from nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) has been an undeniable selling point for RTX GPUs since their launch, and AMD’s attempts to fight back not exactly home runs.
But yes FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) could you guarantee the huge performance gains of DLSS without all the restrictions imposed by Nvidia? If that sounds too good to be true, I don’t blame you. After all, Nvidia’s special machine-learning sauce wasn’t supposed to replicate easily.
Well hold on to your hat because a modder recently discovered how easily FSR could mimic DLSS. And after testing the solution myself, I was more excited than ever about the potential of FSR.
what we have now
Before we get to the mod itself, it’s worth setting the stage for how we got here. FSR was AMD’s first attempt to kill off DLSS, and sadly, it left a bad taste in our mouths. Despite rapid adoption in the first generation of FSR 1.0, performance and image quality fell short.
All that changed with the launch of the second generation of the technology. I have tried FSR 2.0 in its launch title, deadly loop, And the results are clear: DLSS provides a slightly higher performance boost, but FSR 2.0 is almost identical in terms of image quality. based on death Loop, you should use DLSS if you can, but FSR 2.0 is very close if you don’t have a compatible GPU.
My expectations were further exceeded when tried God of War, seeing that the margin with DLSS is further reduced. In fact, FSR 2.0 was actually around 4% faster than DLSS with the Ultra Performance preset. You’re also not trading much with image quality. Even at the intense Ultra Performance preset, it’s almost impossible to detect differences between FSR 2.0 and DLSS while gaming.
This is the real deal. The only problem? FSR 2.0 is technically available, but it’s not seeing the rapid adoption that the first version did. It’s available in just four games now: Deathloop, Farming Simulator 22, God of War, Y Tiny Tina’s Wonderland. The next list is also not that exciting, headed by Hitman 3 Eve Online, and the recently retarded Renegade.
Hence the need for a seemingly impossible solution that takes the goodness of FSR 2.0 and vastly extends its effect to as many titles as possible. And that’s where the fun begins.
A look into the future
About a month ago, modder PotatoOfDoom released a “hack” FSR 2.0 by Cyberpunk 2077. What the modder realized was that DLSS and FSR 2.0 require basically the same information: motion vectors, color values, and the depth buffer. That allowed PotatoOfDoom to create a simple instruction translation, using the DLSS backbone to send FSR 2.0 instructions. It’s how Wine works for Windows games on Linuxaccording to the modder.
I’ll come back to what these similarities between DLSS and FSR 2.0 mean, but first let’s get the gaming out of the way. I followed the instructions and was able to implement the mod in cyberpunk 2077, dying light 2, Y Eternal destiny – all games that do not currently support FSR 2.0. eternal doom it was the only game that had issues with the mod, completely blocking the DLSS option in the settings menu. That was impossible.
but cyberpunk 2077 Y dying light 2 They were an absolute delight. The mod isn’t as powerful as a native implementation, but it’s still very close. The difference is less than 10% at most, even with all settings at 4K (including the highest ray tracing options).
Image quality was just as good, even on this self-styled hack. In a still image, dying light 2 it actually looked a bit better with FSR 2.0, and was almost identical in Cyberpunk 2077. The main difference, as in God of War Y death Loop, is that FSR 2.0 doesn’t handle far fine details either. You can see that on the phone lines at cyberpunk 2077 down. It’s damn close though.
DLSS and FSR 2.0 look pretty much the same with a still image, but it’s the motion that matters. I saw heavy ghosting on dying light 2 that wasn’t present with DLSS or FSR 1.0, and flat textures cause some issues with masking.
Certain elements, such as smog from the sewer in the cyberpunk 2077 screenshot below, do not include motion vectors. FSR 2.0 and DLSS fix the problem of masking the element (like in Photoshop) so it doesn’t get supersampled. Unfortunately, they mask in different ways, leading to nasty pixelation with the FSR 2.0 hack you can see below.
Even with those issues, it’s remarkable how close DLSS and FSR 2.0 are, both on a gameplay and technical level. PotatoOfDoom summed up how much they share in an interview with Eurogamer: “I expected to work in [adding FSR 2.0] for several days, but I was pleasantly surprised that it only took me a few hours to integrate.”
The point is not that you should necessarily go out and use this mod to add FSR 2.0 to every game. Rather, this mod reveals the profound similarities between DLSS and FSR 2.0, something Nvidia might not want to admit easily.
Taking deep learning out of supersampling
DLSS is all about machine learning; it’s right there in the name. And up to this point, Nvidia has insisted for years that DLSS only works in its most recent graphics cards because they provide the necessary AI cores to perform the supersampling. That’s true, but FSR 2.0 is proof that the advantage AI brings is small and, for the most part, unnecessary.
A big reason Nvidia GPUs sell above list price is DLSS, even if it’s not required.
There are many similarities between DLSS and FSR 2.0, including with regards to Nvidia’s machine learning. DLSS uses a neural network and FSR 2.0 uses an algorithm, but they are both fed the same inputs and use the same general system to generate the final result. The fact that PotatoOfDoom was able to develop a mod that works across multiple DLSS titles in just a few hours is proof of that.
The main problem now is not that DLSS is bad, it’s great and you should use it if you can, but that the feature is exclusive to only a few expensive graphics cards. Even when GPU prices are falling, Nvidia’s low and mid-end models continue sell above list price. And a big reason why DLSS is, even if it’s not necessary.
General purpose solutions like FSR 2.0 and Unreal Engine’s TSR (Temporal Super Resolution) are the way of the future. They work with basically all modern hardware, and the developers constantly insist that they only take a few hours to work.
DLSS doesn’t need to go away, but it would be nice to see Nvidia leverage its developer relationships to get a general-purpose supersampling feature into games that already support DLSS. And no, Nvidia Image Sharpeningwhich is basically FSR 1.0, it doesn’t count.
Reaching
FSR 2.0 is really impressive, but game support is holding it back. Far more games support DLSS than even FSR 1.0, and the official list of four FSR 2.0s is embarrassing. I’m also not excited for a lot of the upcoming FSR 2.0 titles, as the list is mostly made up of older or smaller games.
The PotatoOfDoom mod is a sign of hope, but we need more FSR 2.0 games for it to stand a chance against DLSS. It may be tempting to support AMD here, but it’s important to remember that DLSS still has a minor advantage and is supported by many more games. AMD has a lot of ground to cover, and FSR 2.0 isn’t being added to games at nearly the same rate as FSR 1.0.
Still, it will be interesting to see how the dynamic between DLSS and FSR 2.0 adjusts over the rest of the year. After all, AMD just released the source code for FSR 2.0 in June. For now, DLSS is still the way to go for its compatibility with games and slightly better image quality, but it is not a selling point on an Nvidia GPU as it once was.
This article is part of ReSpecification – an ongoing bi-weekly column featuring in-depth discussions, tips, and reports on the technology behind PC gaming.
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