Sli 970's for 4k testing with DSR reliable?

M

Makeroflostsouls

2[H]4U
Joined
Jun 4, 2008
Messages
2,821
So I just picked up 2, Evga 970's. Running fine at 1475 clock. I know they really only have 3.5gigs of memory. So I have been runing some games with the DSR at 5120x2160 res. Tried everything from WOW to BF4. Everything is running 60+ fps. BF4 is really the only thing that maxes out the memory. But even then it was running about 3.2gigs at 5120x2160 which is 11 million pixels vs the 8 million of a 4k tv I was looking at getting for a monitor. From my under standing DSR is running the full 5120x2160 and then scaling it down to the 2560x1080 of my monitor. Am I correct in this , to which the testing I have done with DSR will reflect that FPS I would get with a True 4k monitor ? Thanks
 
Makeroflostsouls said:
So I just picked up 2, Evga 970's. Running fine at 1475 clock. I know they really only have 3.5gigs of memory. So I have been runing some games with the DSR at 5120x2160 res. Tried everything from WOW to BF4. Everything is running 60+ fps. BF4 is really the only thing that maxes out the memory. But even then it was running about 3.2gigs at 5120x2160 which is 11 million pixels vs the 8 million of a 4k tv I was looking at getting for a monitor. From my under standing DSR is running the full 5120x2160 and then scaling it down to the 2560x1080 of my monitor. Am I correct in this , to which the testing I have done with DSR will reflect that FPS I would get with a True 4k monitor ? Thanks
Click to expand...

WHAT??!?!? you have to be lieing. I was told that this was all lies!!

Sarcasm aside. It does show up while playing some games. Another game is Dragon Age (the new one). It is really noticeable.

BF4 is also another one I know I was able to have it happen.
 
AFAIK, 4k DSR performance accurately reflects gaming at 4k because it fools the game into thinking the resolution is 4k, feeds 4k data to GPU, the GPU crunch it as 4k, then subsequently downscale it to your screen's resolution just before sending the image to your screen.
 
"So I have been runing some games with the DSR at 5120x2160 res. Tried everything from WOW to BF4. Everything is running 60+ fps."

No way in hell you are running BF4 at 60 fps+ on a freaking 970 at a resolution that's 33% more demanding than 4k.
 
misterbobby said:
"So I have been runing some games with the DSR at 5120x2160 res. Tried everything from WOW to BF4. Everything is running 60+ fps."

No way in hell you are running BF4 at 60 fps+ on a freaking 970 at a resolution that's 33% more demanding than 4k.
Click to expand...

"So I just picked up 2, Evga 970's"

Not sure if ya missed the very first part of his sentence.
 
misterbobby said:
Yep I missed that even in the title. :eek:

I blame the combination of Melatonin pills and alcohol...
Click to expand...

GAWD MAN Melatonin kicks my ass.....with alcohol? You are a strong man.

Either way 2 970's at 5k cant do BF4 at 60fps maxed out. You can if you put it all on high (trying to remember what settings I had).
 
Well OP I hope you at least got a killer deal on those 970s, because I honestly don't see why anyone would go 970 SLI now that the 980 Ti is here.
 
n=1 said:
Well OP I hope you at least got a killer deal on those 970s, because I honestly don't see why anyone would go 970 SLI now that the 980 Ti is here.
Click to expand...

Well price is 1 thing. But I would rather stay away from multi-gpu just my 0.02c.

it just sucks that if you want to run 1440+ res you need sli/xfire.
 
DSR is actually slightly more demanding, not significantly more though, than running at the actual resolution. The reason is from what I understand the post processing (downscale, blur) is done with the GPU's shaders.

Battlefield 4 is not a very VRAM demanding game.
 
Went back and tested and I'm getting between 50-65 FPS in BF4 on ultra at 5120x2160. Runs very smooth. I got the 970's B stock from evga for 520 shipped for both. So for this kind of performance i'm pretty damn happy. Also my CPU is super holding me back. This is running on a [email protected] lol. About to order a x99 system in a month or so. Figure with a better cpu with a nice OC I should be able to pickup a few more FPS easy. Running BF4 or hell any game at 5120x2160 the cpu is pegged out at 100%
 
Makeroflostsouls said:
Went back and tested and I'm getting between 50-65 FPS in BF4 on ultra at 5120x2160. Runs very smooth. I got the 970's B stock from evga for 520 shipped for both. So for this kind of performance i'm pretty damn happy. Also my CPU is super holding me back. This is running on a [email protected] lol. About to order a x99 system in a month or so. Figure with a better cpu with a nice OC I should be able to pickup a few more FPS easy. Running BF4 or hell any game at 5120x2160 the cpu is pegged out at 100%
Click to expand...

save money and buy a 4790K reuse everything you have and you still will be gaming better than any other X99 chip that you need to overclock the hell out of it to match the stock clock of the 4790K.
 
limitedaccess said:
DSR is actually slightly more demanding, not significantly more though, than running at the actual resolution. The reason is from what I understand the post processing (downscale, blur) is done with the GPU's shaders.

Battlefield 4 is not a very VRAM demanding game.
Click to expand...

Loss of performance on DSR can be more than offset by not having to use AA.
(Depending on how high the DSR res is)

I use 1440p DSR on 1080p and I dont have to use any MSAA on any games now.
This is less performance hit than 4xMSAA.
On GTA V I use FXAA as well to get rid of any crawlies, that is essentially free.


I did a bunch of benchies with GTA V
% performance 1440p DSR and 1080p 4xMSAA both with FXAA - vs - 1080p with only FXAA
DSR 93%, 84%, 79%, 81%, 90%
MSAA 81%, 76%, 71%, 75%, 83%


% difference 1440p DSR vs 1080p 4xMSAA (when compared to 1080p no MSAA)
Diff 12%, 8%, 8%, 6%, 7%
In favour of DSR


% fps increase going from 1080p 4xMSAA to 1440p DSR
Diff 14.8%, 10.5%, 9.7%, 8.0%, 8.4%

And DSR has more detail!
 
Last edited:
You might've misunderstood my post.

Running native 1920x1080 with 4xDSR to 3840x2160 and then in post processing downscaled back to 1920x1080 with the Gaussian blur is more demanding than simply running 3840x2160 natively with no post processing. Not significantly but slightly so but this does mean that DSR is a good representation of what to expect if running natively at that resolution and a built in slight "buffer."

This relates to the OPs question on how representative 4k DSR is performance wise compared to actual 4k. I assume to gauge whether or not his setup can handle an actual 4k display.

As a side regarding AA. Post-processing AA (such as SMAA and FXAA) actually work better as resolution increases due to the greater amount of sample points. It's actually a great combination with downscaling in lieu of things like MSAA.
 
I agree.

I was pointing out a further benefit of DSR that can offset any performance loss.
With DSR you can turn AA off which will improve performance and make it look more detailed.
I didnt know if the op realised this.
 
I agree.

I was pointing out a further benefit of DSR that can offset any performance loss.
With DSR you can turn AA off which will improve performance and DSR will make it look more detailed.
I didnt know if the op realised this.
 
Enjoy dude. The 3.5GB ram issue does exist, but it's effects at 4k and below are overplayed.
 
Yup you should be fine in most games at 4K if you drop some details, especially antialiasing. I do think it is still necessary on 4K but SMAA or FXAA would suffice. When I still had 2x970 I tried Far Cry 4 in 4K DSR (1440p native) and only when I went to 4xMSAA it started to stutter occasionally. 2xMSAA was ok. Two 970s are not an ideal setup for 4K as you are fighting memory limits but it can be made to work.

I did some testing with GTA V and took screenshots at various resolutions and upscaling. I felt I could replicate 4K DSR reasonably at my native 1440p by simply applying a slight sharpening filter using ReShade combined with 2xTXAA (using MFAA so it's close to 4xMSAA). Of course 4K DSR will still have better small details but my solution has very negligible performance hit by comparison and it was hard to tell a difference in screenshots. I did the same thing in MGS V and was happy with the results so it's something worth a try.
 
chenw said:
AFAIK, 4k DSR performance accurately reflects gaming at 4k because it fools the game into thinking the resolution is 4k, feeds 4k data to GPU, the GPU crunch it as 4k, then subsequently downscale it to your screen's resolution just before sending the image to your screen.
Click to expand...

:confused:
Than got me confused, like that one video of Linus where he discussed about 4K rendering of videos and how Youtube deals with it.;)
 
Well, DSR is 4k is basically 4k gaming, barring the very final step of sending the rendered image, which is downscaled by the GPU to fit your monitor.

Otherwise, it's 4k. Resolution, screenshot size, textures, performance hit, etc are all 4k,
 
DSR = Dynamic Super Resolution = New fancy way of saying Super Sampled Anti Aliasing (SSAA). The marketing speak on their homepage is pretty heavy saying it's some new fancy thing that is amazing and throwing around the word 4K like no ones business.

I'm sure someone will points out some differences but for those not keeping up with terminology anymore I had to google what everyone was talking about. A quick google check actually sounds like DSR is a subpar version of SSAA. http://www.anandtech.com/show/8526/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-review/6


Getting that out of the way there is certainly no point in using MSAA or equivalent as you are already doing a better version of anti aliasing than any of the other methods. All of the other methods simply exist as a quality / speed trade off with varying results. The key difference is that DSR / SSAA has to render all of the image all the time. The other methods are trying to pick and choose pieces to fix, and others like FXAA are just looking at the final image and trying to smooth it out at the expense of sharpness. If doing DSR at 4x isn't enough to fix the problem, then I'd guess the only fix is to soften the image so the edges aren't as pronounced. (Which is likely why they included the "DSR smoothness - slider")

@kasakka: Yea that's why the other versions exist. They can give similar results without being as taxing. Some games will play better with AA than others do, especially the ones that have built in support. DSR will offer a much better experience if you had a title that didn't offer in game AA, yet could properly run at 4K resolution. There is also a possibly to provide higher resolution textures in which to downsample if the game engine is capable of doing so.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top