Does PS4 Support 1440P?

In the fight between 1080P resolution with high frames rate and 4K resolution with low frames rates, one of the middle ground resolutions that were forgotten entirely by the last gaming generation was 1440P.

However, due to its tremendous popularity in the PC gaming world these days and since this resolution has the potential to offer the middle ground between resolution quality and smooth frame rate, it is becoming quite mainstream.

So those from the older PS4 generation often ask, “Does PS4 support 1440P?”. Unfortunately, the answer to this question is a no, none of the variants of PS4 including the original PS4, PS4 Slim, or the PS4 Pro support 1440P resolution NATIVELY.

The key term to understand here is that there is no NATIVE support for 1440P. In other words, if you were to hook up a 1440P monitor to your PS4, it WILL work, but ONLY at 1080P resolution.

In the following text, I will explain the display modes of PS4 in detail and in relation to 1440P resolution, but I will also touch base on the important concept of SUPERSAMPLING.

PS4 Variants And Their Native Resolution Support

We all know that there are three variants of PS4, the original PS4, PS4 Slim, and PS4 Pro.

The Original PS4 and the PS4 Slim are the same in terms of performance. They both feature 1.84 Teraflops of raw graphics rendering power. The only actual difference is that the former has a smaller profile.

PS4 Pro, on the other hand, is a completely different story. This is a beast in comparison to its other two counterparts. This console offers a whopping 4.2 Teraflops of GPU power.

So naturally, the resolution and the frame rate supported by the PS4 Pro is more advanced in comparison to the Original and the Slim variant.

The following table compares the native resolution supported by the three PS4 variants:

So the Original and the PS4 Slim support 1080 or FHD resolution NATIVELY. The PS4 Pro can support 1080P AND 4K resolution natively.

For PS4 Pro, whether it will work at 1080P or 4K resolution depends upon two factors:

• The resolution supported by the game
• The TV/monitor you have (i.e. 4K gaming will not work on 1080P display).

So Does PS4 Support 1440P?

The short and simple answer to this question is a no. None of the PS4 variants support 1440P display mode natively

Again, let me reiterate here that if you were to connect a 1440P monitor to ANY of the PS4 variants, it will work, however, the resolution will be downscaled to 1080P only.

Now the original PS4 and the PS4 Slim are actually pushing themselves to the limit with the mere 1080P @ 30 FPS gaming. Asking for 1440P gaming would be impossible given the hardware limitation.

But this brings me to the next important and burning question:

Does PS4 Pro Support 1440P?

After all, we do know that PS4 Pro has more than twice the performance factor as compared to its weaker cousins.

And plus we know that it supports 4K games NATIVELY.

So it is only intuitive to believe that PS4 Pro should be able to support 1440P resolution.

Unfortunately, that is not the case here as well. The PS4 Pro DOES NOT support 1440P resolution natively either.

This is because unlike with PCs where you have a choice of a multitude of resolutions for the game, Sony is strict with the display modes the game developers can work with.

At the time of PS4 Pro, developers were ONLY given the choice between 1080p and 4K. This is unlike PS5 which DOES support 1440P resolution for many games.

While the PS4 Pro is more than capable of handling 1440P, Sony chose to bypass this resolution and target 4K directly, considering the growing prevalence of 4K televisions over 1440P ones.

Again, 1440P monitors were not popular at the time of the PS4 generation.

BUT with a PS4 Pro, you do get a certain kind of boost with a 1440P monitor thanks to supersampling:

PS4 Pro Supersampling to 1080P

One advantage that the PS4 Pro has over its other base variants is that offers the supersampling technology.

Supersampling is a technique where the gaming hardware renders the frame at a high resolution first (4K) and then downscales it to a lower resolution like 1080P in the case of PS4 Pro.

This improves the overall sharpness and the quality of the 1080P image that you see on the screen.

So, with a PS4 Pro, if you play a game developed with 4K resolution on a 1440P monitor, the game will first be rendered at 4K resolution and then downscaled to 1080P with supersampling.

PS4 Pro DOES NOT support supersampling from 4K to 1440P directly either. 

So the image that you see on the 1440P monitor will still be 1080P though.

Also Read: PS4 HDMI Cable Specs

Final Words

Here are the key points to remember:

• None of the PS4 variants support 1440P resolution natively.
• 1440P monitor WILL work with all PS4 variants, but only at 1080P resolution.
• PS4 Pro, despite being powerful, does not feature support for 1440P natively either. It can supersample from 4K to 1080P NOT from 4K to 1440P.

Also Read: Does PS4 Support 60FPS?