Question DLSS is making my games worse, Why?

[menteinstabile]

I played a plague tales requiem and black myth wu kong. I had to turn the DLSS off because when I move the camera around in the game there are some vertical lines, like some vertical pieces of the images that separate from the main one (if there is a technical name for it let me know). I thought the DLSS suppose to help in some ways but why for me it is just worse?

My PC:
Windows 11 pro 64-bit
AMD Ryzen 5 7600x
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super
Kingston FURY Beast 32GB 6000MT/s DDR5
Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD
MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI
Gigabyte UD850GM power supply unit 850 W
Monitor: Samsung - 27” ViewFinity S7 4k UHD 60Hz

 

[bill001g]

DLSS is not a single setting anymore it has a lot of options and which you use can greatly affect your image.

The key thing DLSS does is upscale the image. You would run it at 1024 and then upscale it and pretend the image is at 4k.
The problem is all the extra data in the 4k image does not actually exist it is all being simulated and sometime you can see this fake data.

The more advanced version of DLSS actually insert whole fake generated frames so now you have fake data in frame because of upscaling and addition fake frames generated based on the already fake upscaled frames

There really is no magic it can not create data that does not exist and sometime you can see it. It varies greatly between games as to how well it works.

Best is to not use any kind of DLSS if you can get the resolutions you need at usable frame rates. Then be careful to choose the quality correctly since this represent how much it is upscaling.

On most games there is a option to use DLSS to just run anti aliasing. This is a very basic form of dlss that does not generate as much false data since it is just smoothing edges....ie making things blurry.

 

[menteinstabile]

DLSS is not a single setting anymore it has a lot of options and which you use can greatly affect your image.

The key thing DLSS does is upscale the image. You would run it at 1024 and then upscale it and pretend the image is at 4k.
The problem is all the extra data in the 4k image does not actually exist it is all being simulated and sometime you can see this fake data.

The more advanced version of DLSS actually insert whole fake generated frames so now you have fake data in frame because of upscaling and addition fake frames generated based on the already fake upscaled frames

There really is no magic it can not create data that does not exist and sometime you can see it. It varies greatly between games as to how well it works.

Best is to not use any kind of DLSS if you can get the resolutions you need at usable frame rates. Then be careful to choose the quality correctly since this represent how much it is upscaling.

On most games there is a option to use DLSS to just run anti aliasing. This is a very basic form of dlss that does not generate as much false data since it is just smoothing edges....ie making things blurry.

Thank you for your detailed answer. So I guess it is best to just not to use it. I'm playing in 4k but with DLSS the fur, for example, is a bit more defined, so it could have been nice to keep it active.

 

[MCH170]

Have you tried updating your drivers? Newer versions sometimes have optimizations for specific games.

 

[menteinstabile]

Have you tried updating your drivers? Newer versions sometimes have optimizations for specific games.

I'm new in the PC world and always hear about updating everything and it's all super updated

 

[Lolomid]

some situations, can slightly improve image quality. Given these benefits, DLSS should be used as frequently as possible

 

[menteinstabile]

Have you tried updating your drivers? Newer versions sometimes have optimizations for specific games.

btw I've geforce experience and it is updated, Is there something else I should do?

 

[menteinstabile]

some situations, can slightly improve image quality. Given these benefits, DLSS should be used as frequently as possible

okay but my image is worse due to the horizontal weird lines appearing on screen

 

[MCH170]

btw I've geforce experience and it is updated, Is there something else I should do?

If it runs well then no. If not, I can't think of anything else that could help.

 

[MEMOFLEX]

This is all seems a little like screen tearing which is normally a mismatch between gpu output and screen resolution or possibly some vsync or adaptive sync settings.

You mentioned you played at 4k - what mhz is the monitor - what is the model.

Do you know what fps you are getting in the game you are experiencing issues with?

Are you using any vsync or setting max fps in games in the settings?

 

[russell_john]

I'm new in the PC world and always hear about updating everything and it's all super updated

To update DLSS upscaling you have to manually drop in the latest nvngx_dlss.dll in all your games that use DLSS

To update DLSS Frame Generation you have to manually update to the latest nvngx_dlssg.dll in all your games that use DLSS Frame Generation

The latest DLSS DLLs can be found here https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-dll/ and here https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-3-frame-generation-dll/

However your problem seems to be sync related but since you didn't list your monitor in your specs it's hard to speculate exactly what is off but it's likely not DLSS upscaling. You probably aren't going to like hearing this but you are a bit underpowered both with CPU and GPU for 4k at least with the highest settings in a game like Plague Tales Requiem

 

[menteinstabile]

This is all seems a little like screen tearing which is normally a mismatch between gpu output and screen resolution or possibly some vsync or adaptive sync settings.

You mentioned you played at 4k - what mhz is the monitor - what is the model.

Do you know what fps you are getting in the game you are experiencing issues with?

Are you using any vsync or setting max fps in games in the settings?

Monitor: Samsung - 27” ViewFinity S7 4k UHD 60Hz

50 fps but the problem is also with 80

vsync on but the problem is also with off, fps locked at 60 but the problem is there also with unlocked fps

 

[menteinstabile]

To update DLSS upscaling you have to manually drop in the latest nvngx_dlss.dll in all your games that use DLSS

To update DLSS Frame Generation you have to manually update to the latest nvngx_dlssg.dll in all your games that use DLSS Frame Generation

The latest DLSS DLLs can be found here https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-dll/ and here https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-3-frame-generation-dll/

However your problem seems to be sync related but since you didn't list your monitor in your specs it's hard to speculate exactly what is off but it's likely not DLSS upscaling. You probably aren't going to like hearing this but you are a bit underpowered both with CPU and GPU for 4k at least with the highest settings in a game like Plague Tales Requiem

thank you for the info, I'm a bit scared to manually replace a file now that the game is working "fine" but I may try it at some point.

Monitor: Samsung - 27” ViewFinity S7 4k UHD 60Hz

I'm not sure if it is a problem of power because the problem is there with low settings and resolution, Now I'm playing Wu Kong 4k all max settings (except for XeSS super resolution that is at 50 instead of 100 but I can't put it at 100 even with low settings, weird) I get between 35 to 60 fps. If I activate the DLSS the fur and grass is smoother but there is that big lines problem. I'm also realizing that I get the problem with the lines if the V-Sync is off

 

[menteinstabile]

So no one can tell me why the entire planet can use DLSS and not me? Is there a problem? a Solution?

 

[bill001g]

It all depends on the combination of monitor/video card and even the game. It also is going to depend on how often you do stuff like rapidly rotate what you see on the screen

It now highly likely you are better at seeing this kind of defect than other people. Go watch some of the videos that show the ghosting caused by frame generation. After I watched some of these I now can easily detect the issue before I had no clue.

The largest issue is the only thing a lot of people look at is the how much larger the frame per minute number is on the screen. They seem oblivious to fact that the quality of the image itself is less. They want to brag to their friend they have a bigger "number"

All you can do is play around with the settings until you get something you like. Just avoid the trap of think a higher FPS is always better. The only reason you need higher frame rates in the first place is to avoid some of the image issues. If you do not see the image issues then your frame rates are acceptable. A lot of this is the video card and monitor marketing guys trying to get you to buy more stuff. It gets crazy when you start to compare what a human eye can really see.

 

[Danra]

So no one can tell me why the entire planet can use DLSS and not me? Is there a problem? a Solution?

DLSS can provide better visuals - in SOME games. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 does a good job with it. However, some games are not properly coded which means possible issues with the large variation in hardware that can span over a decade and used by gamers. In addition to this there are sometimes problems arising from hardware not performing properly, there are several reasons, for example, poor, improper, old or failing power supply. Hardware issues a numerous and I am not going to try to relate all of them to you. While I care about your issue, I don't want this reply to be a book in length.

 

[menteinstabile]

DLSS can provide better visuals - in SOME games. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 does a good job with it. However, some games are not properly coded which means possible issues with the large variation in hardware that can span over a decade and used by gamers. In addition to this there are sometimes problems arising from hardware not performing properly, there are several reasons, for example, poor, improper, old or failing power supply. Hardware issues a numerous and I am not going to try to relate all of them to you. While I care about your issue, I don't want this reply to be a book in length.

Seems like there can be a lot of reasons, maybe I should just pay a technician and show to him my PC, but I also wished to understand more my PC

 

[bill001g]

If it only happens in one game then it is some strange software issue with DLSS and the game. If it happens in all games then I guess you could have a issue with the video card but it would be something like a bad memory chip which tends to not be cost effective to have replaced unless you have a very high end card. Likely hundreds of dollars to have the card even looked at.

I strongly suspect the problem has been their all along you just never saw it before. Now that you see the problem it stands out. What you describe is a extremely common artifact from DLSS or even just poorly written games without DLSS. Your problem is unless you can use someone else machine you never really know if it is happening. Some people just do not see the issues and will say everything is fine until someone else that notices these things uses their machine.

 

[menteinstabile]

I discovered that the problem ( at least in wukong) is in the frame generation in the DLSS option, if it turn that off the tearing problem goes away. So for some reason the frame generation is not working on my pc.

 

[Civv]

A lot of this is the video card and monitor marketing guys trying to get you to buy more stuff. It gets crazy when you start to compare what a human eye can really see.

Well said. Your ability to link your knowledge and experience into words and text help teach someone pretty damn amazing.


.’In a past life I was a salesperson. Pushing VooDoo and Matrox cards. These vendors would need to always be selling something. There are lulls in time, where the tech and advances of componets being required vary much. The thing then you could buy vram seperate and add it yourself. The cards would already be giving the best images they ever would already.

If your getting an image you like, and works for you, thats the best.

One thing about frame rate though, the average humansʻ frame rate varies depending on a few things, but the average being
30 to 60. Now our eyes don’t have vsync. So when you’re looking at a monitor- it has its own refresh rate- it’s going to pulse, let’s say…. 60 times a second, or 60hz.

When your eyes collect the frame- it needs to be during one of those 60 pulses.

The semi-random thing being our eye- that’s snapping frames with a variable time between each snap. not really a way to monitor that, on the go at least.

This monitor is giving you 60 chances to pick up 60 frames a second. (let’s say the software being projected is using V and it’s locked at 60 frames)

You don’t always see the frame- you miss, a lot actually. ** Our actual intelligence generates frames for us in our day-to-day life, especially with shadowing and 3-D. Our emotional and physical states are tied to our the amount of FPS we see** Your not gonna see 60 out 60 frames every second- we probably won’t see much more than half of that.

When viewing 120 Hz monitor, you’re getting 120 ʻchancesʻ - and the same with 240hz … adding more chances for your FPS to sync up each second with what you’re looking at.

so to a certain degree- some things do matter- these numbers marketers are pushing , sometimes literally just designed to make you feel like you need it.

 

[TheHerald]

I played a plague tales requiem and black myth wu kong. I had to turn the DLSS off because when I move the camera around in the game there are some vertical lines, like some vertical pieces of the images that separate from the main one (if there is a technical name for it let me know). I thought the DLSS suppose to help in some ways but why for me it is just worse?

My PC:
Windows 11 pro 64-bit
AMD Ryzen 5 7600x
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super
Kingston FURY Beast 32GB 6000MT/s DDR5
Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD
MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI
Gigabyte UD850GM power supply unit 850 W
Monitor: Samsung - 27” ViewFinity S7 4k UHD 60Hz

It's called tearing. It's not caused by dlss, it's caused by your framerate being higher than your monitors refresh rate.

 

[mikemid]

It improves game performance by rendering games at a resolution below a display's native resolution, then using AI to upscale the result. Cyberpunk 2077 is an ideal example. If you select 4K resolution and choose DLSS Quality mode, the game will render at 1440p resolution. DLSS upscales the result to 4K.

DLSS is just bad for 1080p. It renders a 480p image (or something similar, not sure exactly what resolution ultra performance does), splits it up into 1080p, and tries to guess what color each of the higher resolution pixels will be. It's not very good at guessing, especially at that low of a native resolution.