The lowest spec new RTX Blackwell GPU is capable of frame rates akin to the $1,599 RTX 4090 of the previous generation, though likely only through new DLSS 4 AI smarts.
DLSS without frame generation is at least equivalent (sometimes superior) to a native image though.
It really isn’t though. DLSS produces artifacts, especially for quick camera movements as well as things like hair and vegetation. Those artifacts get heavier the smaller the native rendering resolution is. It also differs quite a lot between implementations. In some games it looks better, in others worse (e.g. Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Stalker 2).
But my point wasn’t to bash DLSS anyway. It’s a good technology, especially for lower powered devices. I use it in many games on my 2070s. But Nvidia using this technology to claim “4090 performance” on a card that really has far less power than a 4090 is dishonest and misleading. To make an honest comparison, you’d use the same settings and parameters on both cards.
Dlss completely hid a small thing I needed to find in a puzzle game. There are game design drawbacks to having the gpu overwrite a bunch of the graphics. A spiffed up image that looks like the game you are playing isn’t necessarily preserving details you need.
It was the circular oasis level of talos principle 2 on a WQUXGA display. I didn’t capture screenshots. https://eip.gg/guides/the-talos-principle-2-south-3-star-statue-puzzles/ If you look at images 9 and 14, the little prism that the red beam connects to was completely erased by dlss. I had to just scan around until the icon for establishing a connection popped up.
I’ve never gone below quality (never felt the need to), that’s why I was asking. Since lower DLSS settings render the game at a lower resolution, you might have unknowingly (probably to the developers as well) picked a setting that broke this particular puzzle.
I’ve only ever noticed slight shimmering on hair, but not movement artifacts. Maybe it’s less noticeable on high refresh rate monitors - or perhaps I’m blind to them, kind of how a few decades ago, I did not notice frame rates being in the single digits…
This hair shimmering is an issue even at native resolution though, simply due to the subpixel detail common in AAA titles now. The developers of Dragon Age The Veilguard solved the problem by using several rendering passes just for the hair:
This technique involves splitting the hair into two distinct passes, first opaque, and then transparent. To split the hair up, we added an alpha cutoff to the render pass that composites the hair with the world and first renders the hair that is above the cutoff (>=1, opaque), and subsequently the hair that is lower than the cutoff (transparent).
Before these split passes are rendered, we render the depth of the transparent part of the hair. Mostly this is just the ends of the hair strands. This texture will be used as a spatial barrier between transparent pixels that are “under” and “on top” of the strand hair.
It really isn’t though. DLSS produces artifacts, especially for quick camera movements as well as things like hair and vegetation. Those artifacts get heavier the smaller the native rendering resolution is. It also differs quite a lot between implementations. In some games it looks better, in others worse (e.g. Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Stalker 2).
But my point wasn’t to bash DLSS anyway. It’s a good technology, especially for lower powered devices. I use it in many games on my 2070s. But Nvidia using this technology to claim “4090 performance” on a card that really has far less power than a 4090 is dishonest and misleading. To make an honest comparison, you’d use the same settings and parameters on both cards.
Dlss completely hid a small thing I needed to find in a puzzle game. There are game design drawbacks to having the gpu overwrite a bunch of the graphics. A spiffed up image that looks like the game you are playing isn’t necessarily preserving details you need.
Huh, I’ve never heard of that before. Do you have screenshots? Which game at which resolution and DLSS setting?
It was the circular oasis level of talos principle 2 on a WQUXGA display. I didn’t capture screenshots. https://eip.gg/guides/the-talos-principle-2-south-3-star-statue-puzzles/ If you look at images 9 and 14, the little prism that the red beam connects to was completely erased by dlss. I had to just scan around until the icon for establishing a connection popped up.
Interesting, thank you! Which DLSS setting were you using?
It’s been a while so I’m not sure I remember but probably balanced with dlss on. That game doesn’t expose much for dlss specific settings in the ui.
I’ve never gone below quality (never felt the need to), that’s why I was asking. Since lower DLSS settings render the game at a lower resolution, you might have unknowingly (probably to the developers as well) picked a setting that broke this particular puzzle.
Yes, DLSS/FSR/XeSS are great, but are there bcs of lack of performance, a substitute to lowering resolution.
I would never use it if I didn’t have to.
I’ve only ever noticed slight shimmering on hair, but not movement artifacts. Maybe it’s less noticeable on high refresh rate monitors - or perhaps I’m blind to them, kind of how a few decades ago, I did not notice frame rates being in the single digits…
This hair shimmering is an issue even at native resolution though, simply due to the subpixel detail common in AAA titles now. The developers of Dragon Age The Veilguard solved the problem by using several rendering passes just for the hair:
Source:
https://www.ea.com/technology/news/strand-hair-dragon-age-the-veilguard