Since when did Resolution Scaling become a thing?

[Action_Johnson]

I never saw resolution scaling until I played Titanfall 2, and was surprised at how much visual fidelity it brought to the table. There are two other recent games which have come out that I've noticed have render resolution scaling options, and frankly they look like blurry messes without it.

 

What gives? 

 

I don't ever remember having LOD problems in older games that didn't have resolution scalers, and when I use Nvidia's DSR to run apps at 4K on my 1080p monitor, older games like Half Life 1 and 2 don't look hardly any different at all in terms of LOD. 

 

The two worst offender is by far RDR2.

 

RDR2 looks flat-out AWFUL without any kind of resolution scaling applied. Tree leaves have no fidelity, mountains in the distance look out of focus, and you can't even make out character's faces! If you turn off TAA, the game looks even more jenky because the whole renderer relies on TAA to render tree leaves!

 

I absolutely hate the game engine RDR2 uses specifically for this reason. I REALLY hope this doesn't become a trend in the future....

 

See Below:

 

 

[straight_stewie]

The only appreciable difference that I see and that would actually be noticeable while playing the game is that resolution scaling causes a more than two times decrease in performance in the same scene.

[Action_Johnson]

Here’s an example from FS2020 that might be more obvious. The LOD @ 100% / Native Rez, looks blurry and fuzzy, especially in the trees on the right side of the frame

 

 

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, Action_Johnson said:

Here’s an example from FS2020 that might be more obvious. The LOD @ 100% / Native Rez, looks blurry and fuzzy, especially in the trees on the right side of the frame

I'm seeing a very minimal difference. Completely unnoticeable, unless I specifically was looking for it. Meh, not worth the performance-hit, not impressed.

[Zenith_X1]

200% resolution scaling just means supersampling.  Native shouldnt look quite this bad unless you're running a bad antialiaser like FXAA that blurs to achieve smoothness, but yeah if you supersample the AA effect will be drastically reduced.  200% also means that you are now rendering at a resolution that completely eclipses your 1080p panel.

 

Try a 1440p or 4k panel and run TAA, MSAA, or turn AA off

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

I was going to buy RDR2 for my pc, before I got too far into the ps4 pro version. 

 

It seems such a pain in the backside I might just stick with the console version on this one.

[Lord Bloobus]

1 hour ago, Maury Sells Wigs said:

I was going to buy RDR2 for my pc, before I got too far into the ps4 pro version. 

 

It seems such a pain in the backside I might just stick with the console version on this one.

These consoles are just as hyped the Nvidia 3000 series, but the 3000 series has actual reviews. If you own PC hardware and a console and are debating which to upgrade, I'd wait to see how true all the hype is.

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

20 minutes ago, Lord Bloobus said:

These consoles are just as hyped the Nvidia 3000 series, but the 3000 series has actual reviews. If you own PC hardware and a console and are debating which to upgrade, I'd wait to see how true all the hype is.

Have you replied in the wrong thread?

[Lord Bloobus]

2 minutes ago, Maury Sells Wigs said:

Have you replied in the wrong thread?

I might have misinterpreted that you were going to buy a console solely for RDR2 performance based on prospective performance.

[Morrie Sells Wigs]

2 hours ago, Lord Bloobus said:

I might have misinterpreted that you were going to buy a console solely for RDR2 performance based on prospective performance.

No, I already own the ps4 pro and a copy of RDR2.

 

I haven't actually got that far into it though, and was contemplating buying it on pc for the better experience. 

 

However, it seems a lot of aggravation to get it running, so I was thinking I might just stick with it on ps4.

[Lord Bloobus]

It's not too hard honestly, just tune your settings a bit

[Helpful Tech Witch]

17 hours ago, WereCatf said:

I'm seeing a very minimal difference. Completely unnoticeable, unless I specifically was looking for it. Meh, not worth the performance-hit, not impressed.

Could be good for CPU bottlenecks tho, lets you pull more GPU for the lower frames.

[SolarNova]

Automatic Res scaling is an easy cop out way of overcoming poor performance. Especially useful in ports which are usually more work intensive to properly optimize for PC, so using a automatic scaling option is a (bad) quick and dirty workaround.

 

Now render/res scaling as a static option, is a good thing, it allows people running 1080p display to increase visual fidelity by internally rendering at a higher resolution without the need to things like forced DSR / downsampling.  This is especially useful nowdays as many Devs seem to cheap out on Anti Aliasing methods built into the game, many use post processing methods such as FXAA and TAA, which are terrible quality instead of working to properly implement the visually superior methods like MSAA. If a game doesnt have good AA options but does have a static resolution scaler the goes above native (100%) then u can effectivly use that instead of havign to use the blurry post process AA options. Ofc it comes at a heavy performance cost.

[Action_Johnson]

1 hour ago, SolarNova said:

Automatic Res scaling is an easy cop out way of overcoming poor performance. Especially useful in ports which are usually more work intensive to properly optimize for PC, so using a automatic scaling option is a (bad) quick and dirty workaround.

 

Now render/res scaling as a static option, is a good thing, it allows people running 1080p display to increase visual fidelity by internally rendering at a higher resolution without the need to things like forced DSR / downsampling.  This is especially useful nowdays as many Devs seem to cheap out on Anti Aliasing methods built into the game, many use post processing methods such as FXAA and TAA, which are terrible quality instead of working to properly implement the visually superior methods like MSAA. If a game doesnt have good AA options but does have a static resolution scaler the goes above native (100%) then u can effectivly use that instead of havign to use the blurry post process AA options. Ofc it comes at a heavy performance cost.

That mirrors my own observations. People say 1080p is 1080p, and they're right, the output is still 1080p, but the render for objects in the distance are better resolved due to to the supersampling. 

 

The difference in games like Far Cry, RDR2, FS2020, Titanfall 2, Alien Isolation (when using 4x DSR), is so stark and noticable (especially when moving), that I plan on getting an RTX3080, just to be able to run games with DSR on, or render scaling cranked up if the game's engine supports it internally. 

[SolarNova]

1 minute ago, Action_Johnson said:

That mirrors my own observations. People say 1080p is 1080p, and they're right, the output is still 1080p, but the render for objects in the distance are better resolved due to to the supersampling. 

 

The difference in games like Far Cry, RDR2, FS2020, Titanfall 2, Alien Isolation (when using 4x DSR), is so stark and noticable (especially when moving), that I plan on getting an RTX3080, just to be able to run games with DSR on, or render scaling cranked up if the game's engine supports it internally. 

Indeed.

 

A currently new prime example to point to to explain why 1080p on a 1080p display is NOT using the full potential of the display, is Crysis Remastered.

That game has a preset, CIRC, that effectively disables most of the FOV settings and fully renders everything on screen at full detail, from foreground to the furthest background objects. This ofc brings both the CPU and GPU to its knees. But even at 1080p looks vastly superior at that preset than at a normal preset with FoV optimizations enabled.

 

With FoV settings enabled however (which is the case in any complex 3D game that wants to actually be playable) multiple objects on screen while set to 1080p, will not actually be rendered at 1080p and thus when u increase the internal render resolution or use DSR, u DO in fact see that difference even on a 1080p display.

 

This is the primary reason people see such a massive improvement in fidelity when upgrading from a 1080p display to something like 1440p or 4k, its not the display thats causing the primary increase, its the fact ur natively rendering at above 1080p. So in a sensible world u would compare a 1080 display vs a 4k displat while BOTH are running 1080p, and again while BOTH are running 4k. The difference in such a scenario is far less notifiable and would likely disappoint those who have newly bought a said display upgrade. (unless ofc that upgrade also improved the image in other areas like contrasts and pixel response etc)

 

This is the main reason i've been able to stick with a 42" 1080p Plasma for so long without clawing my eyes out from to massive aliasing , I just use DSR or use available in game resolution scaling.

[Gamer Schnitzel]

I saw it the first time a year ago. It's meant to be an alternative for AA but the difference can be hardly noticed. And the funny part is that if you are actually able to run the game at a higher resolution then you could just go get a better monitor so it's kinda pointless.

[xAcid9]

 

FXAA/TAA usually blur things out, use driver sharpening to counter that or Reshade with AMD CAS. 

[Action_Johnson]

7 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

 

FXAA/TAA usually blur things out, use driver sharpening to counter that or Reshade with AMD CAS. 

Not even remotely the same thing.

 

Sharpness DOES NOT equal detail.

[xAcid9]

5 hours ago, Action_Johnson said:

Not even remotely the same thing.

 

Sharpness DOES NOT equal detail.

I beg to differ.
Anti-aliasing like Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) introduce some blurriness to final image quality. Sharpening can help restore some of those lost details, in fact AMD Contrast Adaptive Sharpening was design to combat this type of blurriness. That's why Nvidia also include driver level sharpening after that as well.

 

Original

 

with AMD Contrast Adaptive Sharpening via Reshade

 

 

and, of course rendering at higher resolution will give better details. Duh.