Hardware Unboxed: DLSS In 2020

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Hardware Unbox's Tim takes a look at the current state of DLSS in games. He also talked to Nvidia to get information on how they're handling DLSS now vs the early iterations.

If an article version of this pops up at Techspot I'll edit the link into this post.
 
alxlwson said:
It's rediculous that there is no DLSS for those of us on 1080p. I have a 2070MQ in my laptop with plenty of power to spare, but nvidia won't let you in on it until 4k.
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I'd want it just so I could have the choice to lower power draw on account of lowering temperature and noise where those may be problematic.
 
alxlwson said:
It's rediculous that there is no DLSS for those of us on 1080p. I have a 2070MQ in my laptop with plenty of power to spare, but nvidia won't let you in on it until 4k.
Click to expand...

It depends on the game. Newer ones seem to offer more DLSS options. Not sure if any of them work at 1080p though.
 
alxlwson said:
It's rediculous that there is no DLSS for those of us on 1080p. I have a 2070MQ in my laptop with plenty of power to spare, but nvidia won't let you in on it until 4k.
Click to expand...

This is literally covered in the video
 
Well your answer is there.

It's a limitation of the old version. This is not an issue in newer versions. The video benchmarks 1080p, it works, though the performance benefit is (unsurprisingly) considerably less than 4K.
 
socK said:
Well your answer is there.

It's a limitation of the old version. This is not an issue in newer versions. The video benchmarks 1080p, it works, though the performance benefit is (unsurprisingly) considerably less than 4K.
Click to expand...

Indeed. But the implementation is in the game itself. For instance, FFXV
 
It appears 4K DLSS 2.0 takes the crown, however I'm thinking this is the in game SMAA, I'd like to see Reshade's SMAA with sharpening compared to nV DLSS 2.0. It's unreal, as good smaa is nV still won't implement it, choosing fxaa instead.

4K-DLSS.png

SMAA.png
 
alxlwson said:
Indeed. But the implementation is in the game itself. For instance, FFXV
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The new version had major, breaking changes to the SDK. So yeah you're kinda at the mercy of developers to provide an update for older titles.

This is supposed to be less of an issue on the new version and quality improvements can ship in the driver. It's much more generic, and supposedly the newer version isn't just specifically tailored for that 1 singular game any more. Presumably you'll just start seeing DLSS as a whole getting better, and not just "XYZ game had a good implementation."
 
Techspot breaks down the article with high res pictures:
https://www.techspot.com/article/1992-nvidia-dlss-2020/

Here are zoomed in screenshots of Control at 4k, 4k DLSS, and then 1440p upscale:
Screenshot_20200226-171411_Gallery.jpg
Screenshot_20200226-171442_Gallery.jpg

Screenshot_20200226-171458_Gallery.jpg


The 4k DLSS looks muck closer to 4k than 1440p upscaled.

Now for performance as vram/ram/fps
4k: 6850 8450 45fps
DLSS: 6100 7600 82fps
Upscale: 6100 7550 80fps

Not only is performance similar to that of 1440p upscaled, but memory requirements are about the same as well.
 
The 1440p image just looks oversharpened. Easy enough to fix since NVIDIA gives you control over the strength of the filter.
 
The fact that DLSS 2.0 can potentially be applied without per game work makes it very intriguing. Basically what was promised like 2 years ago.
DLSS (1440p) looks similiar to 1800p, but now with a performance advantage of around 35%.
2.png


You now have a 2060 that can effectively outperform an 5700xt.
 
If a game-agnostic DLSS 2.0 could be implemented at a driver level with minimal to no developer involvement, kind of like how it is with DSR, that would totally change the competitive landscape.
 
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jologskyblues said:
If a game-agnostic DLSS 2.0 could be implemented at a driver level with minimal to no developer involvement, kind of like how it is with DSR, that would totally change the competitive landscape.
Click to expand...

Hardware Unboxed (Techspot) has confirmed with Nvidia that this is implemented for Youngblood & Deliver Us The Moon

This will come for all future PC games BUT requires tensor cores

For Xbox, maybe Microsoft might implement this in Xcloud streaming service, because I am not aware of RDNA 2 using Tensor cores
 
jologskyblues said:
If a game-agnostic DLSS 2.0 could be implemented at a driver level with minimal to no developer involvement, kind of like how it is with DSR, that would totally change the competitive landscape.
Click to expand...

As noted below in TechSpot article, this requires some effort on the developer side, so it may not happen for existing games, but should happen for new games

https://hardforum.com/threads/radeon-rx-5600-xt-launch-review-round-up.1992026/post-1044508529

Marees said:
Apparently Control was a one-off. It used shaders instead of Tensors

Going forward from Wolfenstein YoungBlood onwards DLSS will use Tensor Cores (as per Nvidia's response to Techspot)

Nvidia tells us that DLSS 2.0 is the version that will be used in all DLSS-enabled games going forward; the shader core version, DLSS 1.9, was a one-off and will only be used for Control.

It’s also apparent from the Youngblood results that the AI network tensor core version is superior to the shader core version in Control. In a perfect world, we would get the shader version enabled for non-RTX GeForce GPUs, but Nvidia told us that's not in their plans and the shader version hasn’t worked well in other games.

Nvidia also told us that older titles supporting DLSS will require game-side updates to get 2.0 level benefits due to the new SDK and that’s in the hands of developers, but we doubt those will get support. Battlefield V and Metro Exodus appear to have the same DLSS implementations as when we first tested these titles, flaws and all.

https://hardforum.com/threads/hardware-unboxed-dlss-in-2020.1993053/#post-1044508500
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3 more games rumored to get DLSS 2.0

Control's bespoke DLSS will get upgraded to more universal DLSS 2.0

Mechwarrior 5 also rumored to get DLSS 2.0


via FPS Review:
https://www.thefpsreview.com/2020/0...ior-5-and-control-to-get-updated-with-it/?amp

VideoCardz.com (@VideoCardz) Tweeted:
But now it's officially coming to Control and Mechwarrior 5
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https://twitter.com/VideoCardz/status/1240951074049208320?s=20

Also DLSS might come to Metro Exodus
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nvidia-dlss-2-0-is-reportedly-coming-to-control-and-mechwarrior-5/

According to Videocardz, Remedy and Piranha Games will brings DLSS 2.0 to CONTROL and Mechwarrior 5, respectively. NVIDIA, Remedy and Piranha Games have not publicly commented on this, so take it with a grain of salt. At least for now

Lastly, 4A Games is also considering implementing DLSS 2.0 to Metro: Exodus. While the team is not committed for such a thing yet, it did state a while ago that it’s looking into it.
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PeaKr said:
It appears 4K DLSS 2.0 takes the crown, however I'm thinking this is the in game SMAA, I'd like to see Reshade's SMAA with sharpening compared to nV DLSS 2.0. It's unreal, as good smaa is nV still won't implement it, choosing fxaa instead.

View attachment 223560

View attachment 223561
Click to expand...
The SMAA in Reshade is only a basic implementation. Althought it can be very decent, if the game allows access to the depth buffer, to use the depth detection mode. The good SMAA requires per game support, rather than an generic injector. TAA being an evolved implementation, I suppose. In-game SMAA ought to always be better than Reshade.
 
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