Disappointed in Nvidia DSR - introduces blur

[BD2003]

wow this looks to be a great article. will read it when I come from work
thanks

Yeah, it's a really good one.

After a few days of trying stuff out I'm finding that the best results are obtained by combining multiple types of AA. For instance, 2x MSAA + 2x DSR + FXAA. Each type has its own advantages and compensates for the other's flaws. The thing about AA is that it's not one problem, it's 5 problems. Geometry edges, transparencies, subpixel, texture and temporal aliasing all degrade the image in their own way, and there's no one technique that covers it all perfectly. Some AA methods even degrade the image while fixing other problems.

MSAA has a medium perf hit that will do a decent job with the edges and subpixels, but won't help with transparencies and the temporal aliasing that occurs within them.
MLAA/FXAA/SMAA will do an amazing job with edge AA and has practically zero perf hit, but does nothing for everything else and degrades texture quality in the process.
SSAA (in game, likely rotated/sparse grid) has a major performance hit, and improves all aspects..but you'll never have enough performance to spare to run it at max.
DSR has an OGSSAA component to it, which is inferior to RGSSAA as far as edge aliasing goes, but its compatibility is perfect and it increases texture detail. The other component is the gaussian filter that increases the width of the resolve and reduces subpixel/temporal aliasing.

So basically DSR's increased texture sampling is able to counteract FXAAs texture blurring - so you can get basically perfect edge AA by combining the two without losing any texture quality. If subpixels need more attention, you can use 4x MSAA + 2X DSR - this will give you 8x subpixel and edge samples, 2 transparency samples and still keep reasonable performance.

I'm starting to see how nvidia can really improve this in the future too - instead of a gaussian blur, they can use an FXAA type filter in DSR itself. Notably there's also some modes that don't give an even number of samples per pixel, like 1.5x....perhaps they can shift the weight of the resolve every frame and provide a pseudo temporal/jittered grid type of downsampling.

 

[SirPauly]

Maxwell's Dynamic Super Resolution explored

4K resolutions on smaller displays? Hmm

The combo of 4X oversampling for every single pixel and soft scaling to reduce temporal noise is pretty spectacular.

Overall, my takeaway is that DSR—especially at a 4X ratio—offers a considerable improvement in image quality for this extremely complex scene.

Nice investigation from a third party -- also compared other AA methods to DSR.

http://techreport.com/review/27102/maxwell-dynamic-super-resolution-explored

 

[BD2003]

Maxwell's Dynamic Super Resolution explored

4K resolutions on smaller displays? Hmm





Nice investigation from a third party -- also compared other AA methods to DSR.

http://techreport.com/review/27102/maxwell-dynamic-super-resolution-explored

http://techreport.com/review/27102/maxwell-dynamic-super-resolution-explored/3

In the first image you can really see how 2XDSR+FXAA actually looks better than 4XDSR alone.

IMO the best way to go about getting the best image quality in game:

If the game only supports MLAA/FXAA/SMAA, turn the MLAA to its max setting/precision, then add DSR.

If the game supports TXAA, turn TXAA to 4x and add DSR from there.

If the game supports variable SMAA, turn it to 4X, and add DSR from there.

If the game supports MSAA, force FXAA in the control panel if the game doesnt have it built in, then add DSR and MSAA in alternating steps.

If the game supports SSAA but not MSAA, force FXAA in the control panel if the game doesnt have it built in, then add in this pattern: DSR, MSAA, SSAA, MSAA.

I should build a flowchart, lol.

 

[sxr7171]

http://techreport.com/review/27102/maxwell-dynamic-super-resolution-explored/3

In the first image you can really see how 2XDSR+FXAA actually looks better than 4XDSR alone.

IMO the best way to go about getting the best image quality in game:

If the game only supports MLAA/FXAA/SMAA, turn the MLAA to its max setting/precision, then add DSR.

If the game supports TXAA, turn TXAA to 4x and add DSR from there.

If the game supports variable SMAA, turn it to 4X, and add DSR from there.

If the game supports MSAA, force FXAA in the control panel if the game doesnt have it built in, then add DSR and MSAA in alternating steps.

If the game supports SSAA but not MSAA, force FXAA in the control panel if the game doesnt have it built in, then add in this pattern: DSR, MSAA, SSAA, MSAA.

I should build a flowchart, lol.

Some great advice there. I'm afraid that even with a 780ti I cant run modern games with dsr plus those AA methods. With bf4 however I can run 150% resolution scaling (similar to dsr?) and 4x MSAA and FXAA. Otherwise I cannot.

This is the first time in a while I'm thinking about SLi again. I had a bad experience with dual 660GTXs so much that I don't want to go SLi but the meager improvements in the 980GTX are having me think about trying it again.

 

[BD2003]

Some great advice there. I'm afraid that even with a 780ti I cant run modern games with dsr plus those AA methods. With bf4 however I can run 150% resolution scaling (similar to dsr?) and 4x MSAA and FXAA. Otherwise I cannot.

This is the first time in a while I'm thinking about SLi again. I had a bad experience with dual 660GTXs so much that I don't want to go SLi but the meager improvements in the 980GTX are having me think about trying it again.

150% resolution scaling in BF4 is the equivalent of 2xDSR. (2880x1620 on a 1080p monitor). I don't think it's technically SSAA, since it's so granular - true RGSSAA would have to be a integer multiple. So there's no point mixing it with DSR or MSAA....just pick either resolution scale or DSR. At 25% smoothness they basically look the same.

I personally run 2880x1620, 2x MSAA and medium FXAA in BF4 on my 970. I could push the DSR a little higher but there I get a frame drop here or there.

 

[sxr7171]

150% resolution scaling in BF4 is the equivalent of 2xDSR. (2880x1620 on a 1080p monitor). I don't think it's technically SSAA, since it's so granular - true RGSSAA would have to be a integer multiple. So there's no point mixing it with DSR or MSAA....just pick either resolution scale or DSR. At 25% smoothness they basically look the same.

I personally run 2880x1620, 2x MSAA and medium FXAA in BF4 on my 970. I could push the DSR a little higher but there I get a frame drop here or there.

Yes BF4 is possible. But AC4 or Watch Dogs (although that looks fine with 4x TXAA - cannot see any aliasing in that game) or future games like AC unity will be harder to apply dsr and msaa/smaa and FXAA.

 

[BD2003]

Yes BF4 is possible. But AC4 or Watch Dogs (although that looks fine with 4x TXAA - cannot see any aliasing in that game) or future games like AC unity will be harder to apply dsr and msaa/smaa and FXAA.

Until you buy a better card. That's really what DSR is all about...putting all that extra GPU power to good use.

 

[sxr7171]

Until you buy a better card. That's really what DSR is all about...putting all that extra GPU power to good use.

I'd like to but it's debatable whether the 980GTX is better than the 780ti. I guess one day I'll be able to run with my prefered settings.

 

[BD2003]

Some great advice there. I'm afraid that even with a 780ti I cant run modern games with dsr plus those AA methods. With bf4 however I can run 150% resolution scaling (similar to dsr?) and 4x MSAA and FXAA. Otherwise I cannot.

This is the first time in a while I'm thinking about SLi again. I had a bad experience with dual 660GTXs so much that I don't want to go SLi but the meager improvements in the 980GTX are having me think about trying it again.

I originally had two 970s, but the microstuttering drove me up the wall. SLI isnt for me.

 

[BD2003]

A few more observations:

The only mode you should even remotely consider a smoothness of 0% is 4X. Anything less than that produces SEVERE spatial and temporal aliasing, literally making your image worse than it was before. 4X 0% is the sharpest and cleanest mode, with zero additional blur, but this stands for 4X and 4X only. 3X or 2X arent any better than 1.5X in this regard.

A smoothness of 10% is enough to solve the most egregious spatial aliasing, but there will still be considerable temporal aliasing in high frequency zones.

A smoothness of 25% is the sweet spot to remove the temporal aliasing without adding additional blur.

Beyond that, if you like it smoother, keep on going.

Also, the 1.2X setting is basically pointless, since even a minimum amount of blur overpowers any effect the extra samples might have. I suggest a bare minimum of 1.5X, or don't even bother. Beyond that, due to the nature of the gaussian filter, you don't need to limit yourself to integer multiples, any will do.

 

[Phynaz]

The performance penalty is minimal. At any rate, you have the horsepower in a 970/980 to successfully take a performance hit in order to increase image quality through downsampling.

TR disagrees with you. The performance is actually lower than running at the higher resolution.

Care to break silence yet?

http://techreport.com/review/27102/maxwell-dynamic-super-resolution-explored/2

 

[motsm]

TR disagrees with you. The performance is actually lower than running at the higher resolution.

Care to break silence yet?

http://techreport.com/review/27102/maxwell-dynamic-super-resolution-explored/2

The native resolution they are using is 3840x2160 while the DSR resolution is 3840x2400, so of course it's a bit slower. That said, I'm certainly not agreeing that the performance impact is "minimal", it's obviously not.

 

[Phynaz]

The native resolution they are using is 3840x2160 while the DSR resolution is 3840x2400

Good catch, I missed that.

 

[sxr7171]

I originally had two 970s, but the microstuttering drove me up the wall. SLI isnt for me.

Same here and thanks for posting that. Because I was tempted to try again. Thanks for saving me a lot of anguish.

 

[BD2003]

Same here and thanks for posting that. Because I was tempted to try again. Thanks for saving me a lot of anguish.

lol, you're welcome. SLI is such a sham...the frame rate number goes way up, but the smoothness of the gameplay goes down. If you can even get it to run with SLI.

Never, ever again.

 

[Rhezuss]

I tried it a bit this weekend, mostly in Blizz games (WoW, D3 and Hearthstone).

In Hearthstone there was, surprisingly, quite a difference in textures and drawings on the cards. The game looked sharper but that's not telling much.

In WoW and D3 I noticed some input lag and bluriness withough seeing much impact on the visuals. I'll have to test it more in other games like Skyrim to see what it looks like.

Question: Do you absolutely need NVIDIA Experience software to enable this? I saw the option to auto tweak games in your list via the software...I uninstalled it because I don't like to have too much softwarres I don't use...

 

[ShintaiDK]

Question: Do you absolutely need NVIDIA Experience software to enable this? I saw the option to auto tweak games in your list via the software...I uninstalled it because I don't like to have too much softwarres I don't use...

I dont have that software installed, and its enabled in at least one game for me.

 

[Rhezuss]

I dont have that software installed, and its enabled in at least one game for me.

You only have to enable it in the NVCP and select the resolution in-game...just checked.

I'll fire up some more games to try this.

To remove the maximum bluriness I set the "smoothness" slider to 0%.

What are your settings?

 

[Annisman*]

You only have to enable it in the NVCP and select the resolution in-game...just checked.

I'll fire up some more games to try this.

To remove the maximum bluriness I set the "smoothness" slider to 0%.

What are your settings?

Don't you get tons of jaggies at 0% ? I did.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

nvm

 

[Rhezuss]

Yes, 0 should only be used at 4x your res (example: 1080p monitor set to 4k res)

A lot of us are recommended the 25% option.

Yeah i've run 25% too and find it the best compromise.

But I don't rune DSR no more, don't like what it's doing to the games.