Nvidia DSR / DSR-DL vs AMD VSR vs in game SS in Elite Dangerous?

[KDK_warhead]

My experience with DSR and DSR-DL is that DSR-DL isn’t really better or faster than DSR in Elite Dangerous. I don’t have a capture card so it difficult to really compare. I find that the in-game SS is slower than DSR /DSR-DL.

Is AMD VSR as good as or better than Nvidia DSR/DSR-DL?

I use an RTX 2060 Super on a 27” 1080p screen with DSR-DL 1.78 today. My monitor Benq XL2720Z has been half broken for several years now (Blurry picture at higher framerates and a horizonal line) and I planning to do an upgrade.

I tried a 32” 4k QD-OLED and it’s really nice but it´s need as much super sampling as my old 1080p monitor (I want DSR at least 2.25) and I don’t want to but an RTX 5090 to run Elite Dangerous on DSR 4.0. Higher res should reduce AA problems but I think the sharper image of the oled is less forgiving than my old blurry 1080p monitor.

My current plan:
27” 1440p 240Hz QD-OLED
RTX 5070ti or 9070XT

I assume that 9070XT is faster than RTX 5070ti since there is no Ray tracing in Elite?
I understand that 5000 series card has a lot or problems with drivers. Do that include Elite Dangerous as well?

I also play Battlefield 4 and Battlefield 2042 and a bunch of other games as well.

Cheapest models in Sweden (2025-05-18):
5070ti ~ 920 EUR
9070XT ~780 EUR

My setup:
GPU: 2060S
CPU: 7600X
Mem: 32GB
Win: 10

The reason I’m asking is that have a hard time choosing between 9070XT and 5070ti.

Note:
Screens shots of NVIDIA cards only show you the rendered pictures not the downscaled picture that’s Is sent to the monitor.

 

[GJ51]

I'd go 9070XT for the power connectors alone...

 

[KDK_warhead]

I'd go 9070XT for the power connectors alone...

Yes, there are many things to consider when choosing GPU today. High temp on VRM on 5070ti as well (not so bad on 5070ti as on 5070).

 

[Morbad]

I find that the in-game SS is slower than DSR /DSR-DL.

There does seem to be slightly less overhead with DSR, but the performance difference vs. the in-game supersampling should be very small at the same internal resolution.

Keep in mind that the in-game SS resolutions are a multipliers of linear dimensions while DSR demarcates settings in multiples of total pixel area. 1.78x DSR is the equivalent of 1.33x (which needs to be set in the config file because it's not a preset) in-game suppersampling, 2.25x DSR is 1.5x in-game SS, and 4.0x DSR is 2.0x in-game SS.

Is AMD VSR as good as or better than Nvidia DSR/DSR-DL?

I used to use VSR with Elite: Dangerous on my AMD cards (from Hawaii to RDNA2) and I want to say it produces a slightly softer image than DSR, but that is heavily dependent on the smoothing settings used with DSR and precise render multiplier.

I use an RTX 2060 Super on a 27” 1080p screen with DSR-DL 1.78 today. My monitor Benq XL2720Z has been half broken for several years now (Blurry picture at higher framerates and a horizonal line) and I planning to do an upgrade.

I tried a 32” 4k QD-OLED and it’s really nice but it´s need as much super sampling as my old 1080p monitor (I want DSR at least 2.25) and I don’t want to but an RTX 5090 to run Elite Dangerous on DSR 4.0. Higher res should reduce AA problems but I think the sharper image of the oled is less forgiving than my old blurry 1080p monitor.

My current plan:
27” 1440p 240Hz QD-OLED
RTX 5070ti or 9070XT

I assume that 9070XT is faster than RTX 5070ti since there is no Ray tracing in Elite?
I understand that 5000 series card has a lot or problems with drivers. Do that include Elite Dangerous as well?

I also play Battlefield 4 and Battlefield 2042 and a bunch of other games as well.

Cheapest models in Sweden (2025-05-18):
5070ti ~ 920 EUR
9070XT ~780 EUR

My setup:
GPU: 2060S
CPU: 7600X
Mem: 32GB
Win: 10

The reason I’m asking is that have a hard time choosing between 9070XT and 5070ti.

Note:
Screens shots of NVIDIA cards only show you the rendered pictures not the downscaled picture that’s Is sent to the monitor.

For the best anti-aliasing, short of resorting to third party injectors with settings so aggressive that details are destroyed, I recommend using the in-game FXAA (or SMAA, depending on taste), plus the in-game 'supersampling' (at below target resolution) and DRS/VSR. There is some extra overhead to this, but it doesn't seem to harm latency much and you get two scaling and three filtering passes to soften aliasing. It's not remotely perfect, but it's still subjectively the best balance I've been able to manage between reducing jaggies and blurring.

I haven't had major problems with either AMD or NVIDIA drivers in ED in a very long time, but I don't have any RDNA4 or Blackwell cards (my fastest AMD card is a 6900 XT and my fastest NVIDIA card is an RTX 4090). I also tend to modify my drivers and use settings that preempt many problems.

Anyway, with that gap in price, the RX 9070 XT is the obvious choice. ED doesn't use any proprietary NVIDIA features and doesn't have RT at all.

I'd go 9070XT for the power connectors alone...

The 5070 Ti doesn't pull enough current to make the power connector an issue.

4090s and 5090s melt connectors often enough that one should measure the per-wire current to make sure it's balanced, but power consumption and current draw rapidly falls off as you go down the stack. There are still examples of failures, but the odds of it happening at this segment are infinitesimal. These cards sell in significantly greater quantities than the higher-end parts, while experiencing a tiny fraction of total connector/cable failures.

 

[KDK_warhead]

There does seem to be slightly less overhead with DSR, but the performance difference vs. the in-game supersampling should be very small at the same internal resolution.

Keep in mind that the in-game SS resolutions are a multipliers of linear dimensions while DSR demarcates settings in multiples of total pixel area. 1.78x DSR is the equivalent of 1.33x (which needs to be set in the config file because it's not a preset) in-game suppersampling, 2.25x DSR is 1.5x in-game SS, and 4.0x DSR is 2.0x in-game SS.



I used to use VSR with Elite: Dangerous on my AMD cards (from Hawaii to RDNA2) and I want to say it produces a slightly softer image than DSR, but that is heavily dependent on the smoothing settings used with DSR and precise render multiplier.



For the best anti-aliasing, short of resorting to third party injectors with settings so aggressive that details are destroyed, I recommend using the in-game FXAA (or SMAA, depending on taste), plus the in-game 'supersampling' (at below target resolution) and DRS/VSR. There is some extra overhead to this, but it doesn't seem to harm latency much and you get two scaling and three filtering passes to soften aliasing. It's not remotely perfect, but it's still subjectively the best balance I've been able to manage between reducing jaggies and blurring.

I haven't had major problems with either AMD or NVIDIA drivers in ED in a very long time, but I don't have any RDNA4 or Blackwell cards (my fastest AMD card is a 6900 XT and my fastest NVIDIA card is an RTX 4090). I also tend to modify my drivers and use settings that preempt many problems.

Anyway, with that gap in price, the RX 9070 XT is the obvious choice. ED doesn't use any proprietary NVIDIA features and doesn't have RT at all.



The 5070 Ti doesn't pull enough current to make the power connector an issue.

4090s and 5090s melt connectors often enough that one should measure the per-wire current to make sure it's balanced, but power consumption and current draw rapidly falls off as you go down the stack. There are still examples of failures, but the odds of it happening at this segment are infinitesimal. These cards sell in significantly greater quantities than the higher-end parts, while experiencing a tiny fraction of total connector/cable failures.

Thank you for your very through post on this topic.
I know that DSR & VSR settings is a multiplication of the number of pixels and that SS settings are the multiplication of horizontal and vertical resolution with a factor. Easy to miss and it´s good that you pointed it out for us.

I read that you cannot change the smoothing in VSR. I use 33% with DSR (I think that is the default setting). I tried 66% but I ended up using 33%. I don’t think I noticed so much difference between 33% and 66% but 33% was a little sharper.

I use SMAA with DSR. I will test FXAA as well. Thanks for the tip.

I’m not quite sure I understand the other part. Is this correct with my current 1080p monitor?

The new connector shouldn’t be a problem with a 5070ti but it’s an extra adapter since my PSU doesn’t have that connector (I’m sure I get adaptor with the card).

 

[Morbad]

I’m not quite sure I understand the other part. Is this correct with my current 1080p monitor?

Yeah, something to that effect should work.