Hardware & Technical Geforce DSR is misleading at best

[Globusdiablo]

Be very wary )) when using Geforce DSR.

I've got a high spec (ish) gaming desktop from last year (gtx780), and it runs E: D smooth as silk in 1920 x 1080, 60 fps v-sync on. Inside stations as well.

But Geforce Experience interface recommends that I use their DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) feature to make the game even smoother. While in fact the feature does the exact opposite.

In stations, while noticing arguably smoother surfaces, the fps is chopped from fluent 60 to choppy 30. I quickly removed DSR again, and can only warn others to look out if trying this feature.

I think we can all agree that frames per second are more important than resolution, eh? (Let the war begin... )

 

[Extreme_One]

DSR is bound to 'cost' you more FPS than running the game at stock resolution.

It is, however, far more efficient than using the ingame Supersampling.

I use DSR in 90% of games I play because the cost is minimal and the visual increase is well worth the 3 or 4 frames I lose.

Bear in mind that you can choose many differernt DSR levels from 1.2x all the way up to 4x, so you must ensure you select the resolution that gives you the best balance between playable fps and enhanced visual fidelity.
For this reason I prefer not to use GeForce Experience to tweak my games' settings and do all my tweaking manually.

 

[Anvh]

You always need to take recommendation with a little bit of salt.

DSR is not misleading because it's not pretending to be anything special and it certainly has his place.
There are games out there that use fake post processing anti aliasing like Elite: Dangerous but it works well there, while with other games these kind of AA just doesnt work that well. For those games the downsampling DSR does.
It isn't a fix it all solution but since it doesn't rely on the game to implement good AA it has his place and benefits.

 

[Elgered]

But:
DSR can also ruin the details, when used with a strange ratio. And it requires the power to render the images in the full DS-Resolution and "smooth" them back to display-resolution.
I use a 2560x1080 monitor and my GTX970 is far from fast enough to do DSR 4x (optimum). I use 1,5x DSR (3840x1620), maximum game details without any AA and post processing (SweetFX) not to drop below 58fps. With 2x DSR (5120x2160) I only get 30fps and with 4x DSR I cannot even enter the options menu (far below 1fps).
I tried lots of different AA methods, primarily for the annoying orbital lines. And there DSR brings the best results. Much better than ingame or NVidia-driver-forced AA of any kind (they blur the 1px lines and that looks ugly^^).

 

[Globusdiablo]

...I use DSR in 90% of games I play because the cost is minimal and the visual increase is well worth the 3 or 4 frames I lose..

Agreed. I use it with Dark Souls 2, with no loss at all. A rock steady 60 fps. (And that's how you make P2P work by the way. )

 

[Ancipital]

It's worth mentioning that it's a really useful feature for DK2 users, makes text a lot more readable (DK2 resolution is just a tad too low to be comfortable). It's also considerably faster and more efficient than ED's own in-game supersampling option. That said, the game's own option does look really nice, but it eats power for breakfast.

Anyway, for DK2 use, the DSR option is fantastic to have. It's fairly obvious that it would reduce frame-rates noticeably at higher factors, as you're effectively rendering at a higher resolution. However, even the lower factors make it a lot nicer for the VR use case in particular. It's good stuff. Obviously, it's attractive for the GPU manufacturers to offer features like that, as it makes sure that we never have enough power, and are tempted to upgrade

 

[kile]

I am a huge fan of DSR. I found a sweet-spot resolution (2772x1512) where the FPS is around 55-60 in stations and I get a very noticeable increase in visual quality. And considering I sit in front of a 32" screen, and the pixels on that thing are huge, not running in DSR means I have very ugly aliasing everywhere. Those bars in front of the docking slot when you approach are the worst...

I bought a GTX 980 just to get rid of aliasing. And I use it in 100% of the games I play. Which is exactly one game. Guess which one it is...

 

[Globusdiablo]

It's worth mentioning that it's a really useful feature for DK2 users, makes text a lot more readable (DK2 resolution is just a tad too low to be comfortable). It's also considerably faster and more efficient than ED's own in-game supersampling option. That said, the game's own option does look really nice, but it eats power for breakfast.

Anyway, for DK2 use, the DSR option is fantastic to have. It's fairly obvious that it would reduce frame-rates noticeably at higher factors, as you're effectively rendering at a higher resolution. However, even the lower factors make it a lot nicer for the VR use case in particular. It's good stuff. Obviously, it's attractive for the GPU manufacturers to offer features like that, as it makes sure that we never have enough power, and are tempted to upgrade

Good to know as I plan to buy the Oculus at release. Hoping for next gen Nvidia graphics cards and optimized Oculus to be the perfect couple come 2016.

Would be terrible if the retail Oculus couldn't run E: D at 60 fps and with resolution to match... Fingers crossed.

 

[Ancipital]

Good to know as I plan to buy the Oculus at release. Hoping for next gen Nvidia graphics cards and optimized Oculus to be the perfect couple come 2016.

Would be terrible if the retail Oculus couldn't run E: D at 60 fps and with resolution to match... Fingers crossed.

Umm, no, you will be wanting to get it to run at 90 fps for the consumer VR headsets. Everything's a bit different to what you're used to, the Rift will be 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays. The higher framerate is absolutely vital to having a good-quality experience, and minimising "judder". Whatever flavour of video card you go for, you'll want a pretty beefy system with a pretty screamin' quick GPU, if you want convincing and smooth "presence" in-game",

The slight spatial resolution bump over the DK2 will be welcome, as will the temporal resolution (rate) increase.. but the thing I'm really looking forward to is increase in pixel fill.. The display in the DK2 has large black gaps around the pixels, giving a horrid "screen door effect". I suspect that reducing that with some cutting-edge displays will make everything look a lot nicer

 

[Globusdiablo]

I am a huge fan of DSR. I found a sweet-spot resolution (2772x1512) where the FPS is around 55-60 in stations and I get a very noticeable increase in visual quality. And considering I sit in front of a 32" screen, and the pixels on that thing are huge, not running in DSR means I have very ugly aliasing everywhere. Those bars in front of the docking slot when you approach are the worst...

I bought a GTX 980 just to get rid of aliasing. And I use it in 100% of the games I play. Which is exactly one game. Guess which one it is...

I don't see any options for DSR in the Geforce Experience interface beside on/off (what multiplication is that btw.?). Are you refering to the supersampling option in the E: D graphics menu (which isn't quite the same as DSR if I understand correctly)?

 

[Extreme_One]

I don't see any options for DSR in the Geforce Experience interface beside on/off (what multiplication is that btw.?). Are you refering to the supersampling option in the E: D graphics menu (which isn't quite the same as DSR if I understand correctly)?

As I said above, you get more options by avoiding the Geforce Experience for making tweaks.

Just increase the resolution in-game to take advantage of DSR, find the resolution that gives you the best balance between visual enhancement and performance.

 

[Globusdiablo]

...you will be wanting to get it to run at 90 fps for the consumer VR headsets...

The more the merrier I always say.

- - - Updated - - -

As I said above, you get more options by avoiding the Geforce Experience for making tweaks.

Just increase the resolution in-game to take advantage of DSR, find the resolution that gives you the best balance between visual enhancement and performance.

Hate to repeat myself, but I assume that you are talking about the supersampling option within E: D? I've dabbled with that, but I don't think it's exactly the same as DSR?

 

[kile]

I don't see any options for DSR in the Geforce Experience interface beside on/off (what multiplication is that btw.?). Are you refering to the supersampling option in the E: D graphics menu (which isn't quite the same as DSR if I understand correctly)?

Not, not the supersampling in ED. That thing is painfully slow. It's 1.4 multiplication and you have to enable it first in the NVIDIA Control Panel. Look here: http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answ...w-to-enable-dynamic-super-resolution-in-games.

When you enable it, you will see more available resolutions in the in-game resolution selector. Also, play with the DSR Smoothness a little to find what you like best.

 

[Extreme_One]

Hate to repeat myself, but I assume that you are talking about the supersampling option within E: D? I've dabbled with that, but I don't think it's exactly the same as DSR?

Hate to repeat myself ...

Supersampling is only activated if you place a tick in the Supersampling tickbox.

I don't use Supersampling because it cripples framerates.

Instead, I choose an in-game resolution higher than the native resolution on my monitor, using the standard resolution selector in Elite: Dangerous.
This ability was only made available in this manner, since NVidia added DSR to their drivers.

Previously, in all games, you were limited to selecting your monitor's greatest native resolution.

Now, with the advent of easy-access DRS you can choose resolutions greater than your monitor's greatest native resolution, thus enabling the DSR scaling of your choice.

 

[Bazorlag]

[edited out]

 

[Globusdiablo]

Not, not the supersampling in ED. That thing is painfully slow. It's 1.4 multiplication and you have to enable it first in the NVIDIA Control Panel. Look here: http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answ...w-to-enable-dynamic-super-resolution-in-games.

When you enable it, you will see more available resolutions in the in-game resolution selector. Also, play with the DSR Smoothness a little to find what you like best.

Thanks for this.

I opened up x1.5 in the Nvidia control panel which was too much, chopped inside station to 30 fps (vsync on). Then tried x1.2 which kept the game in 60fps but somehow the rendering still seemed "choppy"... (had to run the game through the geforce launcher for changes to take effect btw.)

Conclusion for me is, that E: D runs best at native resolution, no DSR. But it's dependent on setup I guess.

Thanks to all for your feedback.

Fly safe.

 

[Arda]

DSR is bound to 'cost' you more FPS than running the game at stock resolution.

It is, however, far more efficient than using the ingame Supersampling.

I use DSR in 90% of games I play because the cost is minimal and the visual increase is well worth the 3 or 4 frames I lose.

Bear in mind that you can choose many differernt DSR levels from 1.2x all the way up to 4x, so you must ensure you select the resolution that gives you the best balance between playable fps and enhanced visual fidelity.
For this reason I prefer not to use GeForce Experience to tweak my games' settings and do all my tweaking manually.

I so agree with this. Also its great for screenshots that you OCR.

 

[TriumphANT]

Be very wary )) when using Geforce DSR.

I've got a high spec (ish) gaming desktop from last year (gtx780), and it runs E: D smooth as silk in 1920 x 1080, 60 fps v-sync on. Inside stations as well.

But Geforce Experience interface recommends that I use their DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) feature to make the game even smoother. While in fact the feature does the exact opposite.

In stations, while noticing arguably smoother surfaces, the fps is chopped from fluent 60 to choppy 30. I quickly removed DSR again, and can only warn others to look out if trying this feature.

I think we can all agree that frames per second are more important than resolution, eh? (Let the war begin... )

DSR smooths the game visually, i.e. it removes jaggies, moire artifacts and makes small text more readable. This is at the expense of rendering each frame in a higher resolution and then downscaling it, i.e. if your native resolution 1920x1080 and you use 1.5X DSR you'll be rendering at about 3000x2000 (2.25X the number of dots exactly), so expect your frame rates to drop appropriately. It's the combination of rendering AND scaling which makes the performance suffer.

 

[Synther]

DSR is much better than what Supersampling can do in game. However the FPS cost is too much for me even in my GTX 780. I guess it's so much that I'm using a 144hz monitor.

For those Nvidia users, a combination of Reshade's SMAA + Nvidia Inspector's FXAA hack can make aliasing much less noticeable with much less framerate cost.

 

[Zplintz]

Be very wary )) when using Geforce DSR.

I've got a high spec (ish) gaming desktop from last year (gtx780), and it runs E: D smooth as silk in 1920 x 1080, 60 fps v-sync on. Inside stations as well.

But Geforce Experience interface recommends that I use their DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) feature to make the game even smoother. While in fact the feature does the exact opposite.

In stations, while noticing arguably smoother surfaces, the fps is chopped from fluent 60 to choppy 30. I quickly removed DSR again, and can only warn others to look out if trying this feature.

I think we can all agree that frames per second are more important than resolution, eh? (Let the war begin... )

Surely the 'smoother' in this context is talking about removing the jaggies not increasing either the frame rate or the consistency of framerates.

Resolution (and any other settings) are a balance against framerate. I would rather have a consistent 50-60fps and lower settings than an inconsistent framerate that sometimes runs at 120fps but at other times drops to 30.

I notice the changes in framerate more than I notice a lower framerate (to a point anyway) - but maybe that is just me.