How do you like DLSS?

[mobile83]

My question: how can you like DLSS?

Is this the next generation of NVIDIA graphics cards? Making hardware that can't keep up with the resource demands of games and therefore downgrading software? 

I play 2k native. I tried DLSS and I had the impression that everything was droopy, blurred, screens were less sharp, TPods were pixelated, I can't understand the craze for DLSS, the only thing I can understand is people who have 30 fps and with dlss they have 50 fps but otherwise I don't get it. 

When I go to the NVIDIA site, I have to laugh at their marketing pitch, saying that we can't see any difference or that it's minimal. You bet, when I activated Dlss I had the impression that my vision had dropped, everything is blurry, so yes I have more fps but I might as well play in 1080P, it's the same as Dlss.

In short, I don't understand the hype surrounding this graphical trickery. 

Edited January 10, 2024 by mobile83

[C3PO]

I think DLSS quality is actually very good. 

[Raisuli]

My experience is a little different, and I sit arms length from a 38" screen; no noticeable blur anywhere.  Then again I use a special (non-progressive) pair of glasses for flight sims, so at the distance I view everything it's all sharp.  With my normal computer glasses the screen does blur in places, but that's the lens and not the graphics card.

Screenshots might help demonstrate the issues you have.

[av8orDave]

I think it largely depends on your setup; for example, what system and monitor / VR is the person using?

I'm playing on a Ryzen 9 5950X and RTX 3080 through a Quest 3 on VR. In my case, with DLSS the graphics look crisp, not far off from MSAA*2, and the only real problem is some slight "smudging" around objects that are moving quickly (although far less smudging or ghosting than you'd get using motion reprojection, which some people swear by). 

In the end I think it all depends on your system and your own personal preferences, but on my system, it looks pretty good.

Edited January 10, 2024 by davidrbarnette

[diego999]

You have to crank that sharpness slider all the way to the max.

In my case in VR I had horrible shimmering before. DLSS improved massively on that front, in exchange for some ghosting and a little blurriness.

Fair trade for me.

[LucShep]

1 hour ago, mobile83 said:

My question: how can you like DLSS?

Is this the next generation of NVIDIA graphics cards? Making hardware that can't keep up with the resource demands of games and therefore downgrading software? 

I play 2k native. I tried DLSS and I had the impression that everything was droopy, blurred, screens were less sharp, TPods were pixelated, I can't understand the craze for DLSS, the only thing I can understand is people who have 30 fps and with dlss they have 50 fps but otherwise I don't get it. 

When I go to the NVIDIA site, I have to laugh at their marketing pitch, saying that we can't see any difference or that it's minimal. You bet, when I activated Dlss I had the impression that my vision had dropped, everything is blurry, so yes I have more fps but I might as well play in 1080P, it's the same as Dlss.

In short, I don't understand the hype surrounding this graphical trickery. 

Yep.... and now imagine it in VR, where it's much, much worse than with a 2D screen.
It's not only a blurry mess, you get added ghosting trails on moving objects. It's horrible.

The downgrade in image is absolutely obvious. But, of course, if you're not a purist for graphics with a keen eye for detail, and considering the current state of (un)optimization of DCS, you may excuse and even prefer it, for benefit of the performance increase.

The funny thing is that this technology does seem to work fine in some other games.
For instances, in WRC Generations setting DLAA + DLSS Quality it even looks better than the game without it at default resolution + TAA.

Edited January 10, 2024 by LucShep

[Qcumber]

DLSS works well for me in VR. However, it is a fundamental change and therefore needs all setting being reworked from ground up. I was not impressed initially, until I had increased resolution and worked through all my settings. The only issue I have is with the strange "melting" effect which occurs sometimes. This is definitely better with DLSS 3.5.10, which is not officially in DCS yet but you add it yourself. 

[LucShep]

BTW, comparing it to MSAA x2 does not mean much, that one never did a good job for AA, not just DCS but whatever the game.
MSAA x4 does the job, better also over DLAA or TAA in DCS (remains unbeaten).
 

5 hours ago, Qcumber said:

DLSS works well for me in VR. However, it is a fundamental change and therefore needs all setting being reworked from ground up. I was not impressed initially, until I had increased resolution and worked through all my settings. The only issue I have is with the strange "melting" effect which occurs sometimes. This is definitely better with DLSS 3.5.10, which is not officially in DCS yet but you add it yourself. 

And if I have to further increase resolution (and/or increase Pixel Density in game) to upsample the image that DLSS is downsampling (then losing any performance benefits it has) that is an obvious sign that its purpose has been clearly defeated, isn't it?

EDIT: oh yes, the "melting" you mentioned is the mentioned ghosting trails (smearing) on moving objects.
If one uses motion reprojection (which I presume most will be using in VR for DCS) with DLSS enabled, it's impossible to look at. Absolutely horrible.

Edited January 11, 2024 by LucShep

[jurinko]

DLSS on quality and crank up the resolution via OpenXR Toolkit from 3000 to 5000. Looks almost smooth as DLAA and runs better. 100x better than terrible jaggies and shimmering with 2xMSAA. DCS never looked and ran better.

[LOW_Hitman]

DLSS is a marketing gag of nvidia. In every game i played with this setting on i got blurry and not readable pictures. And on top the ghosting effects with dlss on are killing your eyes. Tried it in different games, VR and non-VR, not usable.

[Art-J]

Marketing gag or not, for some players it did bump framerate enough NOT to have to buy next overpriced NV cards anytime soon and that in itself makes it worth it. But, as "there's no free lunch", some visual degradation is always a price to pay.

It's all subjective - for some guys it's OK to play at 30-few fps as long as eyecandy is up. I don't understand it but hey, you do you. Just like i don't understand folks who just MUST have 120+ fps and are willing to settle for compromised visuals to get there. But it's their personal preference so - none of my business in the end.

I don't use DLSS (yet), 'cause I'm still keeping my head above the 60-surface in simple missions. Will see how it goes once I start playing Reflected's campaigns. I did embrace DLAA, however, which finally killed everlasting shimmering in DCS once and for all, while not sinking my framerate like MSAA did.

Edited January 10, 2024 by Art-J

[wilbur81]

It is definitely a step backwards in everything but raw FPS performance. I'm only playing in pancake 4K, but I tried DLSS with sharpness at full about two times and went back to MSAA at 4x... MT already has DCS working quite nicely (in 2D) without the Nvidia feature.

[Qcumber]

46 minutes ago, LucShep said:

And if I have to further increase resolution (and/or increase Pixel Density in game) to upsample the image that DLSS is downsampling (then losing any performance benefits it has) that is a clear sign that its purpose has been clearly defeated, isn't it?

You would think so but in practice it works very well. Increasing the resolution appears to reduce the melting effect. For me I just cannot run anything playable with MSAAx4. DLSS has made this very playable for me with high settings, very sharp images and good fps. If you have a 4090 then there is no point using DLSS. 

[Mr_sukebe]

On my monitor, DLSS seems to work really well (for me).

In VR, I didn’t like DLSS at all.  However, DLSS technology includes DLAA and to me that is a phenomenal solution and I much prefer it to MSAA and TAA.

[Qcumber]

45 minutes ago, LOW_Hitman said:

DLSS is a marketing gag of nvidia. In every game i played with this setting on i got blurry and not readable pictures. And on top the ghosting effects with dlss on are killing your eyes. Tried it in different games, VR and non-VR, not usable.

It may be marketing but it does work and supports mid range GPUs very well. However, for DCS it does not work well out of the box. It needs careful tweaking to get good results. But that is the essence of DCS. 

[Qcumber]

Just now, Mr_sukebe said:

On my monitor, DLSS seems to work really well (for me).

In VR, I didn’t like DLSS at all.  However, DLSS technology includes DLAA and to me that is a phenomenal solution and I much prefer it to MSAA and TAA.

I was just about to post and say that perhaps it works best in VR!! Obviously not the case.

DLSS is still very early days and there a lot more scope for improvements.   

[zildac]

VR user here, DLAA alone is infinitely better than MSAA in regard to getting rid of the horrific shimmers. TAA I find even better but it has the ghosting artefacts.

[Nedum]

5 hours ago, davidrbarnette said:

I think it largely depends on your setup; for example, what system and monitor / VR is the person using?

I'm playing on a Ryzen 9 5950X and RTX 3080 through a Quest 3 on VR. In my case, with DLSS the graphics look crisp, not far off from MSAA*2, and the only real problem is some slight "smudging" around objects that are moving quickly (although far less smudging or ghosting than you'd get using motion reprojection, which some people swear by). 

In the end I think it all depends on your system and your own personal preferences, but on my system, it looks pretty good.

 

It has !!nothing to do with "the setup". If one thinks DLSS adds no blur, the person has bad eyes. DLSS will !!always!! add blur. That's how DLSS works to gain more FPS.

I bet $1.000 I can show every guy who tries to tell there is no difference, that there is a huge difference in the image quality and that there will be always blur.

It has nothing to do with VR, 2D, the setup or the used hardware.

The technic behind DLSS can never be as good as the original. That DLSS could be as good as the original DLSS would have to be a time machine so DLSS knows !!before!! the image would be rendered what will happen in the future and that, for sure, will never ever happen.

If one tells us there is no noticeable difference between DLSS and the original picture, there could be two reasons for:  1. the person can't see it, because he needs glasses or new ones, 2. the person do not want to see it.

DLSS will always add blur to the image. Now and in the future.

Edited January 10, 2024 by Nedum

[5ephir0th]

Spoiler: you dont have to use DLSS, you can turn it off

[diego999]

If your rig is powerful enough to produce high FPS with MSAA 4x, obviously you've got nothing to gain with DLSS.

[av8orDave]

4 hours ago, Nedum said:

It has !!nothing to do with "the setup". If one thinks DLSS adds no blur, the person has bad eyes. DLSS will !!always!! add blur. That's how DLSS works to gain more FPS.

I bet $1.000 I can show every guy who tries to tell there is no difference, that there is a huge difference in the image quality and that there will be always blur.

It has nothing to do with VR, 2D, the setup or the used hardware.

The technic behind DLSS can never be as good as the original. That DLSS could be as good as the original DLSS would have to be a time machine so DLSS knows !!before!! the image would be rendered what will happen in the future and that, for sure, will never ever happen.

If one tells us there is no noticeable difference between DLSS and the original picture, there could be two reasons for:  1. the person can't see it, because he needs glasses or new ones, 2. the person do not want to see it.

DLSS will always add blur to the image. Now and in the future.

 

A couple things:

1) You need to work on your approach... it comes off like you've had too much coffee or something. Insulting eyesight is a "bad look." Get  the pun?

2) I never said it doesn't add blur. In fact, I said it adds a slight smudging to the image... if you want to call it a "blur", then sure, we agree. I only pointed out that it adds less artifacts, smudging, or blur than motion reprojection, which is commonly used by many people with mid-range systems (hell, my system is still pretty good but won't keep up with DCS in extra-complex missions). Also, it entirely has to do with the hardware. Artifacts and distortions are less obvious on some systems and setups than others, and the point is that if you have a mid or low-end system, some smudging may be perceived by the user as an acceptable tradeoff to constant stuttering or low framerates. I don't really think that's up for debate... just look at the varied opinions regarding DLSS.

 

Edited January 11, 2024 by davidrbarnette

[LOW_Hitman]

vor 18 Stunden schrieb zildac:

VR user here, DLAA alone is infinitely better than MSAA in regard to getting rid of the horrific shimmers. TAA I find even better but it has the ghosting artefacts.

what are your dlaa ingame settings? tried dlaa, the result was not usable - unreadable panels and ddi's also ghosting. And what about the performance impact? is there a feelable impact between dlaa and for example 2xmsaa?

Edited January 11, 2024 by LOW_Hitman

[LOW_Hitman]

vor 21 Stunden schrieb Art-J:

Marketing gag or not, for some players it did bump framerate enough NOT to have to buy next overpriced NV cards anytime soon and that in itself makes it worth it. But, as "there's no free lunch", some visual degradation is always a price to pay.

It's all subjective - for some guys it's OK to play at 30-few fps as long as eyecandy is up. I don't understand it but hey, you do you. Just like i don't understand folks who just MUST have 120+ fps and are willing to settle for compromised visuals to get there. But it's their personal preference so - none of my business in the end.

I don't use DLSS (yet), 'cause I'm still keeping my head above the 60-surface in simple missions. Will see how it goes once I start playing Reflected's campaigns. I did embrace DLAA, however, which finally killed everlasting shimmering in DCS once and for all, while not sinking my framerate like MSAA did.

 

can you share your dlaa settings? Because even with sharpening set to full i get a blurry picture in VR and massive ghosting

[Art-J]

What settings  ? It's just ON and that's it. Seriously though, I'm 1440p pancake player, so my options would not help you I'm afraid.

Sharpening on 0, 'cause I don't use DLSS anyway. I don't own any modern jet modules so can't comment on panels, HUDs and all these gadgets. There's some ghosting on steam gauges and planes flying around, but it's acceptable for me.

Heads up, though, you might want to try dll library for DLSS provided by NVidia. Apparently it's newer version than the one implemented by ED in current DCS and some guys report ghosting reduction when they use this one instead of original. As always, keep a backup just in case. Details here:

 

Edited January 11, 2024 by Art-J

[Fisherman82]

I play in VR on a Reverb G2 and think DLSS is great, no problems.