DLSS Discoveries

[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.

[MiloslavBlazena]

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.

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.

[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.

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 ), the results however can be compared.

Exact same here! 3060 and FSR seems better.

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.

[MiloslavBlazena]

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

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.

[Larirawiel]

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

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

[KisaiTenshi]

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.

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.

[hexxxx]

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)



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

[Larirawiel]

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


Cheers

[aiqa]

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.

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.