Hey all, recently I started using DSR in my games, that support native 4k resolutions, ever since I got my GTX 1070. So far I'm pretty impressed with the results, it makes a big difference in quality, even though I'm down-sampling back to 1080p. I've only had minor issues with it on BF1 when launching the game. Out side of having an actual 4k monitor, with more PPI, I was wondering what others have to say bout their DSR experience. It seems to me, that buying a 1080p or 1440p gaming monitor at a much cheaper price would be a better choice than having to pay the higher cost for a 4k monitor with a high refresh rate with gsync.
Didn't like DSR very much. Games can look fuzzy/blurry and also UI is often messed up. Why did you use DSR in BF1? Game has downscaling built in and works much better than DSR.
Even gaming at native 1080? Wasn't aware of that. Things seems to be much more crisp and clear across the board in 4k DSR.
DSR is great but only when used as an integer 2x2 supersampling (aka "4x") with no "smoothing" crap filter. Unfortunately in this mode it's super performance intensive and as a result only works well on rather old games - some of which have issues with rendering UI in 4K.
Downsampling/OGSSAA (Like their MSAA when it has been supported) in Frostbite games is very poor quality. http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=65105 Though if you are playing BF1 with it's softer TAA solution. Then Frostbite's resolution scale will actually make that look better thanks to their resolution scale's inability to properly resolve high frequency information.(Like most in game SSAA these days) Making the softer TAA image look sharper. (Evidence of this. Look at the comparison above. Now look at the floor tile on the roof just below. There is actually aliasing added to the tiles in the creases in the 150% resolution shot) DSR is great for games when you can combine it with other Anti Aliasing methods. (And you use it at certain ratios. 2.25x, 4.0x,6.25x,9.0x,12.25x,16x) Whether in game or forcing through the driver. On it's own, it's limited in what it can do unless you are using very high ratios greater than 4x That said,there is no other OGSSAA that is comparable to the quality and user adjustability of DSR. (Except for GeDoSaTo, but you are limited to DX9 mostly and can't use forced AA with it.) If you don't like the default level of smoothness, all you have to do is turn it down. 0% is equal to point filtering. And values less than 20% are very sharp while still dealing with aliasing decently. If playing older games, 16x DSR+PPAA looks incredibly good most of the time. (DSR Tool can get you ratios greater than 4x. Just don't go beyond 16x as that's as far as it can handle reasonably without introducing aliasing back into the image.) Messing up the UI would happen all the same if you had a native 4k monitor. It's the game's fault for not properly supporting higher resolutions and having options or maintaining UI scale.
DSR is a great replacement for AA but for one problem. I have 3 HDMI outputs all mirrored to save aggro changing screens. 5.1 Audio to hifi, PC monitor and projector. Enabling DSR with 3 displays mirrored causes the NVidia driver interface to crash such that I cannot open it. The quickest way to fix it is to use Windows display properties to remove screen mirroring. Then I can open NVidia control panel again, change settings, enable DSR again then mirror the displays again. But once the control panel is closed, I have to go through the same mess. It sometimes does it with just 2 mirrored (1 for audio, 1 for video). It got me so annoyed I stopped using DSR.
Personally I prefer manual downscaling in games with a terrible AA. I do not know why but with DSR oblique lines are a lot distorted when on manual downscaling @133,333% and @150% they looks a lot better. Surely the only perfect downscale as dr_rus said it's 200%
OK: So why DSR? :bang: I keep hearing how MSAA got torpedoed by deferred rendering/ shading, so does that mean SSAA has become "economical?" The buses on cards are getting narrower, which also seems to make MSAA "harder:" What does this mean to SSAA? For the record, I've forced DSR to Mr.Bonks' "correct" ratios a few times, but I guess my eyes aren't sharp enough to notice, as I tent to be happy with about "three bumps" worth, and about 15% smoothing … :3eyes:
DSR has been my favourite feature of the last few years, and actually helped convince me to go to SLI. I started my second attempt at The Witcher 2 a year or so ago, which for the most part is a decent looking game, but the shadows are beyond awful, but at 2.25x the were much better and i could hold 60fps on a single 970. At 4k i could not get close to 60fps, but the shadows were now bearable to look at. Now i can easily downsample the game and get 60fps, and eradicating/reducing aliasing ends up (imo) making older games look better than newer games. Since it allows a decent amount of tweaking i find it heard to believe people would prefer a one size fits all ingame option instead. 15-20% is the lowest i have ever went on smoothness, below that and i would have to sit in a different house to be able to look at it, but it's nice that it lets you go that low.
DSR quality for factors <4x could be much better, unfortunately. Either picture gets blurry with enough "smoothness" or damaged by the crappy downscaler.
I usually use 2880x1620 or 2.25x and *18% smoothing @ 1080p screen. Sometimes more 3x or 4x, but by newer games even 1620p can be a bit too much (full eyecandy and 60fps+). What I like the most from DSR or downsampling in general is much bigger FOV and of course antialiased image. *16-18% acts as desktop "cleartype", you can test 4K desktop and adjust slider to ~18%, this looks the clearest to read icon text, if too sharp 16% and bellow it looks jagged and almost irritating. Also I didn't have any real GUI issues yet, imo driver FXAA blurs GUI more.
Witcher 2 has built-in downscaling. (It's called "ubersampling" in the settings.) It's 4x your current resolution (4K for 1080p.)
Problems are areas that tend to shimmering like some textures. DSR <4x with too low smoothness introduces or increases shimmering. I tested this with some very high frequency textures in Battlefield 4 and Talos Principle, you need 35% smoothness for 2x and 2,25x to prevent those artifacts. All other factors <4x are even pure rubbish. Regarding Witcher 2 Ubersampling: It doesn't apply the in-game MLAA to the image before downscaling it, so 4x DSR gives a better result.
DSR definitely isn't one size fits all kind of solution for aliasing. It's my understanding that you want an even multiple (aka, integer scaling) which is 4x. 4x DSR on a 1080p display is 4K, so that looks great. 4x DSR on a 1440p display is 5K (5120x2880) which also looks great. If you're running these even multiples, it's my understanding that DSR smoothness at 0% is theoretically an optimal value. The smoothness setting uses a Gaussian filter to help offset the downsides to uneven SSAA, which is simply not desired on an even multiple such as 4x.
I'm using DSR where I can but this isn't the replacement for a native 4k or 5k monitor... You just can't create additional physical pixels/density. Real 4k monitor will have better clarity etc. Also 2x2 (4x) DSR is worth it, lower factors doesn't really help much. Strangely, nvidia doesn't offer higher than 4x factors, you have to manually add them via registry hacks - kinda silly.
