Upscaling Technology Has Become A Crutch

[arandomguy]

This is what I hate about the narrative of upscaling at launch being framed from, and still primarily is, from a hardware comparison stand point.

You shouldn't have to make a choice of what resolution display you get based on the restriction of your most demanding game(s) you play. This is what upscaling enables compared to being forced to "native."

The comparison point should not be how upscaled to 4k compares to 4k native. It should be given your fixed hardware what ultimately looks better for everything you do? Having a 4k display or a 1440p display? The comparison would be upscaled (some content) to 4k vs. 1440p native (or I guess even 1080p native). In the CRT era I ran various content from to 320x240 to 1600x1200 without worrying about the displays native resolution. We couldn't really do that in once we moved to the LCD (or per pixel display) without very noticeable blurring and image degradation until now.

 

[IQandHDR]

I will say that going from 1440p PT DLAA in "Cyberpunk 2077" to 2160p PT DLSS is a better image quality for me than reducing my other settings.
I will test to see how my OLED handles 1440p with DLAA instead, I have not real tried non-native display resolution on my new setup yet...I might get pleasantly suprised

 

[zilla.exe]

I'm not sure calling it a crutch makes much sense. That seems to suggest the final product isn't affected and the customer is fooled. Everyone can see the loss in image quality if you have to drop all the way to Ultra Performance preset to make up for the poor optimisation. Wouldn't renaming your Medium graphics preset to Ultra not effectively achieve the same thing?

You shouldn't have to make a choice of what resolution display you get based on the restriction of your most demanding game(s) you play. This is what upscaling enables compared to being forced to "native."

100% this. Having a high resolution display with upscaling just gives you so much flexibility.

 

[VFX_Veteran]

I'm not sure calling it a crutch makes much sense. That seems to suggest the final product isn't affected and the customer is fooled. Everyone can see the loss in image quality if you have to drop all the way to Ultra Performance preset to make up for the poor optimisation. Wouldn't renaming your Medium graphics preset to Ultra not effectively achieve the same thing?

Yea, you can say that actually. LOL! I agree though, it's really not a crutch. And if it is declared a "crutch" then ALL of the GPUs are using it. If we want to get technical, all of the GPU tech still has a long ways to go in the RT arena before we can say we've conquered it.

 

[Boss]

I dunno, the problem with upscaling and ML based TAA like DLSS is that it’s still just TAA at the end. The native image with a different method of AA is still superior to DLSS/TAA/TSR and all its other derivatives. TAA is terrible imo and should not be used at all in games. It promotes the use of sub native effects for “optimization” and then uses TAA in an attempt to cover it up.

There’s a great video showing examples of TAA off vs DLSS/TAA on. While DLSS looks better than TAA on, it looks significantly blurrier/less detailed than Native plus a different method of AA.

Is upscaling a crutch? In the literal definition yes.

 

[IQandHDR]

I dunno, the problem with upscaling and ML based TAA like DLSS is that it’s still just TAA at the end. The native image with a different method of AA is still superior to DLSS/TAA/TSR and all its other derivatives. TAA is terrible imo and should not be used at all in games. It promotes the use of sub native effects for “optimization” and then uses TAA in an attempt to cover it up.

There’s a great video showing examples of TAA off vs DLSS/TAA on. While DLSS looks better than TAA on, it looks significantly blurrier/less detailed than Native plus a different method of AA.

Is upscaling a crutch? In the literal definition yes.

DLAA would like a word...and I have seen plenty of examples of DLSS (quality) having better IQ than "native"

 

[Boss]

DLAA would like a word...and I have seen plenty of examples of DLSS (quality) having better IQ than "native"

Native using what AA method? If it’s TAA, then that’s not surprising at all. Like I stated in my previous message, Native + No TAA is superior as the problem is TAA.

 

[IQandHDR]

Native using what AA method? If it’s TAA, then that’s not surprising at all. Like I stated in my previous message, Native + No TAA is superior as the problem is TAA.

What modern games have AA besides TAA?

 

[Boss]

What modern games have AA besides TAA?

Go to subreddit r/motionclarity or r/fucktaa. For different games, they discuss how to remove TAA and compare results.

 

[IQandHDR]

Go to subreddit r/motionclarity or r/fucktaa. For different games, they discuss how to remove TAA and compare results.

So what modern games have other AA than TAA (excluding DLAA/DLSS/FRS/XeSS)?
You made a claim, I am simply asking you to back up said claim

 

[Boss]

So what modern games have other AA than TAA (excluding DLAA/DLSS/FRS/XeSS)?
You made a claim, I am simply asking you to back up said claim

Not many, but you can simply remove TAA from many games so they don’t need to have other AA? That’s why I referred you to the subreddit. Doom Eternal for example is one of the games where you can remove TAA and then compare the images yourself.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It promotes the use of sub native effects for “optimization”

That's been happening for donkey's years. eg. Quarter res particle buffers.

Is upscaling a crutch? In the literal definition yes.

What definition is that? The literal definition is a piece of wood or metal that you lean on to get about.

 

[IQandHDR]

Not many, but you can simply remove TAA from many games so they don’t need to have other AA? That’s why I referred you to the subreddit. Doom Eternal for example is one of the games where you can remove TAA and then compare the images yourself.

So what modern games have AA besides TAA?

 

[IQandHDR]

That's been happening for donkey's years. eg. Quarter res particle buffers.

What definition is that? The literal definition is a piece of wood or metal that you lean on to get about.

Shadows maps have aslo being doing this for years, not "native" resolution.

 

[raytracingfan]

I dunno, the problem with upscaling and ML based TAA like DLSS is that it’s still just TAA at the end. The native image with a different method of AA is still superior to DLSS/TAA/TSR and all its other derivatives. TAA is terrible imo and should not be used at all in games. It promotes the use of sub native effects for “optimization” and then uses TAA in an attempt to cover it up.

There’s a great video showing examples of TAA off vs DLSS/TAA on. While DLSS looks better than TAA on, it looks significantly blurrier/less detailed than Native plus a different method of AA.

Is upscaling a crutch? In the literal definition yes.

So you're really claiming that TAA is a crutch. But FXAA is also a crutch. MSAA is also a crutch because it doesn't catch detail within triangles, only along the edges. Everything except brute force supersampling is a crutch. So in other words, native resolution itself is a crutch, upscaling is just a bigger crutch.

 

[Boss]

So what modern games have AA besides TAA?

Ratchet and clank pc ports, spiderman pc ports I believe. You can turn off TAA in lies of p, Doom/eternal.

This video shows comparisons between no aa and TAA. I’m trying to find the video that also includes DLSS and when I find it, I will post it.

 

[IQandHDR]

Ratchet and clank pc ports, spiderman pc ports I believe. You can turn off TAA in lies of p, Doom/eternal.

This video shows comparisons between no aa and TAA. I’m trying to find the video that also includes DLSS and when I find it, I will post it.

You sound like you have never seen DLAA in person, because Native with no AA is subpar to DLAA.
You also need to learn about why TAA (Now replaced for me by DLAA/DLSS) came into action:

 

[Boss]

You sound like you have never seen DLAA in person, because Native with no AA is subpar to DLAA.
You also need to learn about why TAA (Now replaced for me by DLAA/DLSS) came into action:

But I’m not talking about DLAA? I’m talking about DLSS so I’m not sure why you’re conflating the two at all. DLAA also does not fix the inherent flaws with DLSS. I have used DLAA in several games and it still does not fix TAA/DLSS artifacts.

Finally you’re arguing that Native + no aa is inferior to native + dlaa. That’s a completely different argument to the one I initially proposed so we’re on different wavelengths.

 

[IQandHDR]

But I’m not talking about DLAA? I’m talking about DLSS so I’m not sure why you’re conflating the two at all. DLAA also does not fix the inherent flaws with DLSS. I have used DLAA in several games and it still does not fix TAA/DLSS artifacts.

Finally you’re arguing that Native + no aa is inferior to native + dlaa. That’s a completely different argument to the one I initially proposed so we’re on different wavelengths.

What game?
I would like to compare as you make claim after claim, but never document your claims.
And "native" doesn't mean what you think it does.
A lot happening on screen is not "native".

 

[Cappuccino]

Modern releases look incredibly blurry to me, and it seems developers/IHVs agree because now every game has a built in sharpening filter slider lol. Games didn't used to need sharpening filters at native resolution.

TAA fundamentally makes games blurrier. I think this makes games look worse. Some prefer the look. I also don't love how TAA's poor outcomes have lead to a whole new set of vendor specific proprietary (for the most part) replacements for it (ie DLAA, DLSS, FSR at native res or upscaling, XeSS).