As much as we may not like it, upscaling technologies are playing an increasingly important role in new titles. Games are really demanding (whether more or less legitimately) and often we just can’t do without upscaling. Moreover, in the best cases, upscaling can offer comparable image quality with native resolution and usually with better anti-aliasing. There are several technologies, but excluding TSR from Unreal Engine 5, there are three main ones:
DLSS from Nvidia, which started the whole wave. It offers the highest image quality and often the best performance boost, but it only works on cards from this manufacturer, and only RTX 20 and above.
Then there is AMD FSR 2, where the second version needs to be specifically mentioned, because the first one was really bad (need to add that the first version of DLSS was similarly bad, but the second version replaced it in April 2020, long before the first FSR was released) . FSR 2 performs significantly better and its advantage is that it works on graphics cards from all three manufacturers. It does not need special units, as in DLSS, which uses Tensor cores. On the other hand, the image quality is worse, which is noticeable especially when using lower modes or target resolution. FSR 2 often produces so-called shimmering, especially on vegetation, which simply makes an unpleasant “hum”.
The latest addition so far is Intel’s XeSS. A technology that actually has two versions. The better one, which uses XMX cores, only works on Arc cards from Intel. The second version is slightly worse, but uses the DP4a instruction set and works on graphics cards from all manufacturers. DP4a XeSS quickly turned out to be an alternative to FSR, which, in addition, recently XeSS is rather surpassing, although it is not talked about much. For example, in Cyberpunk 2077, Remnant 2 or Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, XeSS offers much better image quality.
If the game comes out with support for all these upscaling technologies, then the situation is ideal, everyone can choose. Owners of cards from Nvidia (at least from RTX 20 onwards) will of course go for DLSS, which is the best in practically all cases, I would recommend others to use XeSS if it is available. But here comes the problem, not every game comes with such options. And now we are not only talking about smaller titles, but also relatively important ones, such as Resident Evil 4 Remake, Dead Island 2 or Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. They all have one thing in common – they are sponsored by AMD and only support FSR 2.
AMD has repeatedly refused to comment on the situation, but I would really attribute the silence in this case to the company blocking other technologies. If not, she’s had plenty of time to disprove it. In my opinion, this is a very anti-customer approach indeed, but I have come across quite a lot of comments trying to defend this move by AMD for some reason, which I find quite absurd. Yes, Nvidia has made a bunch of similar bad decisions during its existence, but it has also earned criticism for it, most recently the lack of VRAM in graphics cards (where AMD, on the other hand, is very generous). But that’s certainly no excuse for AMD to do something similar.
I have often come across arguments that FSR works everywhere, so other technologies are not needed, and their implementation would take more time. Yes, FSR works everywhere, but it offers poorer image quality, so those who could use another technology still lose out. Which in the end is basically everyone who has a card with DP4a support, because as already mentioned here, XeSS is usually much better than FSR in terms of quality. AMD itself boasts that FSR is open, so why won’t it allow the implementation of XeSS, which also works on cards from all three manufacturers? Implementation is not really complicated. Developer Nico van Bentum from the Nixxes studio (authors of the PC ports of both Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart) confirmed on Twitter that all three APIs are so similar that there is no reason to implement only one. Once one technology is already in the game, the next one is not a problem, especially since both DLSS and XeSS are part of the Nvidia Streamline package, which makes implementation even easier (AMD refused to participate in it, so it does not include FSR).
One might say that AMD is blocking both technologies simply because they are competitors. In that case, it should be noted that games sponsored by Intel or Nvidia are not limited to technologies from these companies only. Nvidia also confirmed this in a statement to the magazine Wccftechwhere it stated that it does not actually block FSR, XeSS, or other forms of upscaling.
We have a relatively trivial wrapper around DLSS, FSR2, and XeSS. All three APIs are so similar nowadays, there’s really no excuse.
— Nico van Bentum (@mempodev) June 27, 2023
And that brings us to Bethesda’s massive Starfield RPG, which is coming out in just a few weeks and is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated games of the year. Unfortunately, we know it has a partnership with AMD and there is no indication yet that the game will have DLSS or XeSS support, FSR is of course confirmed. No one from AMD or Bethesda has commented on the situation, and user Sebastian Castellanos on Twitter shared the information, that he found no signs of DLSS or XeSS in the Starfield files. Neither is FSR 3, a technology that was introduced last November and should bring frame generation (just like Nvidia’s Frame Gen), but still hasn’t come out yet. Her absence would be quite a big loss for Starfield, as it is likely to be a very CPU-intensive game where frame generation could help a lot.
So after combing through Starfield preload files on PC, I don’t see any sign of it supporting DLSS/XeSS. If true I think this would generate a lot of backlash for Bethesda & AMD (due to their refusal to confirm whether they block rival GPU vendor techs in their sponsored games). pic.twitter.com/U67On3x6Kt
— Sebastian Castellanos (@Sebasti66855537) August 18, 2023
In short, the situation is very bad and, unfortunately, there is no indication yet that AMD intends to change its tactics. So the players have to help themselves. PureDark, who created the DLSS implementation for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, even received a review copy of Starfield and already he promised, that it will have a modification with DLSS upscaling and Frame Gene ready on the day of release. But this is not an ideal way, because a not completely native implementation of upscaling can cause, for example, an unstable UI (see mod pro RE4). We can only hope that AMD will rethink their strategy in the future and start allowing developers to support all technologies. The players would only benefit from it.
The guy who’s modding DLSS 3+2 into Starfield received a review copy of the game. That’s hilarious pic.twitter.com/7OFSlyiQPM
— Dante (@HypersonicValve) August 18, 2023
What do you think about the whole situation? Do you mind the absence of DLSS and XeSS in games?
2023-08-19 10:49:31
#Comment #Inexcusable #absence #DLSS #XeSS #Starfield #titles #Zing
