Nvidia DSR

The Slayer_UK · 23 Jun 2015 at 11:08

Hi All

Over the weekend i had a look at DSR ive never tried it before so thought id give it ago as im thinking about getting a better monitor next year but i also wanted to see how much better it looks from 1080p to 1440p and 4K. I only tried GTA V at almost max settings on my GTX 780 (dont remeber what was turned down)

1440p

Looked really good i could tell the difference between 1080p and 1440p everything looked sharper and slightly more detailed frame rates wernt too bad either i was getting roughly 45-50fps with almost maxed settings but it felt very smooth and more than playable, i did have some dips but nothing too bad.

4K

I couldn't really see much difference here from 1440p and frame rates were poor in the low 20's and not playable and im sure i would have had dips into single digits but i didnt play too much on the res.

how comparable is using Nvidia DSR to using a monitor that has a native res of 1440p or 4K would it actually look much better at a 1440p or 4K monitor?

Overall i was impressed by 1440p and how well my GTX 780 coped for some reason i had it in my head i would not be able to run it at 1440 and get playable frame rates.

stuie · 23 Jun 2015 at 11:18

from my understanding

1080p with dsr is still 1080p, dsr works by rendering at 4k or whatever then taking an average colour over 4 pixels to represent pixel x

for example each 1080 pixel youve got 4 4k pixels in it so if those 4 pixels are #228B22 #228B23 #228B24 #228B25 all representing forest green, colours then when compressed down it will actually be either #228B23 or #228B24 on a 1080 screen because it cannot render 4 pixels in one

in answer to your question it works like the opposite of upscaling does when you stick a 1080 bluray on your 4k tv, it doesnt do a bad job but a true 4k experience is substantially better the reason you couldnt see any real difference between 4k and 1440p should now be obvious.

The Slayer_UK · 23 Jun 2015 at 12:03

ah right i got you, so both will look much better on 1440p and 4K monitors thanks

Rroff · 23 Jun 2015 at 13:28

DSR works a little more advanced than just averaging the pixels - it uses semi-intelligent filtering to try and preserve the perception of having as much detail from the higher resolution as possible - its never going to be as good as having that resolution native but its a fair representation - having tested 4K DSR on a 1440p screen alongside a 28" 4K and 42" 4K its not a million miles from what the 28" looks like (I was actually surprised how well it did) but the extra real detail is a lot more noticeable on the larger screen.

End of the day you still have 1080p but DSR does do a fair job of creating the illusion of a higher resolution.

EDIT: I'm running 1440p (Swift) native with my GTX780 and highly recommend it.

Meladath · 23 Jun 2015 at 13:44

Rroff said:
DSR works a little more advanced than just averaging the pixels - it uses semi-intelligent filtering to try and preserve the perception of having as much detail from the higher resolution as possible

DSR (and AMD's version too) are essentially just driver level supported downsampling, each finished pixel is a sample of the average of all the samples the pixels that are being rendered there produce, for example 4k - 1080p DSR, every pixel is essentially the average of the 4 pixels that would be in that screen space position were it to be running at 4K. It uses gaussian samples (basically a simple threshold function) so that it only samples the "detail" in those 4 pixels.

Saying its a semi-intelligent filter is quite a stretch really, it just downsamples with thresholds, I would be incredibly surprised if that is not how downsampling in every game that officially supports it does it.

It does produce a nice effect however and if you have the horsepower I would use it. Any game that is old for example I run at 3200x1800 and turn AA down to 2xMSAA because it looks better and uses pretty much the same performance as 2560x1440 and 4xMSAA

Rroff · 23 Jun 2015 at 13:54

^^ Its noticeable if you compare actual (monitor) downsampling, DSR and native 4K side by side in something like eve online - the star field background on downsampling will have a lot of stars from the higher resolution averaged into oblivion - DSR still preserves many of the smaller stars but not as well/many or as detailed as native 4K. Calling it semi-intelligent is a bit of a stretch but its a bit more content aware than a linear interpolation or similar type technique.

VSR from what I've seen works a little differently to DSR - DSR mainly concerns itself with preserving the perception of as much detail as possible when down scaling where VSR seems to mostly use the data from the higher resolution to smooth out edges and produces results closer to super sampling.

Calabi · 23 Jun 2015 at 13:57

It just improves aliasing whilst retaining details. At 4k your still have aliasing, unless your using msaa, fxaa or whatever but most engines, games now dont have good AA solutions, blurs textures or doesnt apply to the whole image. Downsampling applies to the whole image without blurring.

I havent checked or tested but I'm betting a downsampled image on a 1080p monitor would look better than a 4k image with no AA.

Meladath · 23 Jun 2015 at 13:59

Rroff said:
^^ Its noticeable if you compare actual downsampling, DSR and native 4K side by side in something like eve online - the star field background on downsampling will have a lot of stars from the higher resolution averaged into oblivion - DSR still preserves many of the smaller stars but not as well/many or as detailed as native 4K. Calling it semi-intelligent is a bit of a stretch but its a bit more content aware than a linear interpolation or similar type technique.

VSR from what I've seen works a little differently to DSR - DSR mainly concerns itself with preserving the perception of as much detail as possible when down scaling where VSR seems to mostly use the data from the higher resolution to smooth out edges and produces results closer to super sampling.

This would make sense, the star field etc. Can't say I have seen them side by side, native will ofc always be better, but I guess the way the downsampling looks depends entirely on the implementation of the game itself... since "downsampling" is such a crude term really.

DSR is far more content aware than a lerp thats for sure.

I was under the assumption that VSR was the same thing, but lacked user configuration. Hmm... I have to look into this now... To google!

Harlequin · 23 Jun 2015 at 14:01

I used to play 4k DSR on a 1080p screen - then I bought a 4k screen and I can honestly tell the difference - whilst a nice feature , DSR isn't `proper` 4k.

Rroff · 23 Jun 2015 at 14:02

They are pretty similar but from my experience VSR seems to produce better results on the edges with a result closer to super sampling whereas DSR preserves more intra-texture detail but doesn't have as nice edges. They are also marketed that way by the respective companies so I guess it makes sense:

DSR: "Dynamic Super Resolution renders a game at a higher, more detailed resolution and intelligently shrinks the result back down to the resolution of your monitor, giving you 4K-quality graphics on an HD screen."

VSR: ""Smoother textures and edges, simulates super sampling anti-aliasing (SSAA) for games that don't support it""

Cooper · 23 Jun 2015 at 14:14

2880x1620 is the best DSR setting by far.

Huge improvement over 1080p, which 1440p isn't, at least to my eyes and its far easier on the GPU than 4K.

The Slayer_UK · 23 Jun 2015 at 14:59

Thanks All

its nice to find out how it works and then i can understand what it does then, i wont be upgrading the monitor untill next year so ill decide then weather to go 1440 or 4K im hoping pascal will make 4K playable with 1 GPU may be with some setting turned down, untill then ill use DSR with 1440p as it worked well with that

Rroff · 23 Jun 2015 at 15:09

One thing I found with 4K (though it might be different person to person and doesn't affect all games) some games it was a bit of a pain getting mouse settings that allowed me to quickly move over large distances of the screen while also retaining good precision while working around smaller distance. I ended up going back to 1440p for most of my gaming though setting up a system to play racing games and possibly elite dangerous on 4K where I'd be using a controller/wheel.

The Slayer_UK · 23 Jun 2015 at 15:27

How does it look if your using a 4K monitor but want to game at 1440p if its ok i could just get a 4K and then if i need to turn settings down more than i really want to i could just drop the res to 1440p?

ubersonic · 23 Jun 2015 at 16:08

Cooper said:
2880x1620 is the best DSR setting by far.

Huge improvement over 1080p, which 1440p isn't, at least to my eyes and its far easier on the GPU than 4K.

You need an eye test, seriously if you think that 1080p with 50% upscale looks better than native 1440p the is something wrong with your monitor or eyes. Its not even a 4:1 pixel upscale *eww*.

Harlequin · 23 Jun 2015 at 16:10

pixel upscaling is `nice` - but as ubersonic said `ewwww` - it doesn't beat being at that res natively

Raiden85 · 23 Jun 2015 at 16:46

I use a 32" LG 1080p TV as a monitor so it has a very low PPI of 68 yet it does a surprisingly good job at rendering text and graphics with not to much aliasing.

The Crew game when running at my native 1080p with as much AA I can throw at it still looks terrible, very jagged textures. When I run it maxed out with DSR at 4K with FXAA it looks stunning, very smooth textures when driving around all while never dipping under 60fps.

GTA 5 and the Witcher 3 also looks so much better with DSR, much smoother textures.

Cooper · 23 Jun 2015 at 17:22

ubersonic said:
You need an eye test, seriously if you think that 1080p with 50% upscale looks better than native 1440p the is something wrong with your monitor or eyes..

You need to redo the maths... :rolleyes:

1920x1080 = 2,073,600
2880x1620 = 4,665,600

it's more than a 125% pixel increase over 1080p, combined with 25% DSR Smoothness it looks fantastic.

ubersonic · 23 Jun 2015 at 17:33

Cooper said:
You need to redo the maths...

It's not straight math that gives the terminology, 2880x1620 is classed as a 50% pixel upscale of 1920x1080 because it uses a 1.5:1 pixel ratio (a 50% increase). That's why it looks "wrong", because it's not a native image or a perfect upscale/downscale of a native image and so causes blur, just like running the screen at 1280x720 does.

bigmac121 · 23 Jun 2015 at 21:17

When I use it on the W3 it jums to my other monitor, which is hooked up to my HD4600 ? Any ideas