When Nvidia introduced its Turing architecture to the world at Gamescom 2018, there were two key technologies that promised to distinguish Nvidia's best graphics cards in the pack: ray tracing and deep learning super-sampling, or DLSS. When the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti launched, none of these technologies were really available out of the box, which made us wait until the release of Battlefield V to see ray tracing in an actual game, and was even a bit disappointing. However, once we finally saw the functionality in titles like Metro Exodus and Control, we could see why ray tracing truly is the future of gaming. But DLSS has never been as exciting in practice as we thought, at least when it was first released. The first titles with functionality made the in-game visuals a bit blurry with a lot of confusing aliasing and textures. DLSS has certainly come a long way since then, and Nvidia told us that the latest AI network has made significant improvements to the latest DLSS titles. So we decided to try it ourselves.
Nvidia's Turing GPUs are just great (Image credit: future)
What is DLSS?
On Nvidia Turing graphics cards like the GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2060, there are, of course, Turing GPU cores, but there are two other types of cores that were added with this generation: RT and Tensor cores. RT cores are fully dedicated to ray tracing operations, meaning expensive computing technology can be done outside of pixelation, the method by which lighting has traditionally been rendered for the past two decades. But, DLSS is all about these Tensor hearts. These cores first appeared in Nvidia Volta GPUs, which were aimed at creative professionals and data centers and focused entirely on AI workloads. While the Tensor cores in consumer Nvidia Turing cards aren't as powerful as you might see in a Tesla V100, they are powerful enough to make a difference for average consumers. A game developer that supports DLSS will load thousands of images into a neural learning supercomputer on the Nvidia side. Then when you play any of these games using a supported graphics card, the GPU will display the games at a lower resolution, then the Tensor cores will reference the data compiled by the supercomputer to intelligently scale the images to match the resolution. native possible. The end result is scaling that looks much better than the checkerboard scaling found on the PS4 Pro or Xbox One. The idea, after all, is to increase visual fidelity and performance without breaking your hardware. Many people, including us, have traditionally defined a game at 1800p when it doesn't perform very well at 4K, and DLSS is potentially the end of those days. As a bonus, Nvidia told us that it wasn't all that DLSS might offer in the future. When we chatted with them, we came up with the idea that instead of changing the image from a lower resolution to a higher resolution, it would be nice to see a game that actually looked supersampled, using AI to render at a higher level. resolution and lowering it, just like what we saw with Ubersampling in The Witcher 2. Nvidia didn't confirm that there would be a game coming out that would do this, but they didn't deny that it was possible, so we expect DLSS to be used to create some really impressive visuals. #39; future.
Metro Exodus is DLSS compliant and has had it for over a year (Image credit: Deep Silver)
What games are compatible with DLSS?
Of course, the range of games that actually support this technology is quite small at the moment, although it has grown significantly since its launch. While this is not an exhaustive list of all the indie and AAA games that have used technology, we've gone ahead and listed the biggest DLSS games below.
- himno
- Battlefield v
- control
- Give the moon to us
- Final Fantasy XV
- Subway exodus
- Monster Hunter World
- Wolfenstein Youngblood
In the coming months and years, we should see many other major PC games adopting the technology. We already know that upcoming heavy hitters like Cyberpunk 2077 and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 will use Nvidia's RTX technology to some degree, we just don't know exactly what these games will do at the moment. Image 1 of 5
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Living in the real world
Test system specifications This is the desktop system we use to test DLSS
Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X (12 cores, up to 4.6 GHz)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken M22
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB 3200MHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080Ti
Motherboard: ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming X
SSD: Samsung 860 Evo 1TB x 2, ADATA XPG SX8200 480GB x 1
Power supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 G +
Case: CoolerMaster H500P Mesh So DLSS looks pretty cool right? Well, it's quite a lot, but the effectiveness of the technology varies across titles. We could leave it there, but we have access to a lot of faulty computer hardware and a multitude of DLSS-compatible games, so we tested five of the best DLSS games to see how well the technology works and as many as 39, where it's at since its inception. first appearance on the street. We went ahead and tested DLSS on Control, Monster Hunter World, Metro Exodus, Wolfenstein Youngblood, and Deliver us the Moon. Thanks to this selection of titles, we were able to see the first implementations of the technology through monsters like Monster Hunter World, as well as the latest versions of Deliver us the Moon and Wolfenstein. We tested it all on our personal computer with the specs shown at 3440 x 1440 resolution, and took a bunch of screenshots (here's an imgur link so you can see the differences more clearly) and recorded the download rates. average frames. Image 1 of 2
Monster Hutner World: DLSS disabled (Image credit: Capcom) Image 2 of 2
Monster Hutner World: DLSS On (Image credit: Capcom) Monster Hunter World wasn't the first game with DLSS support, but it still represents the closest iteration of the bunch we tested. Performance sees a massive boost when turned on, but you'll notice that the image is much blurrier and less detailed in the DLSS version. On PC, though, this game doesn't exactly have the best reputation for optimization, and if you're struggling to hit that 60fps gold, this option might be worth it for you. The game feels so much better at this frame rate, which is why Monster Hunter: World is so great on PC. Image 1 of 3
Control No DLSS (Image credit: Remedy) Image 2 of 3
DLSS control with rendering resolution at 1720 x 720 (Image credit: Solution) Image 3 of 3
Control DLSS with 2293 x 960 rendering resolution (Image credit: remedy) When Control first launched, it was essentially the afterthought of what Nvidia RTX technology could do. And, while it came out long after Metro Exodus, the DLSS implementation was unfortunately not that great. In this game, when you enable DLSS, you choose between two rendering resolutions, with the lower resolution ending up giving the game an extremely smooth look, even with the highest performance boost. However, there isn't much of a difference between the game rendered at 2293 x 960 and the native 3440 x 1440 resolution, so we're getting close to a point where it's a no-brainer to recommend. With Control, however, we recommend leaving DLSS disabled if you have the hardware to achieve 60fps at your desired resolution. Image 1 of 2
Metro Exodus No DLSS (Image credit: 4A Games) Image 2 of 2
Metro Exodus DLSS (Image credit: 4A Games) Metro Exodus is technically the oldest DLSS implementation we've tested for this playthrough, but it's also one of the best – it shows just how talented the team at 4A Games is. The performance improvement is not as good as other titles, but the quality is very similar. Of course, there are differences, of course. The aliasing (ragged edges) on the curtains at the back of the stage is much worse with DLSS enabled, and there's less detail, especially on small objects like the phone cord on the desk in front of us. However, when you're trying to sneak in and avoid being killed by a mutant, these little details probably won't be noticed. Image 1 of 4
Give us the Moon without DLSS (Image credit: Wired Productions) Image 2 of 4
Deliver the Moon DLSS in Performance mode (Image credit: Wired Productions) Image 3 of 4
Deliver the Moon DLSS in balanced mode (Image credit: Wired Productions) Image 4 of 4
Deliver the Moon DLSS in Quality mode (Image credit: Wired Productions) It's a bit strange that the best implementation of DLSS is in a standalone game that's been out for about a year, but that's what happened. Originally released in October 2019, Deliver us the Moon received a huge DLSS and raytrack patch at CES 2020, and it really took the game to the next level. It also marked the first game to implement technology on three levels: performance, balance, and quality. And we can tell you firsthand that when you're in Quality mode, you won't be able to tell the difference between that and the game running in native resolution without DLSS, beyond the huge increase in 38% at least fps. With such a DLSS implementation, this game looks phenomenal, and absolutely everyone should activate it in this game if they can. Image 1 of 4
Wolfenstein Youngblood No DLSS (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks) Image 2 of 4
DLSS Wolfenstein Youngblood in Performance mode (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks) Image 3 of 4
Wolfenstein Youngblood DLSS in balanced mode (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks) Image 4 of 4
Wolfenstein Youngblood DLSS in Quality mode (Image credit: Bethesda Softworks) Wolfenstein Youngblood received its DLSS update around the same time as Deliver Us the Moon, and it's another great example of how far the technology has come since its inception. The alias goes bad in Performance mode, but this is normal at this point. The good thing though is that since it's such a fast game where frame rate really matters a lot, you can get up to 100 frames per second with ray tracing enabled by going for the DLSS setting balanced at 3440 x 1440 (with a Ti 2080 of course).
Where does all this leave us?
It's clear that DLSS has come a long way in the last year or so, and it's certainly a point where we here at TechRadar will turn it on when playing games during our downtime. However, is it enough to sell leads with just an Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics card? The answer is no, but that doesn't mean the technology isn't great and can't explain why you're buying a new RTX graphics card. The technology isn't in enough games yet for us to say it's absolutely essential for PC gamers to jump on it, but if you're into ray tracing and 4K gaming, it really does improve things. Along with hardware-accelerated ray tracing, DLSS provides something that AMD graphics cards simply don't have right now. And since AMD has yet to release a graphics card that can really take on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super or RTX 2080 Ti, if you're currently in the market for a high-end GPU, Nvidia seems like the easy choice.