Boosting resolution virtually as a replacement for antialiasing

Zarax · 4 Sep 2022 at 08:11

Since I bought a 32" 1080p monitor I've been looking for ways to reduce aliasing and general pixelated looks in games.
While I'm aware of the abysmal pixel density I've got (but as most of the usage is actually for work it's not an issue), the monitor does support freesync and is 75hz so not that horrible for gaming.

One solution I found satisfying is using the Radeon virtual super resolution mode or ingame resolution setting over 100% while turning off anti aliasing and I must say it works beautifully as replacement in many cases.
What is your experience with it? Do you have any tricks to boost performance?

ColdAsIce · 4 Sep 2022 at 08:49

What’s your pc spec? Just wondering why you would go 32inch 1080p in the first place.

Zarax · 4 Sep 2022 at 09:36

ColdAsIce said:
What’s your pc spec? Just wondering why you would go 32inch 1080p in the first place.

i7-3770k, 16GB RAM, RX 590.
The reason, I needed a big monitor for homeworking under lockdown and this was the cheapest I could find from a reputable brand (Samsung).
My setup can hardly do over 1080p in any recent game so spending more wasn't exactly going to give me an advantage.

ColdAsIce · 4 Sep 2022 at 10:53

Yea, that’s an old skool processor.

Paul_cz · 6 Sep 2022 at 09:07

I have been using DSR (nvidia's name for downsampling) for years, usually combine it with TAA for best results (or DLSS, if available). Games look fantastic on my decade old Panny 1080p plasma when downsampled from 1440p or 4K.

Zarax · 6 Sep 2022 at 09:12

Paul_cz said:
I have been using DSR (nvidia's name for downsampling) for years, usually combine it with TAA for best results (or DLSS, if available). Games look fantastic on my decade old Panny 1080p plasma when downsampled from 1440p or 4K.

Yes plus playing on 1080p native tends to be better than going 1080p on an higher res monitor.

almoststew1990 · 6 Sep 2022 at 17:27

Yeah, downsampling will always look good - you're doing basic, old school Full-Screen Anti Aliasing basically. But very expensive from a performance perspective.

If I have the spare GPU horsepower I will run my game at over 100% resolution, and I much prefer this to TAA

Minstadave · 6 Sep 2022 at 17:29

FSR works with the 590 doesn't it? Would be less of a performance hit than DSR.

SkeeterUK · 6 Sep 2022 at 18:01

yeah fsr in games or rsr in drivers would be a good bet.

Zarax · 7 Sep 2022 at 05:47

Yes but I'm doing the exact opposite of FSR, I'm forcing the card to do old school supersampling anti aliasing to compensate poor pixel density.
It works beautifully although I'm limited to relatively old titles by my GPU (RX 590).

One thing I might try if I get to play something supported would be to set resolution to 1440p and use FSR to upscale from 1080p, getting in theory the best of both worlds.