Nvidia's DLSS was counted out too soon, DF shows how Switch game can look with it

Nvidia DLSS which was originally a laughing stock when it first came out has greatly improved over time. You could see with early DLSS titles like Metro Exodus that months after it was released it recieved updates that made it less blurry but DLSS implementation made a significant improvement with Control. Now Wolfenstein Youngblood has taken it even further. In Digital Foundry's Wolfenstein Youngblood video their side by side comparisons of the 4k DLSS Quality mode actually showed more details than native 4k. They also demonstrated the DLSS the indie game Deliver Us The Moon which recently got RTX support also looking better than native 1080p. This is great news since it appears we won't be mastering 4k just yet anytime soon and by the time we're able to play games in native 4k with ray tracing, high end graphics and 60+fps they'll be trying to push 8k resolution on us. I wonder what consoles are gonna do since AMD doesn't have any DLSS alternative of their own and DLSS at this point has surpassed checkerboard rendering.

In their latest video of the possibilities of a next gen Nintendo Switch using DLSS by running Switch captured footage through the latest Nvidia Shield's AI enhanced upscaling. It seems the current Nintendo Switch could have really benefited from DLSS or at the very least devs using TAA could have at least put in a sharpening filter.

I used DLSS on games like Metro Exodus, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Control. Tomb Raider didn't give you a choice because it was only able to use a single lower res at the time. DLSS works by rendering at a lower than native resolution and using its algorithm to estimate how it should look at the higher native resolution via hardware. Control actually let's you set the internal resolution to try to maximize performance at 1440p and 4k. It's really impressive in Control how much the DLSS effect looks like the native resolution but provides much higher performance. Now that I think about it, I wonder how DLSS works for Final Fantasy XV?

As for a Switch Pro now that we know it's not going to happen, I think it's best Nintendo's interest is to have a brand new next-gen console to take full advantage on DLSS and revamping Switch now is going to be a grave mistake. See New 3DS.

Interesting video. There was a HDMI cable you could get ages ago with a built in upscaler that could improve image quality when scaling up lower res images. I thought nintendo would look into something like that (or more likely an upgraded dock with an upscaler built in) as a way to improve image quality for the switch without upgrading the SOC itself.

But this makes more sense. As a PC gamer: i'm not a fan of stuff that really tampers with the image. things like checkerboard rendering, TAA and DLSS...i dunno....just cure worse than the disease type thing. Maybe i just saw really bad implementations.

But for improving the results from something like the switch (and even a PS5 and XsX) it makes an awful lot of sense. The artifacts generated from tech like TAA seem to be a lot less noticeable when the user is further away from the screen.

As mentioned: the switch Pro has been debunked.....for now. but i would be amazed if nintendo dont use this tech in a switch pro or switch2. I dont think its something they can just bolt onto the switch at the moment though: integration would require quite a big change to the SOC.

....unless they manage to integrate post process TAA/DLSS into a switch dock pro. .....Maybe?

@NoodleFighter:

AMD based GPUs have "Radeon Image Sharpening".

Web page version from https://www.techspot.com/article/1873-radeon-image-sharpening-vs-nvidia-dlss/

Radeon Image Sharpening at ~70 percent 4K is superior to DLSS with 1440p.

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https://wccftech.com/an-xbox-game-studio-is-experimenting-with-shipping-low-res-textures-to-be-ai-upscaled-in-real-time/

Microsoft's Xbox Game Studio is working on AI (Deep Learning) upscaling textures in real-time.

For example

AI-upscaled textures (from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind) through the ESRGAN ML model.

AI (Deep Learning/Machine Learning) accelerated hardware support is important for real-time raytracing denoise pass process, hence RDNA v2 would need to improve AI (Deep Learning) accelerated hardware support when compared to RX Vega II and RX-5700 XT.

Microsoft's DirectML API enables Turing's Tensor cores to be used like DirectX compute resources.

ESRGAN ML real-time texture upscaling model would be nice for backwards compatibility.

RX Vega II and NAVI 10 have Deep Learning instructions that are shared with common CU resources and also need DirectML API to make use of it. RDNA v2 needs to improve AI (Deep Learning) accelerated hardware performance due to real-time raytracing needs.

DLSS needs time, nvidia stated how the technology works. Its a learning process for the AI they apply and it takes time for it to improve. I am curious towards the 3000 series and see how that goes. With nvenc chip set its going to be absolutely fantastic.

@davillain-: Since there is no next gen Switch I'll just change title to say how switch games could look with DLSS.

@osan0: Like it or not things like DLSS, TAA, Render/Resolution Scaling and Dynamic resolutions are becoming more and more common graphical options on PC. So there must be enough people using it if devs feel like it has to be a graphical option. I like render scaling because sometimes I can't get a consistent 60fps at 4k and I don't want to drop all the way down to 1440p (well this is before I got a screen that has 120hz at 1440p) but the games with that option allow me to just drop it by 10% to keep it locked and I barely notice a difference between it and full 4K. Or I choose 1440p for 120hz/fps but I get more FPS than I need I can use render scaling to increase the pixel quality while not switching to 4k not be stuck with 60hz. I don't really like dynamic resolution since games still look very noticeable lower quality in comparison to native. DLSS just had bad implementations in the beginning but has gotten really good now. The differences are hard to tell even when zoomed in.

I wish I had an RTX card right now so I could play Monster Hunter World with DLSS at a resolution above 1440p with 50-60fps. I have a GTX 1080 but 4k is not an option in that game unless I drop graphics all the way down so I can get more than 30fps. If my GTX 1080 supported DLSS I could have played with a nice imitation of 4k that looks better than 1440p without any severe performance hit.

I wonder if Nvidia will ever combined DLSS with DSR so people with 1080p screens can uses DLSS to get resolution qualities better than 1080p but don't have the severe performance hit of just regular DSR 4k imitations.

A next gen Switch would definitely use it since Nvidia has implemented into their newest Shield devices. By the time Switch 2 comes it should be easy enough to produce without impacting price much. I wonder if AMD will later make their own DLSS alternative and the PS5 and XsX get mid gen upgrades with it or if they'll simply just implement it into slim versions of the base consoles like how HDR was done since the launch PS4 and Xbox Ones don't support it.

I am still not convinced of DLSS quality and prefer to run at native resolution.

Idk, AMD tech seems to work better from the impression given by tech sites.

@ronvalencia:I forgot about AMD Radeon Sharpening I just assumed it was a simple sharpening filter. Good to know AMD also has their own deep learning tech. Now I really wanna see how next gen consoles put it to use. Cool to know that their is a DirectX API that can use tensor cores for direct compute so now they aren't just some useless piece of tech when you aren't using DLSS.

I just read the AI texture enhancement article and that is pretty interesting. If they can achieve that without having to use the cloud then this can be a real game changer.

@sakaixx: When it was compared to early DLSS, AMD's sharpening worked better. I'd like to see how well AMD's RIS goes against more recent DLSS titles. There are some downsides to RIS currently which is that it doesn't work with DX11 titles at the moment and there are several games that are DirectX 11 only or work better on DX11 than DX12. Not all games have resolution scaling either so DLSS has that advantage as well since for example in's post their is statement saying 70% of 4k with AMD RIS is superior to DLSS 1440p but if you don't have the option to scale the resolution you can't achieve that result. But overall AMD's RIS is better since it has more support in games, although with how iffy

I'd really like to see a new comparison between AMD RIS and DLSS. It's a shame Wolfenstein Youngblood doesn't have a resolution scaling option. I wonder if Control can be a good example to use since you can change the render resolution although not as precise as with a percentage input. Shame that comparison techspot/hardware unboxed did was just a month before it released.

@NoodleFighter:

FYI , Radeon driver 19.12.2 with Radeon Image Sharpening (RIS) for DX11 titles.

https://hothardware.com/reviews/radeon-software-adrenaline-2020-edition

Integer Scaling joins Radeon Image Sharpening to create a formidable one-two combination of image sharpening tools. When RIS was announced, it was a Navi-only feature. Now, that support has been expanded to include not only the Vega GPU architecture, but all the way back to GCN cards, too. Raven Ridge's Vega-based integrated graphics gain support, as well. AMD has also extended RIS to work with DirectX 11 titles, too.

@NoodleFighter:

Read https://www.techspot.com/review/1903-dlss-vs-freestyle-vs-ris/

The bigger addition to this new driver is a new Freestyle Sharpening Filter. Just recently we looked at AMD’s Radeon Image Sharpening (RIS) and came to the conclusion that Nvidia’s (now dated) Freestyle sharpening was not up to par from neither a visual quality nor performance standpoint. But Nvidia has revamped their sharpening option available through Freestyle. This new filter sits as a standalone option, separate from the detail filter, that’s simply called “Sharpen”. It can be used in all the ways that Freestyle has been accessible for years, so that means on any Nvidia GPU through GeForce Experience, provided the game is included in Nvidia’s whitelist of over 600 titles covering all of DX9, DX11, DX12 and Vulkan APIs.

...

Set the game to a 75% resolution scale, or around 1800p, and slap on a high quality sharpening filter like this new Freestyle filter or RIS and it’s almost like you’re playing at the native resolution but with a significant performance bump

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Bottom Line

Overall we think this situation is really interesting. AMD introducing RIS may have forced Nvidia to act in updating their sharpening filter available through Freestyle. In the process, they have created a better solution than DLSS which was advertised as a key selling point for RTX graphics cards. Big win for gamers.

Competition in these areas means more innovation and better solutions for PC gamers everywhere. The new Nvidia Freestyle feature is much better than what came before, and on top of that Nvidia owners now get their own ultra low latency mode and other improvements like 30-bit color support, all driven by competition.

I use it in some games, it is pretty over rated if you run at native resolution.

Ruins games like Resident Evil 2 remake.

@ronvalencia: AMD did some nice work now if only they had cards that could compete with the RTX 2080/S and 2080 ti. It's great that they pressured Nvidia into stepping it up with their sharpening filter. I hope as many games as possible in the future support resolution scaling. I wonder this will leave DLSS with. Nvidia could possibly tweak to have the ability to enhance textures like Esgran. I hope devs experiment with using tensor cores for compute processes.

I have been playing Wolfenstein: Youngblood with DLSS and ray tracing and it does actually look pretty good. So, I retract my previous statement. I am now a believer.

Its OK, you are typically wrong anyway.

Yeah, I am seriously impressed with the RT and DLSS combo for Wolfenstein: Youngblood. You don't have to sacrifice performance when enabling RT....

@BassMan: Nice the image is so clear and I zoomed in several times to see that there was barely jagged edges.

Does DLSS cause a blur effect in motion?

Not that I notice. If the DLSS implementation is poor, blur will be an issue regardless if the image is static or in motion. DLSS in Metro Exodus is shit. It is so fuckin blurry. However, it looks great in Wolfenstein: Youngblood and I played through the whole game with it on. So, I am excited to see how future titles make use of it.

It's something I don't like about a lot of modern day graphics. You get ultra sharp graphics at say 1440p and 3440x1440 or higher resolutions. And then at the end post processing TAA is used to elminate jaggies and it blurs up the whole image.

MSAA is a godsend though, makes games look ultra sharp. And the performance hit is justifiable.

I hope DLSS has a good future too. Will probably differ from game to game, as you described.

I am generally not a fan of post-processing AA either because of blur. Metro Exodus suffers from this as well without DLSS. 4A Games has their own Analytical Anti-Aliasing built into their engine and it results in a blurry image. I set Nvidia image sharpening to 0.70 to combat it. So, imagine Metro Exodus without sharpening and then DLSS on top.... it is a blurfest. Even with image sharpening, it still looks like shit with DLSS.

It really depends on the type of game you are playing. Control does well while using DLSS and I didn't experience any blur issues.