhancements to make these games truly HD. Because of their already small footprint as well, it's nothing to make these older games beautiful so long as you have the GPU and RAM to back them up. It's why I love Dolphin so much. Wind Waker, for a perfect example, can be made to look more beautiful than the WIi U remaster. Thousand Year Door is another game that looks absolutely gorgeous with the proper enhancements.

I see, then this upscaling is pretty superior then, they all look really good.

 

[Joom]

I see, then this upscaling is pretty superior then, they all look really good.

I can't speak for other emulators, but both Dolphin and PPSSPP are known for their visual enhancements. That's sort of their claim to fame; their ability to upscale games whilst retaining image quality. And this could just be a rumor, but I've heard some of the Dolphin devs also work on PPSSPP, and that could explain why it's such a well made emulator.