4k upscaled vs native performance

[Adam1984]

Hi

 

Whats the difference in performance between 4k upscaled vs 4k native?

 

I am upscaling from 1080p atm until I get a 4k monitor, with 1080p being cpu bound is that still the case when upscaled to 4k?

 

Trying to get a guage of what to expect when I go to 4k

 

Thanks

[venomtail]

4k is 99% GPU bound. I think only one benchmark with a 4090 just recently hit a "likely" CPU bottleneck in one less demanding game. 

 

Upscaling is just algorithmic guesses of what the picture should look like. Some 4K purist argue that's not the "real" image but most people won't notice the difference. Sometimes upscaling even has benefits, as it can hide developer imperfections or maybe even developers developed their 4k performance with upscaling in mind, and can look worse on native 4k. I think that's the case with Unity's 4k demo when running native 4k without any upscaler like DLSS or FSR.

[ewitte]

Just now, venomtail said:

4k is 99% CPU bound. I think only one benchmark with a 4090 just recently hit a "likely" CPU bottleneck in one less demanding game. 

 

Upscaling is just algorithmic guesses of what the picture should look like. Some 4K purist argue that's not the "real" image but most people won't notice the difference. Sometimes upscaling even has benefits, as it can hide developer imperfections or maybe even developers developed their 4k performance with upscaling in mind, and can look worse on native 4k. I think that's the case with Unity's 4k demo when running native 4k without any upscaler like DLSS or FSR.

4090 hit CPU limit in multiple games in multiple reviews I came across.

 

As for upscaling I'm fine with 1440p Quality (when I had a 1440p screen) or 4k Balanced.  I don't go below those settings.

[Dedayog]

6 minutes ago, Adam1984 said:

Hi

 

Whats the difference in performance between 4k upscaled vs 4k native?

 

I am upscaling from 1080p atm until I get a 4k monitor, with 1080p being cpu bound is that still the case when upscaled to 4k?

 

Trying to get a guage of what to expect when I go to 4k

 

Thanks

You'll need a stout GPU for this, if you are gaming at 4K.  Unless you downscale.  

 

4K isn't the end all, I'd say unless you're going 32"+ then stop at 1440p.  Less hurt on the wallet.

[Adam1984]

9 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

You'll need a stout GPU for this, if you are gaming at 4K.  Unless you downscale.  

 

4K isn't the end all, I'd say unless you're going 32"+ then stop at 1440p.  Less hurt on the wallet.

Im running a 3090ti so definately want to go 4k. Just wanted to know if upscaled vs native yielded the same fps in games

[Adam1984]

13 minutes ago, venomtail said:

4k is 99% CPU bound. I think only one benchmark with a 4090 just recently hit a "likely" CPU bottleneck in one less demanding game. 

 

Upscaling is just algorithmic guesses of what the picture should look like. Some 4K purist argue that's not the "real" image but most people won't notice the difference. Sometimes upscaling even has benefits, as it can hide developer imperfections or maybe even developers developed their 4k performance with upscaling in mind, and can look worse on native 4k. I think that's the case with Unity's 4k demo when running native 4k without any upscaler like DLSS or FSR.

Thats strange I thought 1080p was a cpu bottleneck and 4k was more gpu driven

[Mark Kaine]

about 4 times less performance literally.  completely pointless because most games dont even have "4k textures" so u get worse performance + worse looks... great lol.

 

 

its better to upscale render then downsample tbh, at least you get basically perfect AA in most games that way. (some refuse to play ball tho)

[Adam1984]

24 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

about 4 times less performance literally.  completely pointless because most games dont even have "4k textures" so u get worse performance + worse looks... great lol.

 

 

its better to upscale render then downsample tbh, at least you get basically perfect AA in most games that way. (some refuse to play ball tho)

But is 1080p upscaled as taxing as 4k native? I might try DSR see what thats like. Not having any performance issues but interested to know the difference with upscaling to 4k vs native fps wise and want to see what sort of image quality I can get from 1080p 

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Adam1984 said:

But is 1080p upscaled as taxing as 4k native? I might try DSR see what thats like. Not having any performance issues but interested to know the difference with upscaling to 4k vs native fps wise and want to see what sort of image quality I can get from 1080p 

thing is im not sure what u mean with "upscaled" like what are you using to upscale? most 4k tvs (and monitors) already upscale 1080p  -> 4k

 

there's no performance impact,  image quality is horrible in most cases tho...

 

maybe you mean something like Nvidia dsr, which, yes, has almost the same performance impact as native, there's also

https://www.wepc.com/news/what-is-and-how-to-enable-dldsr/

 

dldsr which has lower impact (still kinda hefty) but this is not "upscaling" to a random res, this is typically uprendering then downscaling to *your* monitor res just like dsr. 

[Adam1984]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

thing is im not sure what u mean with "upscaled" like what are you using to upscale? most 4k tvs (and monitors) already upscale 1080p  -> 4k

 

there's no performance impact,  image quality is horrible in most cases tho...

 

maybe you mean something like Nvidia dsr, which, yes, has almost the same performance impact as native, there's also

https://www.wepc.com/news/what-is-and-how-to-enable-dldsr/

 

dldsr which has lower impact (still kinda hefty) but this is not "upscaling" to a random res, this is typically uprendering then downscaling to *your* monitor res just like dsr. 

I mean currently im using a 1080p tv and upscaling in games to 4k. I was wondering when I get a native 4k tv will the fps be similar in these games at native 4k vs when I was upscaling to 4k from the 1080p tv

[Mark Kaine]

11 minutes ago, Adam1984 said:

I mean currently im using a 1080p tv and upscaling in games to 4k

ok, but it's called downsampling, a 1080p monitor cannot display 4k

 

12 minutes ago, Adam1984 said:

. I was wondering when I get a native 4k tv will the fps be similar in these games at native 4k vs when I was upscaling to 4k from the 1080p tv

yes, because your gpu already renders at 4k when you use *downsampling* to 1080p 

 

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, Adam1984 said:

I mean currently im using a 1080p tv and upscaling in games to 4k. I was wondering when I get a native 4k tv will the fps be similar in these games at native 4k vs when I was upscaling to 4k from the 1080p tv

Yeah, then you are wasting your GPU power, by running in 4K then downscaling to 1080p for your monitor. 

 

You would get the same 1080p performance out of a 3060Ti.

[Adam1984]

8 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

ok, but it's called downsampling, a 1080p monitor cannot display 4k

 

yes, because your gpu already renders at 4k when you use *downsampling* to 1080p 

 

Are you sure? I thought on a 1080p monitor, in a game like msfs if you set the resolution scale to 200 (3840x2160) that was called upscaling? I am fully aware it isnt displaying true 4k

[Adam1984]

7 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Yeah, then you are wasting your GPU power, by running in 4K then downscaling to 1080p for your monitor. 

 

You would get the same 1080p performance out of a 3060Ti.

Yes but what im wondering is, when I do get a native 4k display, will the fps be around the same as when I was setting the resolution scaling to full in games?

[Mark Kaine]

4 hours ago, Adam1984 said:

Are you sure? I thought on a 1080p monitor, in a game like msfs if you set the resolution scale to 200 (3840x2160) that was called upscaling? I am fully aware it isnt displaying true 4k

People often call it upscaling,  but its really downsampling,  and in this case it matters especially what is being used ... hence i asked what you're using... i think you mentioned DSR somewhere,  that does indeed pretty much use the same resources as native, other things will use slightly less, if you use ingame settings like in flight simulator, i don't know how they do it, but it'll obviously be taxing too.

 

so *very* simple, if you want to know the real life impact use nvidia DSR, 4k (set this ingame too) 

 

basically what it does is the game renders *natively* in 4k and nvidia DSR downscales it to your monitors resolution (which is technically called "downsampling" because its more difficult / involved than just simple downscaling)

 

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/technologies/dsr/technology/

[Dedayog]

5 hours ago, Adam1984 said:

Yes but what im wondering is, when I do get a native 4k display, will the fps be around the same as when I was setting the resolution scaling to full in games?

It would seem so, as your GPU is producing 4k and then just the frames are downsampled.  They aren't being accelerated or anything by the TV.  So I would assume you'd be getting the same fps when you go true 4k.

 

Unless there is some weird GPU magic involved, cuz I know shit all about it.

 

[Adam1984]

46 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

It would seem so, as your GPU is producing 4k and then just the frames are downsampled.  They aren't being accelerated or anything by the TV.  So I would assume you'd be getting the same fps when you go true 4k.

 

Unless there is some weird GPU magic involved, cuz I know shit all about it.

 

Thanks for your help, makes sense to me 

[Mark Kaine]

50 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Unless there is some weird GPU magic involved, cuz I know shit all about it.

 

yeah u can use things like dlss to have less gpu impact,  but at this point it very much stops being *native* = )

 

 

[Adam1984]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

People often call it upscaling,  but its really downsampling,  and in this case it matters especially what is being used ... hence i asked what you're using... i think you mentioned DSR somewhere,  that does indeed pretty much use the same resources as native, other things will use slightly less, if you use ingame settings like in flight simulator, i don't know how they do it, but it'll obviously be taxing too.

 

so *very* simple, if you want to know the real life impact use nvidia DSR, 4k (set this ingame too) 

 

basically what it does is the game renders *natively* in 4k and nvidia DSR downscales it to your monitors resolution (which is technically called "downsampling" because its more difficult / involved than just simple downscaling)

 

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/technologies/dsr/technology/

Thanks that makes things a lot clearer. I used dsr last night, set it to 4k. I loaded shadow of the tomb raider and saw it now had a 3840x2160 option, I bottled out from using it as I once bricked a gtx580 after setting the wrong resolution on windows. 

 

So at 1080p, if I set DSR to 4k in nvidia control panel, then select 3840x2160 as the main resolution in whichever game using the in game display options, it in theory should be perfectly fine and not destroy my gpu? 

 

(Paranoid person lol)

[Mark Kaine]

1 minute ago, Adam1984 said:

Thanks that makes things a lot clearer. I used dsr last night, set it to 4k. I played shadow of the tomb raider and saw it now had a 3840x2160 option, I bottled out from using it as I once bricked a gtx580 after setting the wrong resolution on windows. 

 

So at 1080p, if I set DSR to 4k, then select 3840x2160 as the main resolution in whichever game using the in game graphics/display options , it in theory should be perfectly fine and not destroy my gpu? 

 

(Paranoid person lol)

yeah, well, it shouldn't destroy anything but it'll surely run hotter and use more power so there's that. 

but on the other hand a 3090ti is exactly designed for such a scenario so it really shouldn't do any harm lol.

[Adam1984]

9 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

yeah, well, it shouldn't destroy anything but it'll surely run hotter and use more power so there's that. 

but on the other hand a 3090ti is exactly designed for such a scenario so it really shouldn't do any harm lol.

Thats good, I did actually play truck simulator last night with dsr set to 4k, and then 400% in game scaling, but I didnt change the game resolution from 1080p as I didnt know how dsr worked. I was thinking "wow im going to confuse this gpu and I need to stop playing" It looked really good though and ran very smooth. I guess if I set the in game resolution to 4k after enabling dsr and then set to 100% scaling it would make more sense

[Mark Kaine]

14 minutes ago, Adam1984 said:

guess if I set the in game resolution to 4k after enabling dsr and then set to 100% scaling it would make more sense

yeap.

[venomtail]

On 11/22/2022 at 4:47 PM, Abyssal Radon said:

I think you’ve got this switched mate, 4K = GPU bound and lower resolutions = CPU bound. As a 4090 owner I can attest to a small handful of games at native 4K does hit my CPU’s limits. But mind you, that’s at ludicrous frame rates lol.

On 11/22/2022 at 4:39 PM, Adam1984 said:

Thats strange I thought 1080p was a cpu bottleneck and 4k was more gpu driven

My bad, autocorrect's fumbled me and ruined the whole point I was trying to make. 4k performance will pretty much always be determined by your GPU, at least for now and next several years until we see revolutionary performance increases that make 4k a piece of cake like 1080p was back then.