NVIDIA RTX owners only - your opinion on DLSS Image quality

[wolf]

you're telling me 540p upscaled to 4k didn't look horrendous? What lightning in a bottle type wizardry is going on here

Sorry that's 540p to 1080p, 1080p is the output resolution I set in the game and used DLSS quality, but I'm still viewing all this on a 4k set.

720p to 4k looked better than it ever has though, and honestly I found that mode (DLSS ultra performance) usable already for couch gaming.

 

[mrpaco]

no performance hit here, been trying it with returnal using frame gen also.

Going to try now with talos principle 2 but without frame gen.

 

[TSiAhmat]

Sorry that's 540p to 1080p, 1080p is the output resolution I set in the game and used DLSS quality, but I'm still viewing all this on a 4k set.

720p to 4k looked better than it ever has though, and honestly I found that mode (DLSS ultra performance) usable already for couch gaming

Oh okay, still pretty impressive (especially for "free") I assume you use the 3080 in your system spec

 

[wolf]

I've now tried 5 games and so far the difference is in them all, seems to apply universally with just this DLL and forcing the new preset.

Even on a 30 series I'd easily say this is the preferable way to play with DLSS, as you can effectively use a lower mode to get the same or more performance as before (eg DLSS B now instead of Q) and get the cumulative improvements to motion clarity, detail, sharpness etc.

I'm feeling less than whelmed by the 5090 hardware review so far, but the transformer model is chefs kiss for RTX owners. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts and testimonials for those willing to get it running.

 

[JustBenching]

Ok so there isn't much performance hit, I measured 4-6% between CNN Quality and Transformer Quality.

The biggest improvement for me , and I can't wrap my head around that, is in the Performance and Ultra performance modes. They really are playable. Before I couldn't use anything other than quality.

 

[TSiAhmat]

Ok so there isn't much performance hit, I measured 4-6% between CNN Quality and Transformer Quality.

The biggest improvement for me , and I can't wrap my head around that, is in the Performance and Ultra performance modes. They really are playable. Before I couldn't use anything other than quality.

On which gpu did you test?

 

[JustBenching]

On which gpu did you test?

4090 @ 320 watts.

 

[TSiAhmat]

Would be interesting to see if there are bigger differences between generations or even skews (% wise)

 

[mrpaco]

On talos, I lose an average of 4/5% over dlss 3.5, both on quality and dlaa.

the image quality is better, but not perfect, sometimes looks oversharpened.

I will use it if needed over previous versions though, overall is an improvement even if you lose a bit of fps. Way less blurry

DLAA

DLSS Quality

 

[nguyen]

Just tried Cyberpunk 2077 @4K DLSS Performance with the Transformer model and just like @wolf said, it's pin sharp in motion, looks like the blurriness of TAA is completely gone.

Now it looks slightly too sharp for me LOL, probably takes some time to get used to it.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Just tried Cyberpunk 2077 @4K DLSS Performance with the Transformer model and just like @wolf said, it's pin sharp in motion, looks like the blurriness of TAA is completely gone.

Now it looks slightly too sharp for me LOL, probably takes some time to get used to it.

Probably just a side effect of years of blurry ass games....

 

[chrcoluk]

Ok so there isn't much performance hit, I measured 4-6% between CNN Quality and Transformer Quality.

The biggest improvement for me , and I can't wrap my head around that, is in the Performance and Ultra performance modes. They really are playable. Before I couldn't use anything other than quality.

Quite some miracle on your AMD Radeon 6700S.

 

[wolf]

This honestly could make a 9070XT a potentially tougher sell to someone like me (4k VRR<120hz gamer, happy to leverage upscaling), I need to see how good FSR4 is, and where it lies on the spectrum of maybe caught up to DLSS ~3.8.x CNN, fell short, matches transformer and so on. I eagerly await the likes of Digital Foundry's analysis, and our own comparisons. I may even be over estimating the performance difference vs CNN DLSS on Ampere.

@maxus24 - do you intend to do a comparison article of the native implementation of the transformer model against CNN and other upscalers in CP2077 2.21?

This new model is already so good I can safely say I'd happily run DLSS performance mode if I need to at 4k, and just roll the 3080 for longer if new gen stuff fails to meet my buying criteria.

Interesting that the 5090 is such a lukewarm/meh launch overall but DLSS Transformer has generated an absolute tonne of buzz and excitement. If any of the other cards hit a good mix of availability, price etc, Transformer is some sweet icing on that cake.

 

[ViperXTR]

In Cyberpunk, the most noticeable for me is the noise reduction. All NPC or character faces have this freckles when path tracing is enabled with ray reconstruction. Now they look clean and facial imperfection is more noticeable now

Works great on other games. Tried it on Stalker 2, on old DLSS, even on DLAA the top of the trees would smear or blur up, now the image remains stable even when moving.

 

[Ruru]

I usually use DLSS Q if needed as I have a 4K monitor so I prefer playing at 4K. Isn't that rendered at 1440p and then upscaled? I have nothing to complain about the image quality vs. "real" 4K.

 

[wolf]

I usually use DLSS Q if needed as I have a 4K monitor so I prefer playing at 4K. Isn't that rendered at 1440p and then upscaled? I have nothing to complain about the image quality vs. "real" 4K.

Yep what you said is spot on, but this new DLSS DLL file / model (called Transformer vs the older Convolutional Neural Network model) that it uses is also clearly superior to the old one, running quality mode vs Native+TAA I just don't see native winning at all anymore. I'm finding Performance mode at 4k with Transformer to look incredible too.

 

[Zazigalka]

gurus on g3d found the new driver, say it improves the performance hit.

GeForce 571.96 Beta Driver

New CUDA Toolkit 12.8 contains GeForce 571.96 Beta Driver. https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads

forums.guru3d.com

 

[Ruru]

Yep what you said is spot on, but this new DLSS DLL file / model (called Transformer vs the older Convolutional Neural Network model) that it uses is also clearly superior to the old one, running quality mode vs Native+TAA I just don't see native winning at all anymore. I'm finding Performance mode at 4k with Transformer to look incredible too.

Alright, I need to check that out later.

 

[ViperXTR]

gurus on g3d found the new driver, say it improves the performance hit.

GeForce 571.96 Beta Driver

New CUDA Toolkit 12.8 contains GeForce 571.96 Beta Driver. https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads

forums.guru3d.com

Tested this on CP2077 and it does minimize the perf hit of the new dlss. I could only see it improving moving forward.
Be wary though that this new driver will crash Nvidia profile inspector

 

[Zazigalka]

Tested this on CP2077 and it does minimize the perf hit of the new dlss. I could only see it improving moving forward.
Be wary though that this new driver will crash Nvidia profile inspector

when is the actual non-beta coming out ?

 

[ViperXTR]

when is the actual non-beta coming out ?

No idea, but i assume the official one is next week, it's the RTX 50 drivers afterall, with the release of the 5090 on Jan 30.

Btw, is CP2077 already using the new Reflex 2?

 

[Zazigalka]

tried it, not much changed. but to be fair I didn't see much performance hit even on old drivers, weirdly enough. Ppl reported -10% or more, I only saw 4.5% max in one location out of six I tested.

 

[JustBenching]

With that much improvement in dlss performance mode, we can now completely skip 1440p monitors and go 4k instead, even with midrange gpus. I'll test it out on the weekend but I'm already betting money 4k dlss per looks better than native 1440p. That is revolutionary, and thanks to nvidia being pro consumer it's available for very very old cards as well.

 

[Macro Device]

4k dlss per looks better than native 1440p

If we talk 1440p with native TAA (not DLAA!) then it had already been better at 4K@DLSS P in late '23. Not in all games but still. Since CNN improved since then and since TF is even better I can wager you might occasionally beat 1440p+DLAA with 4K+DLSSP.

//that wasn't my RTX GPU and its owner blew town for good because of legal troubles so I was left with my RX 6700 XT and can't test DLSS anymore

 

[Zazigalka]

Probably just a side effect of years of blurry ass games....

yeah. taa is just awful, can't imagine people still prefer native+taa. It looks blurry enough in static shots, let alone in motion, where it's just a total mess.
dlss q/b look sharper, but leave a little more jaggies in static shots. They look much clearer in motion though.
The real winner is and has always been DLAA, it's close to pixel perfect in static shots and in motion as well.
comparison:

Imgsli