Question How "game-changing" is DLSS ?

[Regev]

I was going to get a Radeon 7900 XT, but a friend told me I should probably get a 4000-series Nvidia instead for the DLSS. Told him the Radeon 7900 XT is now about $250 cheaper than a 4070 Super Ti on Amazon. He said with DLSS the 4070 will have at least 50% more framerates than it has by default, most probably a lot more, which makes it a better purhcase than the Radeon. He also said the Radeon's FSR does similar things, but most games support DLSS and will continue to do so probably because of Nvidia's 80% market share.

So, how much of that is true? xD

 

[Zerk2012]

I was going to get a Radeon 7900 XT, but a friend told me I should probably get a 4000-series Nvidia instead for the DLSS. Told him the Radeon 7900 XT is now about $250 cheaper than a 4070 Super Ti on Amazon. He said with DLSS the 4070 will have at least 50% more framerates than it has by default, most probably a lot more, which makes it a better purhcase than the Radeon. He also said the Radeon's FSR does similar things, but most games support DLSS and will continue to do so probably because of Nvidia's 80% market share.

So, how much of that is true? xD

It can be true IF the game supports it.
https://www.ign.com/articles/what-is-nvidia-dlss-meaning

Be careful of some of the Amazon prices a bunch of the big discounts cards are sold and shipped from China. (3rd party sellers)

 

[TechyInAZ]

Not worth it. DLSS is good, but its not worth $250 by itself. Get the RX 7900 XT on that $250 discount, that's really good.

You can always use FSR if you want more performance, many say it doesn't look as good as DLSS, and that is true, but in quality mode it still looks quite good.

 

[Regev]

It can be true IF the game supports it.
https://www.ign.com/articles/what-is-nvidia-dlss-meaning

Be careful of some of the Amazon prices a bunch of the big discounts cards are sold and shipped from China. (3rd party sellers)

Is there a list of which games support it and which don't?

 

[Regev]

Not worth it. DLSS is good, but its not worth $250 by itself. Get the RX 7900 XT on that $250 discount, that's really good.

You can always use FSR if you want more performance, many say it doesn't look as good as DLSS, and that is true, but in quality mode it still looks quite good.

So you can just enable DLSS or enable FSR whenever you want? Or should a specific game offer these settings,? How exaclty does it work

 

[TechyInAZ]

DLSS and FSR are upscalers, they render the game below your native resolution to increase frame rates, then upscale it with special algorithms to your native resolution to make it look as good as possible.

These upscalers are only needed if you aren't hitting the desired frame rate that you want.

 

[Order 66]

Not worth it. DLSS is good, but its not worth $250 by itself. Get the RX 7900 XT on that $250 discount, that's really good.

You can always use FSR if you want more performance, many say it doesn't look as good as DLSS, and that is true, but in quality mode it still looks quite good.

Or RSR which is driver based and not as good as FSR 2.1, but it works on every DX 11 and 12 game.

 

[Zerk2012]

Is there a list of which games support it and which don't?

Never seen a list you might can Google it.

 

[Regev]

DLSS and FSR are upscalers, they render the game below your native resolution to increase frame rates, then upscale it with special algorithms to your native resolution to make it look as good as possible.

These upscalers are only needed if you aren't hitting the desired frame rate that you want.

But isn't DLSS 3 a frame injector rather than an upscaler ?

 

[TechyInAZ]

DLSS is comprised of several different parts. DLSS 3 includes upscaling and frame generation. DLSS 3.5 features, frame generation, upscaling and ray reconstruction.

Yes you are correct, the DLSS 3 frame generation part is a frame injector. But DLSS upscaling can also be used in conjunction with frame generation to improve performance.

DLSS 3 frame generation is good, it does what it says it does and boosts FPS quite drastically, but it comes at the heavy cost of latency. This means that the mouse and keyboard will have a lot more lag compared to running it off.

If you have a high enough base frame rate (with FG disabled) the lag isn't too bad. But this is the main reason why DLSS 3 frame generation is disliked among most people. It introduces a lot of extra lag.

 

[strelok49]

I was going to get a Radeon 7900 XT, but a friend told me I should probably get a 4000-series Nvidia instead for the DLSS. Told him the Radeon 7900 XT is now about $250 cheaper than a 4070 Super Ti on Amazon. He said with DLSS the 4070 will have at least 50% more framerates than it has by default, most probably a lot more, which makes it a better purhcase than the Radeon. He also said the Radeon's FSR does similar things, but most games support DLSS and will continue to do so probably because of Nvidia's 80% market share.

So, how much of that is true? xD

Support is not a problem. All games that have DLSS, have FSR available too.

But they're not the same. They do the same thing, but DLSS use hardware to do the job and FSR uses only software. And this implies notable difference, where DLSS is clearly a winner, even FSR doing a very good job most of times.

DLSS usually improves the native image quality. You will have a nearly perfect AA and lot of rendered fix. 99% of the time/scenes it's just better than native image.

FSR, in other hand, only improves a few details on image, but usually makes the imagem a little worse.

Same for Frame Generation fight. While FSR3 does a very good job, DLSS3 is clearly a winner. Better framepacing, much better results on low fps base and better visual too.

It's good to remember that this isn't all about the differences between Radeon x Geforce. NVIDIA also has much superior performance in Ray Tracing and has other extra Ray Tracing features as well, such as Path Tracing and Ray Reconstruction. Both improves the RT quality by A LOT.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

DLSS is worth it to me. The performance you gain is substantial. It's been the difference between stable 3-digit frame rates and fluctuation. If you want Ray-Tracing at all, Nvidia is the only option you should be looking at. Without DLSS ray-tracing will tank your FPS.

All these quality performance comparisons between DLSS and FSR serve as one thing, to nitpick. When you are actually playing, you won't notice the minor faults DLSS produces but will notice the framerate. Latency is unaffected except maybe games where you need the fastest of reaponse times (like say an FPS game) but even then unless you're a pro you won't be able to tell.

And if you go Nvidia you can also use FSR.
AMD can use FSR but not DLSS.

 

[Regev]

So, same price, and im limited to ~275mm cards, which one would you pick? RTX 4070 Ti or RX 7900 XT

(or 4070 Super for $100 less)

I'll connect the PC, sometimes to my desktop setup (one of a dual 32" 2K@75hz monitors) or to the 4K TV (60hz) in the living room. Considering upgrading it to the 4K@120Hz Samsung Q70 soon.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

So, same price, and im limited to ~275mm cards, which one would you pick? RTX 4070 Ti or RX 7900 XT
( or 4070 Super for $100 less)

I'll connect the PC, sometimes to my desktop setup (one of a dual 32" 2K@75hz monitors) or to the 4K TV (60hz) in the living room. Considering upgrading it to the 4K@120Hz Samsung Q70 soon.

If Ray-tracing isnt important, probably the 7900XT, HOWEVER, game developers are getting lazier and lazier and relying on DLSS and FSR (and frame generation) to make playable games. The 7900XT might be the head to head
winner but long term that DLSS Frame Gen might serve you better.

Its as much a gamble as what your plans are for keeping /upgrading down the line.

 

[Joseph_138]

I really only use DLSS when I want to also use high levels of raytracing, without taking as much of a performance hit. DLSS 3, though, is a different matter, as it can give you great frame rates, even on mediocre, or older, hardware.

 

[Mahisse]

Historically, the competitive technologies between Nvidia and AMD has never really had huge impact on the market. Look at RayTracing. Yes, it's need but it's not something that breaks the competition for AMD since games still looks nice and runs well if the card is just fast enough. DLSS is probably in the same place but I'm sure AI/machine learning technology will make a general push for GPU capabilities in the future but games will not run away and only perform well on a specific GPU brand due to obvious reasons.
Don't worry too much about these niche technologies at this time around... Maybe it will be more relevant to consider for the next GPU generations depending on what you will see from the game developers.

DLSS is worth it to me. The performance you gain is substantial. It's been the difference between stable 3-digit frame rates and fluctuation. If you want Ray-Tracing at all, Nvidia is the only option you should be looking at. Without DLSS ray-tracing will tank your FPS.

All these quality performance comparisons between DLSS and FSR serve as one thing, to nitpick. When you are actually playing, you won't notice the minor faults DLSS produces but will notice the framerate. Latency is unaffected except maybe games where you need the fastest of reaponse times (like say an FPS game) but even then unless you're a pro you won't be able to tell.

And if you go Nvidia you can also use FSR.
AMD can use FSR but not DLSS.

In what reference did DLSS make a difference for you? Just curious because to make that assessment and conclusion you would need to go from a card with similar performance without DLSS to one with DLSS. If you upgraded a card with better performance overall, it's a bit stretched statement that it did a substancial gain.