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

ss_lemonade · Jul 28, 2020

Are the trailing/ghosting artifacts in Death Stranding a common DLSS thing or is this something that can be fixed with future updates/iterations? I've only tried DLSS through GeforceNOW since I do not have a 20xx GPU so I don't know if the artifacts are just being amplified by the streaming nature of the service, but I definitely noticed them right away

Roytheone · Jul 28, 2020

Does being an amd partnered game mean that game will not use dlss? Because if so, being an amd partnered game suddenly becomes a pretty big black spot against your PC version.

More Human than Human · Jul 28, 2020

Too bad the tech isn't available on next gen consoles. I'm guessing one big reason people are underwhelmed by next gen graphics is that native 4k eats a lot of the power budget available.

xxbrothawizxx · Jul 28, 2020

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

Render time at 60fps is 16ms. Giving up a third of that is a lot. Depends on the game I guess. If the difference in render time for the game itself ends up great enough, it could mean a higher refresh.

Fisty · Jul 28, 2020

Interesting notes about the "particle trails" there, I saw something similar in FF7R in the battle arena where Cloud creates really bad trails against the white floor, i thought it was a checkerboard issue but now I'm not so sure

molnizzle · 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. It is magic.

Unkindled · Jul 28, 2020

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

Death Stranding is using software for checkerboarding instead of hardware present on PS4pro.

ILikeFeet · Jul 28, 2020

Roytheone said:
Does being an amd partnered game mean that game will not use dlss? Because if so, being an amd partnered game suddenly becomes a pretty big black spot against your PC version.

yes. though there will be other ways to use AI-based upsampling that are agnostic

for anyone wanting to learn more about how DLSS works, here's Nvidia's presentation on it

Zelas · Jul 28, 2020

AA implementations have all been poor in my eyes. I'm glad there is an alternative.

scitek · Jul 28, 2020

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

If it lets you go from 33ms (30fps) to closer to 16 (60fps), I'd say so. That's where a variable refresh rate display would really come in handy, too.

Alexandros · Jul 28, 2020

Remeran said:
Looks like that will at least lower the gap between the less optimized PC vs the crazy optimization that happens on console.

The performance increase offered by DLSS would be way bigger than any crazy optimization.

molnizzle · Jul 28, 2020

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

Tough to compare since you can't swap between native and reconstructed IQ on console (at the same resolution).

Andromeda · Jul 28, 2020

Don't they all forget something important ? How much space do the tensor cores take on the Nvidia GPUs ?

Callibretto · Jul 28, 2020

so does ps5 and xbox sx have features like dlss?

Deleted member 56306 · 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.

I'm sure someone is working on something, not necessarily the same as Nvidia's method but something.

molnizzle · Jul 28, 2020

Callibretto said:
so does ps5 and xbox sx have features like dlss?

No. Nvidia uses dedicated hardware on its RTX cards to facilitate DLSS. AMD currently doesn't have anything comparable, so neither do the consoles.

Deleted member 11276 · Jul 28, 2020

Andromeda said:
Don't they all forget something important ? How much space do the tensor cores take on the Nvidia GPUs ?

Not much for what they deliver in compute performance.

georaldc said:
Are the trailing/ghosting artifacts in Death Stranding a common DLSS thing or is this something that can be fixed with future updates/iterations? I've only tried DLSS through GeforceNOW since I do not have a 20xx GPU so I don't know if the artifacts are just being amplified by the streaming nature of the service, but I definitely noticed them right away

Not common no, this is the first time I saw that effect in DLSS 2.0 games. Could probably be fixed.

PixelatedDonut · Jul 28, 2020

DLSS is just magic and it sucks that horizon might now have it. Every game needs this, the minor graphical glitches(artifacts) are worth playing pretty much every new game at over 100fps.

Don Dada · Jul 28, 2020

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

DLSS is next gen upscaling, we don't know how other first party upscaling methods will work for the new consoles until the games come out. DF speculates that new solutions for the consoles won't be able to compete with DLSS.

Did DF ever run a comparison of Death Stranding running on a good pc from around the time PS4 came out to the PS4 version?

xxbrothawizxx · Jul 28, 2020

scitek said:
If it lets you go from 33ms (30fps) to closer to 16 (60fps), I'd say so. That's where a variable refresh rate display would really come in handy, too.

Yea, was thinking variable refresh rate would be very helpful in that case. If you didn't have to cut the render time in half, you could use it without caring about making such a big jump.

Roytheone · Jul 28, 2020

ILikeFeet said:
yes. though there will be other ways to use AI-based upsampling that are agnostic

for anyone wanting to learn more about how DLSS works, here's Nvidia's presentation on it

Hopefully those other ai techniques are close in effectivity as dlss 2.0. it would suck if "partnered with amd" would end up meaning: "because of lack of dlss like option will run like junk compared to other games".

orochi91 · Jul 28, 2020

Incredible tech.

Is it safe to assume that next-gen consoles won't have a DLSS 2.0 equivalent? Is this something that can be patched in, or is it a hardware limitation?

III-V · Jul 28, 2020

I guess consoles are a generation out from really taking advantage of this technology every time. Maybe a half gen if we see refreshes.

Dictator · Jul 28, 2020

Andromeda said:
Don't they all forget something important ? How much space do the tensor cores take on the Nvidia GPUs ?

I think I read something like 11% once? Having trouble finding good discussions on it.

Don Dada said:
Did DF ever run a comparison of Death Stranding running on a good pc from around the time PS4 came out to the PS4 version?

We sadly really cannot as the game does 2 things. First it arbitrarily restricts CPUs that do not have a certain instruction set that is used by the games DRM, so we cannot scale ultra low necessarily on the CPU (but intel works fine and will destroy the jaguar anyway, so that is not the interesting comparison).

GPU wise the game requires the ability to do partial resident textures tier 2 I believe in DX12, so it means you cannot run the game on older AMD and older NV GPUs. This usage of PRT for texture streaming is something they added to decima for the PC version of DS - it may not be in Horizon Zero dawn at all so that may work with older GPUs that came out in 2013. They basically upgraded Death Stranding on PC to used more advanced technology than the architectures available in 2013 had, PS4 included.

NinjaGarden · Jul 28, 2020

Andromeda said:
Don't they all forget something important ? How much space do the tensor cores take on the Nvidia GPUs ?

They all who?

Corralx · Jul 28, 2020

I still haven't seen any proof that DLSS is better than native 4k.
It's a slightly different image, sure. It often sharper (sometimes to the point of being over-sharpened and showing ringing artifacts),
But I don't see how it's better, especially in the general case.
Maybe it's just me and I have a very different definition of image quality and what's "better".

That said, I've been a huge proponent of DLSS since day one even in the original form, and it's by far the most interesting feature of Turing to me.
It being better than checkerboard rendering it's not very hard tho, it's a messy hack and I'm glad it died very quickly.
The pain it caused in its very short lifespan still causes PTSD to many rendering engineer.

Santos · Jul 28, 2020

DLSS is the future. I'll need to upgrade my GPU during the next year, I'm using an AMD card atm but I'm so going with Nvidia just because of this.

Tahnit · Jul 28, 2020

I thought the black trails behind cryptobiotes were an intended effect! I had no idea it was an artifact of DLSS.

EagleClaw · Jul 28, 2020

DLSS delivers some really great results.
Picture clarity has some gains, but that missing "flickering" in the distance is a huge improvement.
But that "trailing" does look bad, it completely messed up the floating particles, but that is a game specific case.

Well, i will wait and see in maybe 1 year if machine learning is a big thing on consoles.
I just hope i will never again see something like RDR2 on PS4pro, that was a mess.

ILikeFeet · Jul 28, 2020

Callibretto said:
so does ps5 and xbox sx have features like dlss?

Xbox has DirectML, if MS ever gets around to showing it off

SmartWaffles · Jul 28, 2020

xxbrothawizxx said:
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.

To be fair, the performance is judged based on current Turing Tensor cores, Amphere is rumored to boast significant performance gains on RT and Tensor.

chandoog · Jul 28, 2020

Dictator

Sorry to nitpick, but there's a little typo in the article:

Despite running with much lower pixel count, DLSS is undoubtedly sharper and delivers more detail and clarity than DLSS.

Should be more detail and clarity than CBR, right ?

Dictator · Jul 28, 2020

chandoog said:
Dictator

Sorry to nitpick, but there's a little typo in the article:

Should be more detail and clarity than CBR, right ?

haha yes

Don Dada · Jul 28, 2020

Dictator said:
I think I read something like 11% once? Having trouble finding good discussions on it.

We sadly really cannot as the game does 2 things. First it arbitrarily restricts CPUs that do not have a certain instruction set that is used by the games DRM, so we cannot scale ultra low necessarily on the CPU (but intel works fine and will destroy the jaguar anyway, so that is not the interesting comparison).

GPU wise the game requires the ability to do partial resident textures tier 2 I believe in DX12, so it means you cannot run the game on older AMD and older NV GPUs. This usage of PRT for texture streaming is something they added to decima for the PC version of DS - it may not be in Horizon Zero dawn at all so that may work with older GPUs that came out in 2013. They basically upgraded Death Stranding on PC to used more advanced technology than the architectures available in 2013 had, PS4 included.

Thanks for the detailed response. That's a shame but makes sense after 7 years of tech advancement.

You and the team have been doing some great features recently. Thank you.

fanboi · Jul 28, 2020

3 things Dictator

1. Great video, as usual.
2. Those veins are about to pop
3. I dig your scar, knife fight?

Trago · Jul 28, 2020

DLSS is really something else.

Pasha · Jul 28, 2020

Is that the Killer Instinct theme running in the background of the video?

Era of not Yakuza · 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.

Its like when I'm reading about the big bang or time travel
My brain enjoy the subject but at the same time it can't accept some concepts

Tahnit · Jul 28, 2020

ILikeFeet said:
yes. though there will be other ways to use AI-based upsampling that are agnostic

for anyone wanting to learn more about how DLSS works, here's Nvidia's presentation on it

this is fucking black magic.

Bear Cub in Sky · Jul 28, 2020

Wow. DLSS is the real deal in comparison. Hopefully Sony isn't all in on checkerboarding this gen.

Deleted member 56995 · Jul 28, 2020

Huge shame that AMD and 9th gen consoles don't seem to have anything at the moment like this, I think we would have heard by now if they did, even the solution the MS was working on, I feel if that made it into the console they would have talked about it.

L.O.R.D · Jul 28, 2020

blue_phazon said:
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

So this will help weak graphic card work better?

blue_phazon · Jul 28, 2020

L.O.R.D said:
So this will help weak graphic card work better?

I may be wrong about this, but I think it only works on the 20xx series cards and cards in the future

So yeah on the weakest card in that lineup (the RTX 2060) it'll work

chandoog · Jul 28, 2020

Bear Cub in Sky said:
Wow. DLSS is the real deal in comparison. Hopefully Sony isn't all in on checkerboarding this gen.

Unless AMD has their own equivalent for the tech that they haven't told anyone else about and will be compatible with the PS5 GPU, I expect a lot more CB rendering or TAA upscaling on the consoles still.

His Majesty · Jul 28, 2020

That's a big difference, especially in regards to the flickering and shimmer.

Also I approve of using Hitman music!

L.O.R.D · Jul 28, 2020

blue_phazon said:
I may be wrong about this, but I think it only works on the 20xx series cards and cards in the future

So yeah on the weakest card in that lineup (the RTX 2060) it'll work

Well, my laptop has rtx 2060, so by lowering the game to 720p (how I do that if my laptop screen is 1080p?) so i should get extra boost in performance.

Dictator · Jul 28, 2020

L.O.R.D said:
Well, my laptop has rtx 2060, so by lowering the game to 720p (how I do that if my laptop screen is 1080p?) so i should get extra boost in performance.

you do not adjust your resolution of your display or game output, but you click the "turn DLSS on" button in the respective game and select its mode separately usually.

Deleted member 34714 · Jul 28, 2020

L.O.R.D said:
Well, my laptop has rtx 2060, so by lowering the game to 720p (how I do that if my laptop screen is 1080p?) so i should get extra boost in performance.

You just enable it while gaming at 1080P. Theres usually something like performance or quality DLSS mode that would do it's thing.

Callibretto · Jul 28, 2020

Wow dlss is amazing. Kinda pissed that Cerny or AMD didn't have or think of something similar and now we're stuck with probably 7 years without this tech. I hope ps5 pro will have this tech added

Mendrox · Jul 28, 2020

L.O.R.D said:
So this will help weak graphic card work better?

Correct. That will prolong your cards life by a lot. DLSS 2.0 is also easy to implement and doesn't need the AI prerendering anymore so it's as easy as putting it into your engine (not that easy, but easy for such a feature)

Weak = Starting with a 2060

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

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