UPSCALING for world rendering, NATIVE for cockpit rendering.

[Surfingnet]

You know how fps games draw the weapon in a different camera than the actual world so it doesn't collide with obstacles in a wierd way from the player pov? Could DCS do the same for the cockpit being drawn appart from the world?

Why? Because DLSS gives a performance boost but also makes small texts in the cockpit less readable.

I have a 4k monitor, at native res I don't have to lean forward to see the small texts on the MFDs, which is really good, but I have bad FPS because obviously 4k is demanding.

With DLSS I have good FPS but unfortunatly I have to lean forward for small text reading just like when I had my old 1080p monitor.

Would it be technically possible to have the best of both world? DLSS for the world render without the cockpit, then a native res render of the cockpit on top of it?

I'm no techy but I'm pretty sure it would be possible.

[SharpeXB]

DLSS is making everything blurry, you just notice it more on the cockpit text. The best quality setting for DLSS is Off. My take on DLSS is that it’s not worth lowering all your graphics with it. Odds are you could find one setting in DCS to reduce in order to get ideal performance rather than making the whole game look terrible. For example Visibility Range is a large hit so changing that make a big difference. Some settings make no difference to adjust. Try adjusting individual settings and leave DLSS off. It only works well when you’re already getting a high enough rate not to need it. 

Edited April 2, 2024 by SharpeXB

[Tippis]

It's not really something DLSS (or indeed any up/downscaler) works, and it would require two separate rendering paths — both quite complex, unlike where you're just looking at a semi-static object superimposed on the screen — that would then have to be composed together in a third pass. The cockpit itself can already be quite a resource hog since it doesn't benefit from things like LoD or other distance detail level settings. It's full blast all the time at whatever quality setting you have. At the same time, since it doesn't change much compared to the rest of the world, it's also something that DLSS can reconstruct quite easily to save you a lot of frames. Removing that means you're losing out on a fair chunk of savings.

Odds are good that, in trying to mix the two, you'd end up with so much overhead on top of missing out on a good shortcut where it makes a lot of difference, you'd lose all benefits from either choice and might as well just run native to begin with for the performance-vs-quality balance you end up with.

e: From your use case, it almost sounds like you'd want some kind of foveated rendering, but in pancake mode, which should be pretty easy to do, but hard to get right since it would rely on eye tracking to find where to render at full quality. And then you need more gizmos and the question rather turns towards, would you want to buy that, or just spend more on your GPU?

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

My take on DLSS is

Not really relevant to its capabilities or the topic at hand, now is it?

Edited April 2, 2024 by Tippis

[Qcumber]

DLSS works better with a higher resolution so looks a lot worse when starting with low res. In VR this is easier to deal with as you can push native resolution higher, maintain sharp cockpit details and still see a big performance boost. DLAA looks better. MSAA in VR is not great for landscapes.

Dynamic foveated rendering allows higher Res in the centre of the image. It also works in fixed mode so I wonder if a similar technology could be used in flat screen with a reverse zone so that the cockpit upscaling is effectively less than the surrounding image. 

[SharpeXB]

5 hours ago, Qcumber said:

Dynamic foveated rendering allows higher Res in the centre of the image. It also works in fixed mode so I wonder if a similar technology could be used in flat screen with a reverse zone so that the cockpit upscaling is effectively less than the surrounding image. 

Honestly that would look pretty awful. 

[Qcumber]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Honestly that would look pretty awful. 

Just imagining it now. It would look terrible. At best a very subtle difference with modest performance gained. So not worth any effort. 

[Tippis]

6 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Honestly that would look pretty awful. 

…based on…?

[average_pilot]

On 4/2/2024 at 2:27 AM, Surfingnet said:

I have a 4k monitor, at native res I don't have to lean forward to see the small texts on the MFDs, which is really good, but I have bad FPS because obviously 4k is demanding.

With DLSS I have good FPS but unfortunatly I have to lean forward for small text reading just like when I had my old 1080p monitor.

You found it out by yourself. DLSS is a really convoluted way of degrading the visuals in exchange of some performance. That you can achieve by reducing the resolution with much better results in both performance and visual quality.