Today we're addressing one of the most frequent discussion topics surrounding the new RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards. Every bit y'all already know from our reviews, these cards do non offer great value correct now. The vanilla 2080 offers GTX 1080 Ti-like performance at a higher price, while the RTX 2080 Ti is the fastest menu on the market place, only carries a ~80% price premium over the 1080 Ti for about thirty% more performance.

Just the question or even just coating statement we keep seeing popular up relates to DLSS. Is it worth buying the RTX 2080 for DLSS?, or is DLSS the killer characteristic for the RTX cards? As with ray tracing, we won't actually know until we take more to test with, simply today we're doing an early investigation into DLSS using the current DLSS demos nosotros have inside reach.

Nosotros weren't going to cover DLSS so soon because there are only 2 Nvidia-provided demos available that allow u.s.a. to see DLSS in activeness. Neither of them are actual games, instead they are canned benchmarks, so it's not really the best way to explore and analyse DLSS. But we do see a lot of questions out there, so ultimately we decided it warranted an early investigation.

DLSS stands for "deep learning super sampling," and it'southward a new rendering technology that only works with GeForce RTX graphics cards. There are 2 DLSS modes, but we can but test 1 of them correct at present, the standard DLSS mode, so it's the only one nosotros'll be focusing on.

While the proper name does take "super sampling" in it, the standard DLSS mode isn't really super sampling, information technology's more of an image reconstruction technique that renders a game at a sub-native resolution, then uses AI inferencing to upscale and amend the image. And of course, the AI processing element of DLSS is merely possible cheers to Turing'southward tensor cores.

And so what DLSS aims to provide is a 4K image equivalent to a native 4K presentation, except with higher operation than you'd otherwise get through native rendering. This is possible because at 4K, DLSS is actually rendering the game at approximately 1440p, so with 2x fewer samples, and then upscaling information technology using an AI network trained on a 64xSSAA reference imagery.

You could think of information technology as an advanced upscaling technology similar to checkerboard rendering or temporal rendering, techniques game consoles like the PS4 Pro use to run games at "4K" while actually rendering them at lower resolutions. Theoretically, DLSS fixes a lot of the bug with checkerboard rendering, making it more suitable for PC gaming where the artefacts generated through checkerboarding are much more noticeable.

Visual Quality and Allegiance

Nosotros highly recommend clicking through to view the full 4K resolution comparison images

Let's get into some quality comparisons, starting with the Terminal Fantasy Fifteen criterion. Showtime upwardly we have a directly comparing of native 4K with temporal anti-aliasing, or TAA, up confronting DLSS at 4K. It'southward an interesting comparison to make, because in some situations, DLSS provides superior epitome quality to the native 4K TAA presentation, such as with afar trees in some shots.

All the same for the almost part, the 4K TAA image is better, giving you lot improved fine detail in a lot of the various scenes, specially the car at the showtime of the benchmark run, the grass a scrap later on, and the close up food shot towards the end. The differences in quality range anywhere from very hard to spot, to quite noticeable on a 4K display.

It seems that DLSS struggles with a lot of fine, loftier-resolution texture piece of work that the native image provides, especially in more static shots. However, as DLSS doesn't have a temporal component, this reconstruction technique finds information technology like shooting fish in a barrel to clean up moving shots where TAA either blurs the image, or introduces artefacts, which is why in some aspects information technology's superior.

DLSS, at least in this benchmark, is pretty close to the native 4K presentation, but it's definitely non the aforementioned equally native 4K, and those with high resolution displays will be missing out on the extra detail yous get with a true native presentation.

Of course, DLSS vs 4K TAA is the stock standard comparison Nvidia suggests. So I decided to look at a few other comparisons, starting with DLSS vs a 4K image with no anti-aliasing.

Right away yous'll spot a ton of aliasing artefacts on the 4K no-AA image, which is to be expected and I wouldn't suggest people play with AA disabled. It's especially bad on the character's hair and grass.

Just the no-AA prototype does produce noticeably sharper and clearer texture quality, when you look at, say, the middle of an object where in that location are few jaggies or artefacts. Afar tree quality likewise has at present improved to the point where the no-AA presentation is equivalent to DLSS, rather than inferior to DLSS.

And this begins to highlight one of the key issues with Final Fantasy XV's anti-aliasing techniques: they are rubbish. The TAA implementation in this game is terrible, it's most comparable to a mistiness filter rather than a decent AA implementation that preserves fine detail while smoothing out edges and removing shimmering. Enabling TAA in this game simply wipes out a lot of the fine texture detail y'all'd otherwise go at 4K, and completely destroys scenes during movement.

I'g non the biggest fan of TAA in most games, but it is possible to go right. Shadow of the Tomb Raider for example is a game with decent TAA that softens edges without significantly reducing texture quality. Merely in this particular game, TAA… well it sucks, to be honest.

Because Final Fantasy XV's TAA is so bad, the game isn't a swell comparison between a native 4K image, and DLSS. A lot of games use far better anti-aliasing techniques, either with meliorate TAA, or techniques similar SMAA, or a combination of both. So it's all well and good to say, DLSS looks pretty close to FFXV's native 4K TAA presentation, but how volition it compare to the bulk of games with better anti-aliasing and better native 4K? Well, it's hard to say for certain, only I'd certainly expect the gap in image quality to widen.

That's not to say DLSS is going to be a bust, there's certainly a place for a rendering technique that provides better performance for a small-scale reduction in prototype quality. After all, we already have quality settings for a whole range of other furnishings. Simply I don't recollect the FFXV demo is cracking for judging that verbal quality reduction for most games.

There is one very nice matter to highlight: 4K DLSS is far superior to a native 1440p presentation. As you might recollect, DLSS is upscaling from 1440p to try and imitate 4K. Well at a native 1440p, textures and fine particular are noticeably blurrier when upscaling that prototype to 4K ourselves, whereas using DLSS for upscaling is like a magic filter that cleans upwards everything.

Fifty-fifty applying a sharpening filter using ReShade to try and… I guess cheat a fleck and make clean up the blurry 1440p TAA image, it'due south nevertheless not as make clean as the DLSS image, though information technology is amend than the regular not-sharpened 1440p presentation.

Some Early Benchmarks and More Comparisons

In terms of performance, well DLSS isn't a gratuitous anti-aliasing or upscaling technique, so yous're not going to go 1440p-class performance while getting a near-4K presentation. For our benchmark runs of Final Fantasy XV'southward benchmark, DLSS improved performance by 34% looking at average framerates, and 27% looking at i% lows, compared to native 4K. Nevertheless running at a native 1440p improved things again, producing a 26% higher average framerate compared to 4K DLSS.

And I think that's a reasonable reflection of how the visual quality stacks upwardly: DLSS is a middle basis between native 1440p and native 4K, though DLSS is closer to 4K in terms of quality, so of these 3 options I remember information technology could deliver the best balance betwixt performance and visuals. For those that are less likely to notice the quality reduction compared to native 4K, DLSS could be the way to go, but again this is merely from looking at one game, we'll accept to wait for actual playable games to see how it stacks upwards in a more than real globe usage scenario.

The other demo we can currently test DLSS in is Ballsy's Infiltrator. Pretty similar story when comparing DLSS to 4K TAA, except in this demo the TAA implementation isn't complete garbage. DLSS does clean up a few of the temporal artefacts that TAA introduces, however the 4K TAA image is sharper and clearer throughout the run, and it's specially noticeable during the slower panning sections.

It's not a bad effort from DLSS considering it'south working with a 1440p source, information technology does get pretty close to native 4K and in a lot of the scenes I found it pretty difficult to spot any differences. Notwithstanding native 4K is that bit sharper, so I wouldn't call the 2 images completely comparable.

Again, comparing 1440p to 4K DLSS does bear witness DLSS to be quite a bit amend in terms of its clarity and overall visual quality, and then DLSS is in one case again working some black magic to upscale the paradigm significantly higher up the source 1440p material.

This is possibly the nearly interesting comparison we'll run across. The Infiltrator demo allows y'all to mess effectually with the resolutions a bit more than FFXV, and then hither I have a native 1800p paradigm, upscaled to 4K, next to 4K DLSS.

This is a serious boxing, in some situations I noticed fewer jagged edges with the upscaled 1800p image, and in some situations I noticed higher item with the DLSS imagery. It'due south an incredibly close comparison; where native 4K was that petty flake sharper than DLSS, 1800p is a very good lucifer for DLSS.

And here's the fun part. Native 1800p rendering delivers nigh identical performance to DLSS in the Infiltrator demo: DLSS is about ii percent faster in average framerates, and 6 percent faster in one% lows. Of course, DLSS is a good 37 percent faster than 4K in average framerates, only the key thing here is DLSS is about visually identical to 1800p while also providing virtually identical performance.

Just before I jump into the conclusion I wanted to briefly affect DLSS at 1440p, which is the lowest supported resolution for DLSS. Here, DLSS is sampling the game at 1080p then upscaling, and I remember a lot of what I said about 4K DLSS vs 4K TAA holds upwardly here too. If anything, the difference in clarity is a little more than pronounced at this resolution, in favor of native 1440p. I believe the demo is also CPU limited hither with the 2080 Ti and an overclocked 8700K, and so there'due south not much point talking performance.

Closing Remarks

In that location are a few interesting takeaways hither from this early look at DLSS. Just permit's first beginning with the limitations. We only have two demos to go on, neither of which are games we can bound in and freely play. Instead, they are fully canned, on-rails benchmarks, and it could exist easier for Nvidia to optimize their AI network for these rather than for a dynamic game. Then what we're seeing hither could be amend DLSS image quality than in a existent game output.

It'southward also a pretty small sample size. Final Fantasy Fifteen is a specially poor comparison because its stock standard anti-aliasing, TAA, is a rubbish implementation of that technology, which blurs the otherwise abrupt, clear imagery you normally get with native 4K. And while Infiltrator isn't equally express in that regard, information technology's not an actual game.

Nvidia also provided these benchmarks in a style that makes information technology very difficult to test anything other than the resolutions and quality settings they want us to use. Both demos are launched using batch files with pretty much everything locked downwards, which is why y'all might take only seen DLSS vs 4K TAA comparisons up to this point.

I'd have loved to pit DLSS up against better anti-aliasing techniques but it just wasn't possible.

On face value, y'all look at the 4K TAA vs DLSS comparisons and it's hard not to be impressed. DLSS does provide pretty similar visual quality to native 4K, it'south not quite as expert, but it's close, all while giving you around 30 to 35% more performance. And compared to native 1440p, which DLSS uses for its AI-enhanced prototype reconstruction, this class of upscaling looks similar black magic.

But dig a little deeper, and at to the lowest degree using the Burglar demo, DLSS is pretty similar in terms of both visual quality and performance, to running the demo at 1800p and and so upscaling the image to 4K. Again, it's only one demo, just pouring over the footage and operation data really tempered my expectations for what to expect when DLSS comes to real globe games.

After all, anyone with an older GPU, say a Pascal-based 1080 Ti, could but run games at 1800p and become like performance and visual quality to DLSS on an RTX 2080. That is, if existent-world in-game implementations of DLSS are like to what we saw in Infiltrator.

This is partly why I didn't want to explore DLSS fully until we had more tools at our disposal. Nosotros notwithstanding don't know how DLSS compares to different AA techniques, or whether running at something like 1800p with a superior form of low-cost AA would deliver better results than DLSS. Without proper integration in real games, information technology's simply too early to say for sure, but going on what I've seen then far, I don't call back DLSS is every bit revolutionary or important equally Nvidia are making out.

The list of games that will back up DLSS isn't exactly filled with all the hottest upcoming titles either, there are some big games in there, but there volition exist plenty that won't back up DLSS. One less reason to upgrade to an RTX graphics card before we take a real expect at ray tracing. Nosotros'll be revisiting DLSS when we can really play games with it, hopefully that will exist shortly plenty.

Shopping Shortcuts:
  • GeForce RTX 2080 Ti on Amazon, Newegg
  • GeForce RTX 2080 on Amazon, Newegg
  • GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on Amazon, Newegg
  • GeForce GTX 1080 on Amazon, Newegg
  • GeForce GTX 1060 on Amazon, Newegg