DLSS Discoveries

Hello everyone,

I was seeing plenty of screenshots taken by people using DLSS, and found something odd was happening. I am generally impressed by DLSS's image reconstructing technique and the anti-aliasing method it uses on top of it to produce image quality sometimes better than the native rendering images, but not everything is created equal with the Dawntrail benchmark, it seems.

Here is an image of the forest scene using DLSS with "Always On" selected at 1440p:

https://i.imgur.com/XxPcBqi.png or (https://i.imgur.com/XxPcBqi.png)



Next, here is an image of the forest scene using DLSS but with the target framerate for which DLSS will ACTIVATE when it hits below 60 FPS, while my active framerate is above 60:

https://i.imgur.com/3kTmvdg.jpeg or (https://i.imgur.com/3kTmvdg.jpeg)



I think the image with the DLSS target framerate limit looks better. But why? Isn't it supposed to activate only when the framerate is below the chosen target?

Ok, so this is what I can infer is happening. DLAA is the anti-aliasing aspect packaged with DLSS, and is generally always automatically applied when you are using DLSS. What's going on is that if a target framerate for DLSS is selected in the benchmark, and your active framerate is ABOVE that target, your resolution remains at native (with no downscaling then upresing), but you keep the DLAA for the smoothest, sharpest image possible.

Currently, if you want the best possible image quality and your PC is at least decent, set your framerate target for DLSS at 30 FPS so it basically never triggers, and you get to reap the benefit of the DLAA.

Thanks for the tip! I'll give this a go. I'm using an RTX 3060 and I've noticed that the benchmark tool scores higher when I use FSR instead of DLSS. Can you think of any reason why that would be? I'm not very good with the technical aspects of this stuff.

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Originally Posted by Haru304

Thanks for the tip! I'll give this a go. I'm using an RTX 3060 and I've noticed that the benchmark tool scores higher when I use FSR instead of DLSS. Can you think of any reason why that would be? I'm not very good with the technical aspects of this stuff.

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FSR 1.0 (what FFXIV is using) is a software-based scaler that (pardon my crude interpretation) simply renders the game at a lower resolution then applies a very advanced sharpening filter to the image, while DLSS is hardware based and exclusive to the nvidia GPUs above the 2000 series. FSR is 1.0 sometimes better than nothing, but sometimes it makes jaggies even worse. They really should be using FSR 3.

Thank you, thank you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Haru304

Thanks for the tip! I'll give this a go. I'm using an RTX 3060 and I've noticed that the benchmark tool scores higher when I use FSR instead of DLSS.

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Exact same here! 3060 and FSR seems better.

Nice finding!.


I have tested both and DLSS looks better in my opinion, I can see a little more detail in the very thin lines, it does look sharper also.

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Originally Posted by MiloslavBlazena

Currently, if you want the best possible image quality and your PC is at least decent, set your framerate target for DLSS at 30 FPS so it basically never triggers, and you get to reap the benefit of the DLAA.

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You can also use DLSSTweaks and force DLAA forever. :)

Edit, here my settings:

https://i.ibb.co/bJNdHz3/Screenshot-...-15-200332.png

Edit2: And i have openend a thread with the suggestion to give the players more control over DLAA/DLSS:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...A-DLSS-options



Cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

You can also use DLSSTweaks and force DLAA forever. :)

Edit, here my settings:

https://i.ibb.co/bJNdHz3/Screenshot-...-15-200332.png

Edit2: And i have openend a thread with the suggestion to give the players more control over DLAA/DLSS:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...A-DLSS-options



Cheers

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Thanks for this. I know you can tweak DLSS using the Nvidia control panel but I was just trying to simplify it further.

FF14 settings are always weird. Even Nvidia is confused by FF14 settings, Gforce experience enables LOD because it thinks "well... without LOD you wouldn't have distant objects". But enabling LOD settings in FF14 mean you get lower quality distant object, and disabling LOD options in FF14 means you get full quality distant objects.

Regarding the DLSS options. It's obvious the "always on" has a lower render resolution. What I think happens is DLSS is always on in both, but with "when below 60" it lowers render resolution when framerate drops below 60fps. While "always on" always lowers render resolution.
So basically, while you're above 60 fps with "when below 60" you get DLAA, or DLSS quality mode. And when you drop below 60 fps or with "always on" you get a lower render resolution, so the equivalent of a lower DLSS setting.

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Originally Posted by aiqa

FF14 settings are always weird. Even Nvidia is confused by FF14 settings, Gforce experience enables LOD because it thinks "well... without LOD you wouldn't have distant objects". But enabling LOD settings in FF14 mean you get lower quality distant object, and disabling LOD options in FF14 means you get full quality distant objects.

Regarding the DLSS options. It's obvious the "always on" has a lower render resolution. What I think happens is DLSS is always on in both, but with "when below 60" it lowers render resolution when framerate drops below 60fps. While "always on" always lowers render resolution.
So basically, while you're above 60 fps with "when below 60" you get DLAA, or DLSS quality mode. And when you drop below 60 fps or with "always on" you get a lower render resolution, so the equivalent of a lower DLSS setting.

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When I use DLSS in other games, the upscaling tech typically results in a pretty good image quality, but for the benchmark it causes horrible aliasing underneath the DLAA being applied. I don't know if it's implemented correctly or the resolution it lowers to on a (hidden scale) is extremely low. The lower the resolution when using DLSS in other games, it becomes blurrier, not more jagged and then blurrier. It's not very good.

I should also mention that it's possible the poor image stability in the screenshots of my first post being caused by the upscaler being turned always on could be due to my resolution, 1440p. FFXIV plays nice with settings related to 1080p, 4k, etc., but 1440p is an irregular choice between these two and its possible their implementation is not dividing the pixels evenly.

Well always on means the game always renders at lower resolution, and DLSS enhances and upscales it back to native. In most cases, DLSS will look close to native, but not as good.

I have also noticed that there still seems to be DLAA applied. Either that, or FSR @ 100% receives some artifacts from FSR. Because in DLSS-mode above threshold, the noise around some edges are gone, certain details (like grass blades) restored and textures cleaned/sharpened.
It's been reported, that no DLAA was detected. My theory is, that it doesn't use DLAA itself, but sort of fake it with DLSS. Like having the Dynamic Resolution still make the game render a frame at native resolution, then have DLSS enhance it, and scale the enhanced frame back to native resolution. Basically DLAA with extra steps.
Though I may be incredibly mistaken (I have no idea how the process behind it works :D), the results however can be compared.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Exact same here! 3060 and FSR seems better.

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Better only in performance, but not quality. With FSR @ 100% I get a higher score, but the noise it brings is distracting, which is mitigated with DLSS.

Unfortunately DLSS is RTX exclusive. Hopefully SE implements soon FSR2 or FSR3 for non-RTX cards.

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Originally Posted by Xerkrosis

Well always on means the game always renders at lower resolution,

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True, but the problem is the benchmark has taken away the options from us for DLSS (why is the upscaling res so low and why can't I change it?), and presents them in a backwards fashion. In other games, you can select your native resolution as normal, but then also choose DLSS and what specific resolution below that native res to upscale from, typically called "Quality", "Balanced", "Perfomance" and "Ultra Performance". The higher your native resolution, it is recommended more to choose the lower profiles like "Performance" and "Ultra Performance". The final image resolve when upscaling with DLSS should be relatively on par with or better than native when using the Quality option, but FFXIV is not doing the upscaling part cleanly on my end.

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Originally Posted by Xerkrosis

Hopefully SE implements soon FSR2 or FSR3 for non-RTX cards.

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They have to migrate the engine to DirectX 12 first. Because FSR 2 and 3 and also Intel Xess do not support DirectX 11. AMD has a special FSR 2 version for DirectX 11. But i do not know the state of it.



Cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MiloslavBlazena

Currently, if you want the best possible image quality and your PC is at least decent, set your framerate target for DLSS at 30 FPS so it basically never triggers, and you get to reap the benefit of the DLAA.

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Not sure if you are right.

Force Always:
https://i.imgur.com/0OJXpo1.png

Below 30:
https://i.imgur.com/8XB4P6b.png

Force DLAA:
https://i.imgur.com/xIdhNzH.png

Seems force always uses Balanced preset and Below 30 uses Quality preset, so it looks better. Only by forcing DLAA you get native resolution.

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Originally Posted by Somnolence

Not sure if you are right.

Force Always:
https://i.imgur.com/0OJXpo1.png

Below 30:
https://i.imgur.com/8XB4P6b.png

Force DLAA:
https://i.imgur.com/xIdhNzH.png

Seems force always uses Balanced preset and Below 30 uses Quality preset, so it looks better. Only by forcing DLAA you get native resolution.

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Good to see. If we can have a confirmation that going below the target uses Balanced and above uses Quality, then that helps explain things. Still, the way they've set up the settings menu doesn't really make sense when put against every other game that supports DLSS out there. It should be categorically listed the same; I shouldn't have to set a low FPS threshold for DLSS Quality mode because my PC runs better than that target. Just give me all the options.

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Originally Posted by MiloslavBlazena

t should be categorically listed the same; I shouldn't have to set a low FPS threshold for DLSS Quality mode because my PC runs better than that target. Just give me all the options.

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Yeah but Japanese developers often do weird things with PC versions, f. e. Elden ring has RTX... without any upscale.

I am unsure if I will use DLAA on release because it increases GPU temp and therefore fan noise.

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Originally Posted by Somnolence

Not sure if you are right.

Force Always:
https://i.imgur.com/0OJXpo1.png

Below 30:
https://i.imgur.com/8XB4P6b.png

Force DLAA:
https://i.imgur.com/xIdhNzH.png

Seems force always uses Balanced preset and Below 30 uses Quality preset, so it looks better. Only by forcing DLAA you get native resolution.

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Curious, aside from Force Always, my results are different.

Always on: 1280x720 (x0.5 screen = Performance)
https://i.imgur.com/moIp9Tz.png

Below 60: 2560x1440 (x1.0 screen = Native)
https://i.imgur.com/PmPe0bI.png

Below 30: 2560x1440 (x1.0 screen = Native)
https://i.imgur.com/TtpkCFA.png

"Always on" seems to be a bit buggy, though. I've seen it climbing up again to native res during the 3rd & 4th sequence (battle & Krile), and go back down to 1280x720 in the 5th sequence (dungeon).
To note: The benchmark started each time from 1532x862 (x0.60 screen, Balanced?) before it climbed up/down.

Here is a nice comparison between DLSS 3.7 and FSR 2 and Xess 1.3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PneArHayDv4


Cheers

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Originally Posted by Xerkrosis

Well always on means the game always renders at lower resolution, and DLSS enhances and upscales it back to native. In most cases, DLSS will look close to native, but not as good.

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You mean "in all but the most static of images" All the upscaling models do is pixel guessing, which is easy to do when the image isn't moving. Where as AA can simply diffuse the guessing at the cost of blur.

The nvidia models are better, but they add 1-2 frames of latency at the GPU level where as FSR adds the latency at the CPU level. So one "looks laggier" and the other "feels laggy". Fine for people with lower spec GPU's if that means they get 30% more frame rate without lowering the resolution. But it will be distracting every time the image has high motion.

At any rate People should test the benchmark with DLSS, FSR and none and see which produces the best score and which visual you prefer, because some people, especially at >1080p60 probably won't notice the visual downgrade DLSS and FSR have because the pixels it's dealing with are smaller.

DLSS, even above the target framerate, produces swimming, blurred details on objects in motion, so it still seems like it's upscaling.

I tried combining it with DSR to upscale approximately from native res to a higher res, but it seems like forcing DSR causes visual artifacting regardless of whether DLSS is on or not. (see below)

https://i.imgur.com/p33uJI9.png

...So that's no good. Ultimately, the best solution of those available for native res seems like TSCMAA + Camera Jitter.

Just use DLSSTweaks or NvidiaInspector and force DLAA + preset C or D. Then you will never have blurry images.


Cheers

DLSS is not a blanket "everything is improved" setting. It sacrifices visual fidelity for better performance, and to try and give people with lower specs an image they otherwise wouldn't have. It just happens to sacrifice much less visual fidelity than its contemporaries, such as FSR. If you have a low end PC, you may see a better image with DLSS on because it is trying to compensate for your bad hardware. But if you have good hardware, it may produce a worse image because your hardware is inherently better.

With DLSS always on, it will likely give you a worse image if your hardware can produce a better result on its own. With DLSS only activating to help compensate, you may be finding that it isn't activating to compensate at all. So I'm in agreement that "always on" makes it look worse on your rig because your rig is capable of producing better results without it.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

The nvidia models are better, but they add 1-2 frames of latency at the GPU level where as FSR adds the latency at the CPU level. So one "looks laggier" and the other "feels laggy". Fine for people with lower spec GPU's if that means they get 30% more frame rate without lowering the resolution. But it will be distracting every time the image has high motion.

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That is incorrect. The latency increases from DLSS/FSR are only for frame generation. FF14 is not adding frame generation, it's adding DLSS/FSR1 upscaling. And with upscaling latency has the same realation between framerate and latency as any normal framerate difference. As long as upscaling increases your framerate it decreases your latency.

And the "looks laggier/feels laggier" thing is complete nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Embran

DLSS is not a blanket "everything is improved" setting. It sacrifices visual fidelity for better performance, and to try and give people with lower specs an image they otherwise wouldn't have. It just happens to sacrifice much less visual fidelity than its contemporaries, such as FSR. If you have a low end PC, you may see a better image with DLSS on because it is trying to compensate for your bad hardware. But if you have good hardware, it may produce a worse image because your hardware is inherently better.

With DLSS always on, it will likely give you a worse image if your hardware can produce a better result on its own. With DLSS only activating to help compensate, you may be finding that it isn't activating to compensate at all. So I'm in agreement that "always on" makes it look worse on your rig because your rig is capable of producing better results without it.

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This is the issue I'm running into. My rig blows this game out of the water and DLSS makes the game look blurry, so I would prefer for it to just be off and run the game at my native resolution. Is the only solution to pick the AMD option and set it to 100% resolution?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Embran

DLSS is not a blanket "everything is improved" setting. It sacrifices visual fidelity for better performance, and to try and give people with lower specs an image they otherwise wouldn't have. It just happens to sacrifice much less visual fidelity than its contemporaries, such as FSR. If you have a low end PC, you may see a better image with DLSS on because it is trying to compensate for your bad hardware. But if you have good hardware, it may produce a worse image because your hardware is inherently better.

With DLSS always on, it will likely give you a worse image if your hardware can produce a better result on its own. With DLSS only activating to help compensate, you may be finding that it isn't activating to compensate at all. So I'm in agreement that "always on" makes it look worse on your rig because your rig is capable of producing better results without it.

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DLSS AI image reconstruction intentionally attempts to resolve detail in the image that is otherwise lost to aliasing. In a significant amount of games with DLSS, it adds back lost detail caused by aliasing, as opposed to TAA which only blurs the final image using information from the previous frame.

Even if you are running at 4K, Quality mode for DLSS should result in overall better final image than the aliased look of native unless you *prefer* the sharpness of native, or perhaps you are very sensitive to ghosting if your framerate is low. Geometry at native will be very clean yes, but foliage is a sore spot that will not be resolved nearly as well, even with the new TSCMAA addition. TAA and/or DLSS handles the foliage so there is no aliasing to be found.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

This is the issue I'm running into. My rig blows this game out of the water and DLSS makes the game look blurry, so I would prefer for it to just be off and run the game at my native resolution. Is the only solution to pick the AMD option and set it to 100% resolution?

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Nope, just select the DLSS option that only activates when your framerate drops below 30/60. If your framerate stays above this target DLSS won't activate and you'll run at native using the new AA options they added. Another option is to install DLSSTweaks and use it to force DLAA. This option will also run the game at native resolution, but use DLAA for anti aliasing instead of the new options - though DLAA is more demanding to run so will incur a slight performance hit.

Ideally they will add more DLSS options for the full release, because at present they are using the equivalent of the performance preset for everyone which halves your native resolution before upscaling. So if you're running at 1440p it is lowering it all the way down to 720p. A lot of people will have graphics cards capable of running this game on the quality preset (or even ultra quality) and still getting good performance; so allowing users to select which preset they wish to use would probably solve at least some of the issues people are having.

It's weird.

https://i.gyazo.com/2bb181a272938728...295fc69cef.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/5af7ee9302d26c51...0268f1c106.jpg

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Originally Posted by Shibi

It's weird.

https://i.gyazo.com/2bb181a272938728...295fc69cef.jpg
https://i.gyazo.com/5af7ee9302d26c51...0268f1c106.jpg

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Are you able to repost these from the source images, but as a .png? jpgs will heavily compress image quality especially if foliage is present. FSR (1.0 and 2.0) will naturally be sharper as it's more of a sharpening upscaler than AA method

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Originally Posted by MiloslavBlazena

Are you able to repost these from the source images, but as a .png? jpgs will heavily compress image quality especially if foliage is present. FSR (1.0 and 2.0) will naturally be sharper as it's more of a sharpening upscaler than AA method

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Sadly no. I have no ability to force an upload of PNG that I am willing to sign up to.

FSR on an NVidia 4090 is clearly the better option of the two, even with the jpg artifacting. The rocks in particular are fairly immune to the sort of compression JPG would do on hair or grass, but the rocks themselves are the best way to see just how bad DLSS is for people with better video cards.

This bit of the rocks:

https://i.gyazo.com/440c4c478c191b09...9433cc87a5.png