Digital Foundry || Death Stranding PC DLSS 2.0 vs PS4 Pro Checkerboarding: Image Reconstruction Analysis

ILikeFeet · Jul 28, 2020

Image reconstruction is essentially the idea of rendering graphics at a lower resolution and then using various techniques to reconstruct a higher resolution image. In this video we're comparing the state-of-the-art from two very different techniques - the AI-enhanced DLSS 2.0 from Nvidia is stacked up against the unique checkerboard rendering implementation devised by Guerrilla Games for its Decima Engine. DLSS demonstrates how much image reconstruction has evolved over the years - but can this technology transition to the next-gen consoles?

article, so no summary from me, might post quotes when I'm not busy

Death Stranding PC: how next-gen AI upscaling beats native 4K

The concept of native resolution is becoming less and less relevant in the modern era of games and instead, image recon…

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Deleted member 8752 · Jul 28, 2020

Very cool comparison. It's amazing how much these image reconstruction techniques are improving over time.

Dan Thunder · Jul 28, 2020

the big takeaway is that DLSS image reconstruction from 1440p looks cleaner overall than native resolution rendering. We've reached the point where upscaling is quantifiably cleaner and more detailed - which sounds absurd, but there is an explanation. DLSS replaces temporal anti-aliasing, where all flavours of TAA exhibit softening or ghosting artefacts that Nvidia's AI upscaling has somehow managed to mostly eliminate.

The idea that upscaling gives you a better picture than a native image is just crazy to me. Really it's sounding like true 4k may end up being the exception in the next-gen rather than the standard.

.exe · Jul 28, 2020

Super interesting! The comparison they do for objects at a distance and image stability is really night and day between the two techniques. It's so much clearer with DLSS. Hopefully the particle trail issue they showed can be improved over time, but that's a concession I could live with probably.

For as awesome as the technology is, it's tricky that it needs to be implemented for each game separately. It may improve your hardware's longevity in some games but not all, I suppose.

Pasha · Jul 28, 2020

But..... but trusted insiders like MoresLawIsDead told me that DLSS is just upscaling with some sharpening...... what is going on?

ILikeFeet · Jul 28, 2020

Pasha said:
But..... but trusted insiders like MoresLawIsDead told me that DLSS is just upscaling with some sharpening...... what is going on?

I mean, technically he's not wrong...

LabouredSubterfuge · Jul 28, 2020

Alex pls be careful with that candle near the curtains.

Odesu · Jul 28, 2020

Playing Control with DLSS 2.0 was an absolute game changer. It's probably the most impressive think I've seen in the gaming space from a technical side. Just check one option and suddenly the game not only looks better than it did natively (???) but also runs as if it was running in 720p. And just like that I was able to play the game smoothly with 80 to 100 fps in 1440p.

LavaBadger · Jul 28, 2020

Dan Thunder said:
The idea that upscaling gives you a better picture than a native image is just crazy to me. Really it's sounding like true 4k may end up being the exception in the next-gen rather than the standard.

I think the quote you posted finally clarifies this, which I appreciate.

It isn't that the upscale is better than native res. It's that the upscale replaces TAA solutions which which aren't that good even on native res.

Makes a lot more sense as to why image quality is better with DLSS in these scenarios.

Qudi · Jul 28, 2020

LabouredSubterfuge said:
Alex pls be careful with that candle near the curtains.

candles close to anything in generel give me a heart attack. yeah hope its not too close to the curtian D:

R.T Straker · Jul 28, 2020

Pasha said:
But..... but trusted insiders like MoresLawIsDead told me that DLSS is just upscaling with some sharpening...... what is going on?

Had to google this one and this is the first thing that came up.

LMAO.

smocaine · Jul 28, 2020

Wow, even DLSS 2.0 in Performance Mode holds up really well (better than checkerboard?)
Am I going to be running my games at 1080p (internal) next gen?

Dictator · Jul 28, 2020

LabouredSubterfuge said:
Alex pls be careful with that candle near the curtains.

Crysis burned down my house AND my PC

Mirage · Jul 28, 2020

DLSS 2.0 is like magic.

blue_phazon · Jul 28, 2020

Every PC release should have DLSS 2.0 from here on out

Here's to hoping Halo Infinite and Horizon use it

Remeran · Jul 28, 2020

That's crazy, it seems that even the new consoles won't be able to match what DLSS does due to lower machine learning than newer cards on PC. Looks like that will at least lower the gap between the less optimized PC vs the crazy optimization that happens on console. Pretty cool

Deleted member 679 · Jul 28, 2020

DLSS really is such a game changer. I really hope the mid gen refresh consoles will feature a similar solution by AMD. That would be a massive performance boost.

No_Style · Jul 28, 2020

A.I overlords take us to the promised land!

CabooseMSG · Jul 28, 2020

God I absolutely love DF's in depth analyses like this. I may not understand everything, but its fascinating nonetheless.

DavidDesu · Jul 28, 2020

So frustrating it seems like we won't really get this for the upcoming consoles. A massive game changer for framerate potential that could really see a huge uptick in visuals over the next few years. Definitely good for the longer view, to PS6 or whatever that these techniques will be widespread and built in and constantly improve in their implementation.

Duffking · Jul 28, 2020

This video is why I'm kinda thinking chasing native 4K is turning out to be a bit of a waste of time and resources. If DLSS 2.0 had come a bit earlier I wonder if the next gen would all be targeting 1440p upscaled to 4K with better performance. I'd already take 1440p/60 over 4K/30, but with DLSS you basically get 4K/60 at the hardware cost of 1440p.

I'm curious what this could mean for future Nintendo hardware though if they stick with nVidia, this sort of stuff seems ideal for smaller devices. Even if a lot of this is down to TAA.

blue_phazon · Jul 28, 2020

Quick question for anyone who knows, but what looks better in the following scenario?
- I have a 1080p screen
- run the game at DLSS from 1080p and reconstructing to 4k

Will this essentially have better supersampling than if I just internally ran the game at 4k?

platocplx · Jul 28, 2020

DavidDesu said:
So frustrating it seems like we won't really get this for the upcoming consoles. A massive game changer for framerate potential that could really see a huge uptick in visuals over the next few years. Definitely good for the longer view, to PS6 or whatever that these techniques will be widespread and built in and constantly improve in their implementation.

you need dedicated hardware for it def wont be a thing for most of the consoles this gen, maybe next gen though. Maybe some light applications of it.

Deleted member 11276 · Jul 28, 2020

Great comparison. It's great that Alex was so objective and also demonstrated DLSS's shortcomings. I never thought that particle effect from the worm things was because of DLSS. I thought it was a game effect, because it fitted the whole strand concept so well.

Overall, DLSS has an amazing picture quality.

LavaBadger · Jul 28, 2020

Interesting video.

It is a fairly apples and oranges comparison (Which is acknowledged); one is wholly software based, running on quite old hardware - the other is hardware and software based, running on comparatively cutting edge hardware. Both seem like good methods given their particular constraints.

It will be interesting to see what methods are developed this gen for use on consoles.

Gitaroo · Jul 28, 2020

Guess there will be ps5 pro with tensor cores....

scitek · Jul 28, 2020

I think it shines light on how much horsepower it takes to run DLSS effectively. If it adds 2.5ms of render time on a 2060, and would take ~5ms with the Series X's GPU, I wonder how realistic it is to expect it on a potential Switch 2.0. Granted, that would be rendering at much lower resolutions, so maybe that makes a big difference?

xxbrothawizxx · Jul 28, 2020

Video kind of crushes the dream of DLSS for Switch 2, but I hope someone at Nintendo or Nvidia is adamant about the tech making its way to the platform in some form. It's such cool tech.

AndyD · Jul 28, 2020

What is the performance level needed between one or the other? Is it "cheaper" to do DLSS at a lower res?

Arex · Jul 28, 2020

Hope the consoles can get some kind of tech similar to DLSS 2.0 (I know, AMD, but still I wanna hope lol) so that the power can be saved for better graphics and FPS rather than chasing resolution.

MrKlaw · Jul 28, 2020

Decima has forced TAA? Is there any comparison with native res when not using TAA or other AA that softens the output?

id like to understand more on the costs of these. I think DLSS was said to be about 3.5ms on a 20xx card? How much time does checkerbording or other reconstruction techniques on console take? Then extrapolating those techniques to next gen, if you have 3-4ms to 'spend' on reconstruction how much better can console techniques get? For now I'm assuming an actual DLSS wouldn't be practical at a similar ms budget (maybe something like DLSS performance might be almost possible)

marecki · Jul 28, 2020

LavaBadger said:
I think the quote you posted finally clarifies this, which I appreciate.

It isn't that the upscale is better than native res. It's that the upscale replaces TAA solutions which which aren't that good even on native res.

Makes a lot more sense as to why image quality is better with DLSS in these scenarios.

This is an important point to be made, the only reason it looks better than native 4K image is because TAA often destroys fine detail of the image. From the performance saving perspective this is incredible and I think industry will push towards refining reconstruction techniques as a whole.

ThereAreFourNaan · Jul 28, 2020

MrKlaw said:
Decima has forced TAA? Is there any comparison with native res when not using TAA or other AA that softens the output?

Some modern games don't have alternative AA techniques or even let you disable it because the game engine requires the TAA pass for various effects to work properly. Metro Exodus breaks down in several places if you use cheat engine to disable TAA for instance. Doom Eternal won't let you disable it for similar reasons.

I am not fully sure if DS does.

-Le Monde- · Jul 28, 2020

Arex said:
Hope the consoles can get some kind of tech similar to DLSS 2.0 (I know, AMD, but still I wanna hope lol) so that the power can be saved for better graphics and FPS rather than chasing resolution.

But we already have plenty of games that use good reconstruction techniques. I expect it to be even better for next gen.

Koukalaka · Jul 28, 2020

I'm loving these intros in recent DF videos.

scitek · Jul 28, 2020

ThereAreFourNaan said:
Some modern games don't have alternative AA techniques or even let you disable it because the game engine requires the TAA pass for various effects to work properly. Metro Exodus breaks down in several places if you use cheat engine to disable TAA for instance. Doom Eternal won't let you disable it for similar reasons.

I am not fully sure if DS does.

I remember reading that Red Dead Redemption 2 is similar, but you can actually turn TAA off and see how things break without it.

L.O.R.D · Jul 28, 2020

SilentRob said:
Playing Control with DLSS 2.0 was an absolute game changer. It's probably the most impressive think I've seen in the gaming space from a technical side. Just check one option and suddenly the game not only looks better than it did natively (???) but also runs as if it was running in 720p. And just like that I was able to play the game smoothly with 80 to 100 fps in 1440p.

i don't understand this
how you are playing on 720p and running at 1440p?
what DLSS 2.0 actully do? lowering the res and expand it to 1440p?

Sia · Jul 28, 2020

It is surprising how well the checker boarding holds up though. I don't know why sony is pushing for native resolution, even if they don't have AI tensor cores in the ps5 or whatever I would still prefer checkerboarded 4k with extra effects or frame rate over native.

scitek · Jul 28, 2020

MrKlaw said:
Decima has forced TAA? Is there any comparison with native res when not using TAA or other AA that softens the output?

id like to understand more on the costs of these. I think DLSS was said to be about 3.5ms on a 20xx card? How much time does checkerbording or other reconstruction techniques on console take? Then extrapolating those techniques to next gen, if you have 3-4ms to 'spend' on reconstruction how much better can console techniques get? For now I'm assuming an actual DLSS wouldn't be practical at a similar ms budget (maybe something like DLSS performance might be almost possible)

He said checkerboarding takes around 1.8ms on the PS4 Pro, and DLSS was 1.5ms on a 2080Ti and 2.5ms on a 2060, but would take about 5ms on a Series X.

bytesized · Jul 28, 2020

Great video, DLSS is amazing but i wonder if the AI learning needs to be done very late in development and how expensive it is for studios. Also, the artifacts it creates with those floating particles were really really weird but I assume a solution will be on the way

Kaloskatoa · Jul 28, 2020

scitek said:
He said checkerboarding takes around 1.8ms on the PS4 Pro, and DLSS was 1.5ms on a 2080Ti and 2.5ms on a 2060, but would take about 5ms on a Series X.

Would the framerate improvements that could be gained be enough to offset the extra input lag?

MrKlaw · Jul 28, 2020

scitek said:
He said checkerboarding takes around 1.8ms on the PS4 Pro, and DLSS was 1.5ms on a 2080Ti and 2.5ms on a 2060, but would take about 5ms on a Series X.

thanks. So 2-2.5ms seems acceptable from a frame time budget. Given such a large increase in CPU and GPU next gen it'll be interesting to see how much better things will get on console

ILikeFeet · Jul 28, 2020

L.O.R.D said:
i don't understand this
how you are playing on 720p and running at 1440p?
what DLSS 2.0 actully do? lowering the res and expand it to 1440p?

with DLSS on, you start with a lower internal resolution and AI scales the image based on previous frames and motion data

bytesized said:
Great video, DLSS is amazing but i wonder if the AI learning needs to be done very late in development and how expensive it is for studios. Also, the artifacts it creates with those floating particles were really really weird but I assume a solution will be on the way

Nvidia says it's a "slot in" solution provided your engine already uses TAA. so I assume it's not all that expensive, integration-wise

blue_phazon · Jul 28, 2020

L.O.R.D said:
i don't understand this
how you are playing on 720p and running at 1440p?
what DLSS 2.0 actully do? lowering the res and expand it to 1440p?

So as an example, let's say you want to target 1080p.

DLSS basically runs the game lower (like 720p) and then uses advanced AI upscaling mumbo jumbo magic to make the game LOOK like 1080p.

And the cool thing these tests show is that DLSS will make the game look even better. So in my example, DLSS targeting 1080p will look better than running the game itself at 1080p.

The huge benefit is you're essentially running the game at 720p, so your fps will be higher than running at 1080p

Omnistalgic · Jul 28, 2020

So how do the first party studio upscaling techniques compare? I recall DF praising Insomniac and GG before.

NinjaGarden · Jul 28, 2020

Great video and some extremely impressive tech. A real missed opportunity for next-gen consoles but who could have seen such a huge jump in image reconstruction tech in such a short amount of time?

LumberPanda · Jul 28, 2020

L.O.R.D said:
i don't understand this
how you are playing on 720p and running at 1440p?
what DLSS 2.0 actully do? lowering the res and expand it to 1440p?

Yes. You play at 720p, then an AI takes the 720p frame and creates a 1440p frame with more details. The AI is really good at this and it looks almost exactly as if the game was rending in 1440p originally.

Unkindled · Jul 28, 2020

Great analysis by DF, DLSS looks like black magic at work.

MrKlaw · Jul 28, 2020

Omnistalgic said:
So how do the first party studio upscaling techniques compare? I recall DF praising Insomniac and GG before.

If DF haven't done a round table of different approaches I'd love to see one..

ILikeFeet · Jul 28, 2020

Omnistalgic said:
So how do the first party studio upscaling techniques compare? I recall DF praising Insomniac and GG before.

kinda hard to compare when those games aren't on PC, but I DF has talked about them being good before

Digital Foundry || Death Stranding PC DLSS 2.0 vs PS4 Pro Checkerboarding: Image Reconstruction Analysis

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