Dawntrail Benchmark Feedback - No AA with DLSS?

[WitchyRhia]

DLSS is currently being kneecapped quite harshly due to the inability to pair it with any of the available anti-aliasing methods, and as a result any foliage or similarly noise-adjacent imagery at mid- to long-range appears rather pixelated.

By default DLSS upscales the image from 58% of its original size, so I set FSR to the same scale and took screenshots at the same point in the benchmark using both upscaling methods, and the difference is obvious:
FSR: https://rhiannon.dev/dtdlss/ffxiv_FSR.png
DLSS: https://rhiannon.dev/dtdlss/ffxiv_DLSS.png

While you can still tell it was upscaled, FSR's quality is consistent throughout the image, whereas DLSS suffers from huge patches of jagged pixels and an overall inconsistent quality that would be mitigated (if not fixed completely) if it were allowed to upscale an image that had some form of anti-aliasing applied to it. Given this issue, there's not really much point to using DLSS as it's currently implemented, as the effect is incredibly distracting especially in motion.

For comparison, here is a scene from Helldivers 2 with a perhaps not a comparable density or variation in foliage, but enough to demonstrate a similar failing when solely using DLSS in another game, at the same scale as the previous screenshots, with anti-aliasing off and on:
AA off: https://rhiannon.dev/dtdlss/hd2_DLSS_AAoff.png
AA on: https://rhiannon.dev/dtdlss/hd2_DLSS_AAon.png

Note the same pixelated mess when the upscaler tries to make sense of the foliage at mid-range, but when anti-aliasing is turned on, any pixelation is softened and smoothed out. Perhaps smoothed a little too much but when taking in the entire image, the end result is far easier on the eyes.

DLSS works its best when paired with some form of temporal anti-aliasing, but it would still be improved even if it was allowed to utilize FFXIV's existing FXAA. Please try to find some solution to this issue, so we can enjoy DLSS at its fullest potential!

[Somnolence]

DLSS works its best when paired with some form of temporal anti-aliasing

You know DLSS is form of TAA, right?

[Johners]

The DLSS implementation isn't great but it does use a relatively new version of the DLSS Super Resolution (also known as DLSS2 because screw reasonable naming conventions). Specifically this is version 3.5.10.0 of the super resolution DLL file. I know you can use DLSS Tweaks to force DLAA and/or variants of the reconstruction model. What does seem weird is that the resolution starts really low and then slowly increases over time and it's often very noticeable steps as well.


On top of the DLSS implementation, FSR1 over FSR2 and no XeSS is a big letdown for non-NVIDIA GPU users. Hopefully this changes for the release of Dawntrail proper or comes with the first major patch. FSR2 and XeSS 1.3 are much better than FSR1.

[Jeeqbit]

I tried both since I have Nvidia and didn't see a difference (but my PC runs it somewhere around 80-90 FPS so it never dips below 60 anyway).

But the score was higher with FSR. FSR just felt better somehow.

Is it better even with Nvidia? I'm not an expert.

[WitchyRhia]

You know DLSS is form of TAA, right?

Working as a game developer credited on several critically acclaimed titles, I'm well acquainted with all sorts of graphics options and their effects, and need to be in order to do my job. DLSS applies an effect similar to TAA but is not itself TAA as its goal is to create a presentable image from its lower resolution counterpart, and is usually paired with some kind of anti-aliasing to soften the lower resolution image prior to upscaling to compose a finished and thoroughly softened image. The screenshots I provided of Helldivers 2 demonstrates this.