NVIDIA RTX owners only - your opinion on DLSS 2.0 Image quality

[wolf]

Many thanks @the54thvoid for getting us back on track.

Actually since that I've just remembered, anyone playing High on Life? I started some weeks ago though XBGP, and played a few hours then went away, came back to find an update had dropped adding DLSS, FSR and XeSS! (the way it's meant to be, add them all!), now the more interesting part here is that they've implemented the DLSS preset "Ultra Quality" - what is the scale factor that uses? I'm getting 120fps flatline using DLSS UQ and optimised settings, before DLSS was added it was ~75-110fps. Needless to say it looks great, just piqued my curiousity about scale factors.

 

[Bomby569]

it does it's job and unless you abuse it, the image quality is very good, i wouldn't say better, but i play games i don't inspect pixels, it's a general idea, if i see shimmer, missing lines, etc...

 

[wolf]

I like how the OP starts off with some stuff about just dlss 2 no bitchin yet just posted that joyous rebuttal of FSR.

I didn't mention it because of the OP content, but funny none the less.

The alleged "joyous" rebuttal of FSR was necessary to include or people would have asked, where FSR? It's certainly relevant in context and gets acknowledged and even praised where appropriate, it's better than not also having it, more options for everyone.

And the "no bitchin" is specifically for people not currently/at all using it.

If you're rocking a main RTX card in your gaming rig and use DLSS, I want to hear from you, if not, isn't it obvious why that opinion might mean less to me in a thread titled as it is.

if i see shimmer, missing lines, etc...

See I fine that's what DLSS cleans up, the image is super stable, and fine detail is enhanced.

 

[Dragam1337]

My opinion of dlss : i can see why people would want the performance boost, but i prefer NOT using dlss, unless running 8k, where it is kinda a necessity atm.

 

[Beelzeboss]

I use a 1080p 27'' IPS screen. With my previous 2060 Super, I loved using DLSS because it performed AND looked better than native. Upgraded to 6800XT and I have to stick to native + TAA because FSR looks way uglier

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Many thanks @the54thvoid for getting us back on track.

Actually since that I've just remembered, anyone playing High on Life? I started some weeks ago though XBGP, and played a few hours then went away, came back to find an update had dropped adding DLSS, FSR and XeSS! (the way it's meant to be, add them all!), now the more interesting part here is that they've implemented the DLSS preset "Ultra Quality" - what is the scale factor that uses? I'm getting 120fps flatline using DLSS UQ and optimised settings, before DLSS was added it was ~75-110fps. Needless to say it looks great, just piqued my curiousity about scale factors.

Ultra quality at 4k runs at native 2954x1662 at 1440p it runs at 1970x1108 77% scale I might be off by 1 or 2 but it's pretty close to this.

I think the reason we don't see it in more games is the performance uplift is not very good. I do wish games still had the option though. I kinda wish it could scale up from 30% to 90% in steps of 10.

 

[wolf]

My opinion of dlss : i can see why people would want the performance boost, but i prefer NOT using dlss, unless running 8k, where it is kinda a necessity atm.

Fair enough, using a 4090 there wouldn't be much need for it, but you could use DLAA where available or tweak it in.

Ultra quality at 4k runs at native 2954x1662 at 1440p it runs at 1970x1108 77% scale I might be off by 1 or 2 but it's pretty close to this.

I think the reason we don't see it in more games is the performance uplift is not very good. I do wish games still had the option though. I kinda wish it could scale up from 30% to 90% in steps of 10.

thanks! 77% scale interesting. What I've wanted for a long time is like how it can be done in DOOM Eternal, dynamic resolution with an FPS target, but handled by DLSS, win win imo.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Fair enough, using a 4090 there wouldn't be much need for it, but you could use DLAA where available or tweak it in.

In older games that run in well excess of my LG G2 120hz refresh rate I use 2.25x DLDSR for like the tales games or Persona 5.

I don't really consider this running above 4k because it's still being downsampled to 4k it just looks super smooth.

That's the nicest thing about the 4090.

 

[wolf]

In older games that run in well excess of my LG G2 120hz refresh rate I use 2.25x DLDSR for like the tales games or Persona 5.

I don't really consider this running above 4k because it's still being downsampled to 4k it just looks super smooth.

That's the nicest thing about the 4090.

Yeah I've been able to use DLDSR in certain games even with the 3080 10GB at 4k, generally older or less intensive games, and I agree it looks absolutely stunning. Switch games running at 8k downsampled to 4k is something else too, but not really related to DLSS.

Crazy to think whatever I buy next that should be ~4090 performance or higher will be able to DLDSR so many current games beyond 4k lol.

 

[Mussels]

HUB recently did some testing of DLSS vs FSR, many of you will have seen. the best FSR could manage over 26 games was a tie, never once besting DLSS outright.

Off the back of that, HUB opted to test DLSS vs Native, and since FSR never won a comparison vs DLSS it wasn't worth coming in a 3 way shootout, just DLSS vs native.

Here's the table of results below. Tim going on to say that yes indeed, DLSS can give better than native results, broadly on par results, and of course lesser looking results, however on a balance of IQ and performance gained, DLSS is clearly the desirable one to enable if it's better than native and anywhere between much better and tied, and in his opinion still often desirable over native when it loses, if you aren't CPU limited or otherwise not gaining any performance from DLSS. Of course, if Native had better TAA, it would look better, hardly a shocker there, but Dev's virtually never go back and update TAA - probably the best version of that argument is to use a mod to get DLAA (or native DLAA support), or FSR and ratchet up the internal res to 0.9x-1x to just use it as AA. Tim also rightfully adds how easy it is to drop a new DLL in, which would have changed at least one result (RDR2), if not more of these results to favour DLSS, or tie. Tim also adds that developers should be updating games to have the latest/best DLL, and same for FSR versions - especially when the game is still actively being patched and updated.

Interesting results and it's great to see what I've been saying for quite some time now be thoroughly corroborated, which is; 'DLSS can look as good or better than native'. Naturally, I game at 4k where this tech is at it's most useful and thoroughly improves a given cards capability to drive that res.

View attachment 291888

I only regularly play one title with DLSS natively, and that's deep rock galactic.
Primarily at 4K, but saw similar results at 1440p.
DLSS at its highest quality setting somehow improved view distances - In the pre-mission space rig, text on the computer displays was legible from further away, almost as much as going from 1440p to 4K did.

Ironically, up close those same displays looked worse (especially with DLSS on auto quality) - In that same pre-launch area on the weapon selection screens and on the post-mission screens you can see your character models and weapons, and DLSS/FSR always looks atrocious in comparison - it's like they assume they're far away and less important despite being the only thing on screen and easy to render (low GPU usage)


The game has FSR, FSR 2 and DLSS - and there's a mod you can port from CP2077 to let DLSS run on unsupported GPU's translated from FSR2

In game it's crazy how they're all different

FSR looks like DLSS but one quality step down - so the second best DLSS preset looks like the best FSR. That works pretty well for everyone involved - one of my friends plays with a GT960 at 4K using FSR and 50% scaling because it's a work PC primarily, but that lets her run native res.

FSR2 looks like ass with ghosting and sharpening issues, but the DLSS mod/hack corrects it all, and those issues simply vanish. When this worked on my 1070/1070ti/1080 GPU's it's clearly not true DLSS, but it proves it's a software issue most of the time with how the damn things are implemented, like they don't have access to the motion/vectoring data they need to prevent the ghosting.

Sometimes it feels like they get given godawful generic presets by AMD or Nvidia and never test them out - like sharpening settings with no in-game slider to adjust them. It's just ran by someone as a patch, and then ticked off as completed with zero testing ever done.

 

[wolf]

@Mussels really appreciate the time you took to provide a detailed reply and go over the current gripes and wins, it's a strange time to be a gamer with all these solutions and as you say, they vary so much implementation to implementation, and then there's a few ways to improve via mods, dlss swaps and so on. I'm enjoying riding the wave tbh, so I find it strange some people want to die on the "native or bust" hill, and sure you should aim to have enough power to run the res you want natively, but these upscales can be and often are so good, you'd be a fool not to run them anyway, provided you're at a resolution and refresh rate where they can shine. Res certainly, but it was probably only 6-12 months ago DF did some testing showing that the higher the framerate, the better the results too, and it clicked instantly with *of course it would be*

 

[Mussels]

I'm only gaming on a 29" 2560x1080 ultrawide monitor. 'pixel count sits between 1080p and 1440p but closer to 1080p'

View attachment wkbai6fsq6o81.webp

You're getting a 1080p image with the top and bottom cut off in most titles, since they're hard coded for 16:9 aspect ratios (especially anything Esports related - they all lock it for "fairness")
I've never understood why people want or use ultrawides for gaming.


It's slightly off topic but important, in that DLSS and similar tech might misbehave in titles that are locked to 16:9 where things like UI elements are stretched out, and might get weird with upscaling tech

@Mussels really appreciate the time you took to provide a detailed reply and go over the current gripes and wins, it's a strange time to be a gamer with all these solutions and as you say, they vary so much implementation to implementation, and then there's a few ways to improve via mods, dlss swaps and so on. I'm enjoying riding the wave tbh, so I find it strange some people want to die on the "native or bust" hill, and sure you should aim to have enough power to run the res you want natively, but these upscales can be and often are so good, you'd be a fool not to run them anyway, provided you're at a resolution and refresh rate where they can shine. Res certainly, but it was probably only 6-12 months ago DF did some testing showing that the higher the framerate, the better the results too, and it clicked instantly with *of course it would be*

I've never understood some views on this, but it comes down to people learning everything they know about computer hardware from benchmarkers on youtube, who explain how to get good benchmark results but nothing about good gameplay...

Theres a huge thing in youtube circles about how your "GPU should always be at 100%" (This came up in the days before FPS limtiers, less input lag if you didnt hit refresh rate)
No, you always want GPU and CPU power to spare. You want that FPS cap so you always have frames on time, with no Vsync buffering... DLSS (and FSR) are major tools to achieve that.

 

[Sithaer]

View attachment 292732

You're getting a 1080p image with the top and bottom cut off in most titles, since they're hard coded for 16:9 aspect ratios (especially anything Esports related - they all lock it for "fairness")
I've never understood why people want or use ultrawides for gaming.

Yea but I do get more on the right-left side allowing me to see more of that part of the image, that in overall is more pixels than a 16:9 1080p screen so its a bit harder to run too. 'I get around 10 fps less than with standard 1080p'
Btw that example image in your post is a movie thats only scretched to fit 21:9, thats not how a proper 21:9 image looks like in games or movies that were recorded that way. This is also the monitor I use to watch movies on since I don't have a TV.
Some movies work perfectly well and some I have to watch with black borders on the sides or force fit them to full screen but that I rather not do cause it cuts off some parts.

I don't play e-sport/competitive games at all so I couldn't care less what they are locked to.

For me the 21:9 ratio is more immersive in singleplayer games like the Witcher serie/Mass Effect/Cyberpunk you get the point. I've been using this monitor/ratio since early 2019 and now I couldn't go back to a 16:9 monitor.
Also in games like Diablo 3 and soon 4 its actually helpful to see more on the sides, you can even teleport further using this aspect ratio. 'and this is why D4 will support a forced ultrawide ratio even on non UW monitors so ppl with it wont have an advantage'

So far since I have this monitor I've managed to find workarounds for almost every game I was playing to remove black bars in case they had bad or no 21:9 support by default, tinkering for a few mins is no big deal to me in return of a better game experience. 'again,for my subjective preference ofc'
Fighting games can have hard locked ratios cause the edge of the screen is part of the game like in DB FighterZ but those I rarely play anyway, Mortal Kombat 11 does work nicely tho.

I did not notice any weird issues with DLSS using this resolution as a base, works as it should.

You can find some comparison pics here that looks the way they normally do:
https://pcmonitors.info/articles/the-219-2560-x-1080-experience/

 

[wolf]

explain how to get good benchmark results but nothing about good gameplay....... .there's a huge thing in youtube circles about how your "GPU should always be at 100%" (This came up in the days before FPS limtiers, less input lag if you didnt hit refresh rate) No, you always want GPU and CPU power to spare. You want that FPS cap so you always have frames on time, with no Vsync buffering... DLSS (and FSR) are major tools to achieve that.

Spot on, and optimisation can be very unique, but I agree you should be aiming for a quality and fps target and set yourself up to have a bit of headroom, not pegged at 100% at all times just to get it. Not a hard and fast rule, some games take everything they can get, gpu power, CPU power, allocate as much vram as they can if you have a large pool, but often there's still ways to cap fps and set yourself up to be better optimised and more consistent.

 

[Mussels]

Yea but I do get more on the right-left side allowing me to see more of that part of the image, that in overall is more pixels than a 16:9 1080p screen so its a bit harder to run too. 'I get around 10 fps less than with standard 1080p'
Btw that example image in your post is a movie thats only scretched to fit 21:9, thats not how a proper 21:9 image looks like in games or movies that were recorded that way. This is also the monitor I use to watch movies on since I don't have a TV.
Some movies work perfectly well and some I have to watch with black borders on the sides or force fit them to full screen but that I rather not do cause it cuts off some parts.

I don't play e-sport/competitive games at all so I couldn't care less what they are locked to.

For me the 21:9 ratio is more immersive in singleplayer games like the Witcher serie/Mass Effect/Cyberpunk you get the point. I've been using this monitor/ratio since early 2019 and now I couldn't go back to a 16:9 monitor.
Also in games like Diablo 3 and soon 4 its actually helpful to see more on the sides, you can even teleport further using this aspect ratio. 'and this is why D4 will support a forced ultrawide ratio even on non UW monitors so ppl with it wont have an advantage'

So far since I have this monitor I've managed to find workarounds for almost every game I was playing to remove black bars in case they had bad or no 21:9 support by default, tinkering for a few mins is no big deal to me in return of a better game experience. 'again,for my subjective preference ofc'
Fighting games can have hard locked ratios cause the edge of the screen is part of the game like in DB FighterZ but those I rarely play anyway, Mortal Kombat 11 does work nicely tho.

I did not notice any weird issues with DLSS using this resolution as a base, works as it should.

You can find some comparison pics here that looks the way they normally do:
https://pcmonitors.info/articles/the-219-2560-x-1080-experience/

That image is exactly how any 16:9 game appears on widescreen, most do not support other aspect ratios. My point is that many games do not behave the way you would expect them to, they remove the vertical instead of adding horizontal and that can get screwier with DLSS and any scaling tech, since they expect 16:9

It's often a major complaint from console ports, but Esports titles also do it - and RTS titles that work in those resolutions have horribly stretched UI's because of it
They arent adding more horizontally, because then you'd get a more zoomed OUT view, and you'd have trouble seeing any of those details - very few games make that choice to do so.
2D desktop usage is of course, entirely different.


This is what you see if you use the same monitor to compare, and gives the illusion you're adding more wide - but the actual in-game image is intended to be much taller than any of those, they're all equally missing it.

comparing with different physical displays shows a different situation, where you're missing a lot of vertical content
The image is cropped, and the UI elements shifted around - but in order to have you see the same "zoom" you've lost a lot of detail there, look at the missing arm

That user posted an example of the lost detail with an MSpaint job

Sorry for going offtopic, this was just intended to be a warning about possible artifacting depending on how the game handles the aspect ratio
(And if you google the ultrawide cropping, it's not something game devs seem to care about at all)

 

[Sithaer]

That image is exactly how any 16:9 game appears on widescreen, most do not support other aspect ratios. My point is that many games do not behave the way you would expect them to, they remove the vertical instead of adding horizontal and that can get screwier with DLSS and any scaling tech, since they expect 16:9

It's often a major complaint from console ports, but Esports titles also do it - and RTS titles that work in those resolutions have horribly stretched UI's because of it
They arent adding more horizontally, because then you'd get a more zoomed OUT view, and you'd have trouble seeing any of those details - very few games make that choice to do so.
2D desktop usage is of course, entirely different.


This is what you see if you use the same monitor to compare, and gives the illusion you're adding more wide - but the actual in-game image is intended to be much taller than any of those, they're all equally missing it.
View attachment 292734

comparing with different physical displays shows a different situation, where you're missing a lot of vertical content
The image is cropped, and the UI elements shifted around - but in order to have you see the same "zoom" you've lost a lot of detail there, look at the missing arm
View attachment 292743

That user posted an example of the lost detail with an MSpaint job
View attachment 292744



Sorry for going offtopic, this was just intended to be a warning about possible artifacting depending on how the game handles the aspect ratio
(And if you google the ultrawide cropping, it's not something game devs seem to care about at all)

This depends on the game, actually I did play Hellblade first on my 16:9 1080p monitor and then second playthrough on my current 21:9 and to me that was more enjoyable in general. 'game on the example pics'
To my eyes the one with the more screen space on the sides look better, its simple as that.
Like I said I'm yet to run into any issues using DLSS on this monitor or badly displayed UIs save it for a very few examples like Devil may cry 5 that had a missplaced UI/health bar. 'this res even works with the MMO I've used to play for 7+years with no UI issues and thats an old ass game'
FoV setting ingame I ususally leave it to default which is ~70-75 with my resolution.

Right now I'm playing Serious Sam 4 and it works flawlessly during gameplay, only the cutscenes are not supported properly.

Anyway also sorry for the Off but this I felt like answering from a personal perspective since I do own and use this monitor for 4+ years now with barely any issues so to speak of/ DLSS included.

Btw you are free to open a topic discussing 16:9 vs 21:9 or something, I think there are a few 21:9 users on this forum who could share their experience.

 

[Clockmaster77]

Having an RTX3060 GA104 12Gb, I can say for sure DLSS 2.0 greatly increases my GPU performance with a negligible loss of quality. I use it at "quality" and "balanced" settings. Something I tested the "performance" mode too, and, under some circustances, I was very positively surprised,but consider in this case a much more consistent loss of quality. I am amazed and impressed by DLSS2.x . I can only imagine the advantages of 3.x in the RTX 4XXX series.

 

[gffermari]

Artifacts or other graphical glitches exist even when playing something without upscaling.
So using DLSS doesn't change or even improve the image quality in some cases.

In general I can't see any differences between native and upscaled image, taking into account that I always use DLSS Balanced or Quality modes (on 2080Ti in the past and on 4080 now).

DLSS 3 is different story and topic though.
I find it beneficial for SP games where latency doesn't affect the gameplay.
But as Steve from Hardware Unboxed said, we shouldn't refer to FG fps as normal fps.
We should compare real frames or upscaled frames to each other and not generated frames when reviewing a hardware.

 

[Turmeric]

i have a 4k monitor and aim for 120+ fps, dlss2 seems to be overall beneficial so far in most games. but the games that actual supports it is low so my sample size is limited. and the new entry that is tsr with unreal 5.1 engine seems to do better than dlss when i tested a game with the different upscaling features.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

i have a 4k monitor and aim for 120+ fps, dlss2 seems to be overall beneficial so far in most games. but the games that actual supports it is low so my sample size is limited. and the new entry that is tsr with unreal 5.1 engine seems to do better than dlss when i tested a game with the different upscaling features.

I still find DLSS quality to be better in motion than the highest TSR setting but I do generally like TSR better than FSR.

The issue is the only game that I've compared them in is Fortnite and there really isn't much fine detail to begin with.

 

[nguyen]

with XeSS 1.1 in CP2077 being pretty close to DLSS, I tried out 4K XeSS Performance vs 1440p Native and the result are very interesting

Not only 4K XeSS Performance look much better than 1440p Native, it also give 20% higher FPS. The "Native is best" crowds (without RTX GPUs) should really consider upsampling + XeSS at this point.

 

[Calenhad]

I have a powerful enough GPU that I don't care about DLSS in most games. I do use it in some, and can't say I notice any difference in image quality. As long as I use the quality DLSS options.

This is what you see if you use the same monitor to compare, and gives the illusion you're adding more wide - but the actual in-game image is intended to be much taller than any of those, they're all equally missing it.
View attachment 292734

Your Hellblade images are an example of the opposite of what you are saying. It is a HOR+ title, more content is added in the horisontal plane with a wider display. So it is a net gain. How DLSS affects the image quality that far from the center focal point is beyond my expertise, but that is the only potentially negative result I can think of.
Modern games are made for the 16:9 aspect ratio after all. Good old games are a different story. But people can research this themselves, modern games are either HOR+ or VER- with regards to ultra-wide displays. Or they just flat out refuse to run anything other than 16:9 of course.

 

[wolf]

DLSS 3 is different story and topic though.

I've made a similarly titled thread for owners to discuss DLSS3 / frame generation if you're interested

 

[cvaldes]

This discussion is over two years old and I forget if I replied before.

Over time, DLSS 2 technology itself has certainly improved and game developers are getting better at implementing it. DLSS 2 in April 2021 is not the same as April 2023. When it first came out, there were poor implementations of the technology (same with FSR and XeSS).

It's important to emphasize that DLSS is not a universal band-aid. It works better for some types of content better that others, some scenes better than others, even with the same game title.

It must be stressed that all these upscaling technologies need a certain amount of data to start with. None of these technologies work particularly well for 1080p final display. They do work better for 1440p and 2160p display because there is enough starting data to work from.

It's also very important to note that picking over details in a screenshot with a magnifying glass isn't particularly relevant for real-world usage. Many of the benefits come with video (i.e., moving not still images) at full screen, not looking at a tiny streaming video playback window featuring video that has been compressed a second time.

Most of the videogame review sites have done repeated detailed analyses of the various upscaling technologies and have noted advantages and disadvantages to the technologies and how well/poor they are implemented in a given game title by its developer.

Generally speaking I find that DLSS 2 in Quality Mode for 1440p or 2160p display resolution provides gameplay footage that is visually equivalent to pure rasterization techniques. For raytracing features, an upscaling technology is pretty much required to maintain decent framerates.

The best thing? People don't have to use it. You can turn it off on RTX cards. I know it's fashionable to complain online but the fact of the matter is that no one can please everyone all the time. If you don't like DLSS, just turn it off. Or buy Radeon. Or Intel. Or Apple. Or...

I expect the same improvement in raytracing implementation over time. RT implementations will get better, both in hardware as well as by game developers. RT reflections can provide stunning results. So far, RT ambient occlusion and RT shadows have less visible benefits vis-a-vis their performance hit. Five years from now, I think RT features will be better handled. One thing I do know: it won't happen overnight.

 

[nguyen]

Many thanks @the54thvoid for getting us back on track.

Actually since that I've just remembered, anyone playing High on Life? I started some weeks ago though XBGP, and played a few hours then went away, came back to find an update had dropped adding DLSS, FSR and XeSS! (the way it's meant to be, add them all!), now the more interesting part here is that they've implemented the DLSS preset "Ultra Quality" - what is the scale factor that uses? I'm getting 120fps flatline using DLSS UQ and optimised settings, before DLSS was added it was ~75-110fps. Needless to say it looks great, just piqued my curiousity about scale factors.

I just tried High on Life and yeah there are some weird things with DLSS Ultra Quality vs Quality
1. FPS is actually higher than Quality
2. Texture is better anti aliased, but there are more shimmering vs Quality mode

Man replacing the stock DLL 2.4.0 to 2.5.1 vastly improve image quality, making 4K DLSS Quality easily better than Native, while offering 70% higher FPS, crazy stuff

2.4.0 vs 2.5.1
pixels crawling is pretty much gone with 2.5.1