Forcing DSR with non-native resolution?

[mr_zen256]

Hi all - I have a 4K TV that I use as my monitor and usually I game in 4K 60hz however, my tv also supports 1080p 120hz and there are a few games that I prefer the higher refresh rate over the higher image clarity.

To improve the image quality and still be able to use the display in 120hz, I have been attempting to get DSR working in 1080p, but as far as I can tell, nVidia does not allow for DSR in non-native resolutions.

So far the only solution I have found (un-tested), is to remove 4K resolution using the Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) so it forces windows to think 1080p is the maximum resolution supported by the display. This does seem like a bit of a heavy handed approach especially when I'd like to switch between 1080p 120hz and 4K 60hz often.

Does anyone have some ideas of how I can get DSR working in 1080p without disabling 4K native? Or, is there another way to achieve Super Sampling on nVidia cards without the use of DSR?

 

[chameleoneel]

Hi all - I have a 4K TV that I use as my monitor and usually I game in 4K 60hz however, my tv also supports 1080p 120hz and there are a few games that I prefer the higher refresh rate over the higher image clarity.

To improve the image quality and still be able to use the display in 120hz, I have been attempting to get DSR working in 1080p, but as far as I can tell, nVidia does not allow for DSR in non-native resolutions.

So far the only solution I have found (un-tested), is to remove 4K resolution using the Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) so it forces windows to think 1080p is the maximum resolution supported by the display. This does seem like a bit of a heavy handed approach especially when I'd like to switch between 1080p 120hz and 4K 60hz often.

Does anyone have some ideas of how I can get DSR working in 1080p without disabling 4K native? Or, is there another way to achieve Super Sampling on nVidia cards without the use of DSR?

Yeah, Nvidia's interface is terrible.

Go into the Nvidia driver control panel

go into your 3D settings. use the "global" tab. Not the tab for your specific game profile.

select the setting for Image Sharpening

this opens up a little configuration window. inside there, should be an option for "GPU scaling". This is a different, exclusive version of GPU scaling. different from the normal scaling options part of the control panel menus. It uses a 5-tap scaling method, which is higher quality than the normal GPU scaling. If you have a G-sync module equipped monitor, those have a 6-tap scaler built in. So, you do not use this, in that case. Likewise, your TV's scaling may look better.

**note, the 5-tap scaling includes some image sharpening. So, you may not need to add any additional sharpening, with the sharpening slider adjustment*

Anyway, Select it.

Now go back to your resolution options in the Nvidia control panel. You should see preset scaled options added to your resolution options. One of them should be 1080p upscaled to 4K. Select it, to make this your desktop resolution.

Some games will show this in their resolutions menu, as an obvious option, when setting game resolution. Some will not. In that case, I thiiiink you just select 1080p.

 

[chameleoneel]

Oh I just realized you are trying to downscale 4K or 1440p into 1080p.

 

[chameleoneel]

First, set your desktop resolution to 1080p.

Then, go into your 3D settings and select "DSR" Factors. Select the options you want (2x, 4x, etc).

For "smoothness" I recommend setting it to 12 as a starting point. This usually gives you a good balance between sharpness and smoothness. However, if its too sharp (aliasing or ringing artifacts), then increase it, for more smoothness).

Now you should have an option in your desktop resolution options, for a downscaled resolution, to 1080p.

 

[cybereality]

If you set 2x I'm not sure if that will work (cause you will have 2 entries for 4K, never tried it).

But if you set an uneven number, like 1.75x, then you should be able to select that in the game and still have your desktop at 4K60 without issue.

 

[mr_zen256]

Thanks for the suggestions. No luck unfortunately. I managed to set 1080p 120hz as the monitor native resolution using CRU but when enabling DSR it resulted in weird resolution factors. Also the display overrided the "native" 1080p and simply used true 4K resolution with a maximum refresh rate of 24hz when enabling the DSR resolutions in game.

I'm sure the CRU would be able to accomplish what I am trying to do, just haven't got it configured right yet.

 

[Armenius]

You could always do the old fashioned way by forcing antialiasing in the control panel and enabling transparency supersampling. You would want to set 4x supersampling to get 3840x2160 to downsample to 1920x1080. You can go a step further and use NVIDIA Inspector to enable 4x SGSSAA, which is typically faster in performance than enabling both the traditional SSAA and TRSSAA methods in the control panel. I don't think it will work with all games, though.

 

[mr_zen256]

You could always do the old fashioned way by forcing antialiasing in the control panel and enabling transparency supersampling. You would want to set 4x supersampling to get 3840x2160 to downsample to 1920x1080. You can go a step further and use NVIDIA Inspector to enable 4x SGSSAA, which is typically faster in performance than enabling both the traditional SSAA and TRSSAA methods in the control panel. I don't think it will work with all games, though.

This is probably the better option. Unfortunately the game I'm currently playing doesn't work with the nVidia control panel settings so I'm going to give nVidia Profile Inspector a try. Thanks for the idea.