Words can not describe about how impressed I am with your breakdown of DLSS 3. You make it easy to understand complex technologies. I should probably donate to you.
Absolutely untrue. Richard owns the company and no chance he pays Alex 18k per month Lmao. I doubt the entire company makes that much a month before tax. Maybe you're a child who doesn't understand money yet!
@@you2be839 well. It's a new frontier. People dunked on DLSS1 for a good long while. This would be great for improving experience at high fps if we can get the vsync and game capping better controlled. I would love a 50 actual boost to 100fps locked. The game would play smoothly and not turn my computer into a toaster for 3rd person action games, for instance. Obviously not applicable for eSports, but those games are rarely dependent on modern tech anyway, outside of Reflex.
@@you2be839 A lot of stuff is small enough that I wouldn't necessarily mind depending on the title. Plus I would take this over Sub 60 fps. I know vsynch can work if you turn it on manually in the control panel, but it doesn't work great in all games. It's something I learned in a different video
No wonder Alex hasn't had time to cover Quake ray tracing yet. There's a tremendous amount of work done here and some eye opening stuff on this new technology's strengths and limitations. Thanks so much, Alex!
Thanks Alex! Great video. The example showing a moire pattern from DLSS upscaling when there is a larger time gap between frames is really interesting - makes a lot of sense, but not something I had considered before. And I really appreciated the discussion on how to think about frame generation quality and the scenarios where it can be noticeable, as well as the conversation about vsync and input latency.
It might be possible to separate the fake frames from the real frames. You could then play a video with only the real frames next to a video with only the fake frames. Could be an interesting way to visualise its effectiveness in different games
Was expecting a slowed down, here's what the AI frames look like, kind of deal. What I instead learned is that you're the expert for a reason. Very cool, very informative. Excellent video.
Incredible stuff. The quality of YT coverage of things like this is in an amazing place - hugely in awe of the things you have noticed here, as well as figuring out what's causing them! DF's coverage of the software/user experience side of things combined with GN's hardware insight has been so fascinating and useful.
17:15 the high visibility of these flickering artifacts around spidey's legs could also be explained by the contrast between the suit and the extremely bright sun reflection. On the other hand the fairly large reconstruction of the brick wall texture is a different beast altogether - the spot is filled with pixels very similar to the surrounding texture, hence you can't see it during 120 fps gameplay. It's the difference between picking an average color to fill a hole and drawing a new outline for important geometry moving against a contrasting background.
This video is of pure gold: from basic explanation of how DLSS3 through commonly asked questions and even having nice examples of when and how DLSS and other AI-generated frames simply don't work. Amazing job!
i cant even imagine how much time and effort does it take to make a video with this quality alone👏 its a busy couple of weeks for sure (uncharted pc , a plague tale , cod mw2 ,scorn , Gotham knights, bayonetta 3) i hope all DF team are doing ok
Such a great video, as always! I agree it's really hard to judge the quality of DLSS 3 atm. Often it looks super impressive, but then in F1 2022 you can see a similar effect to what you show with spider-man's legs. Hard to describe, but that shimmering / flickering can be annoying once you see it.
Even slowed down from 120fps -> 60fps I'm having an extremely hard time seeing these Frame Generation artifacts. The vsync issues while panning in flight sim were quite obvious, but not much else beyond that. I'm thinking this tech is going to be absolutely fine for everyday use and I'm excited to see it come down to some more affordable cards.
Think of the spiderman example, it's not so much that you clearly see the artefacts, but you might notice weird flickering, or blurring. Or in the case of low framerate sense the input latency. But still it's quite impressive
as long as people pay for the 4080 and 4090s affordable will mean 800 - 1000$. Maybe this is the the decade of consoles and they will become more relevant and a better option(for gaming) than pcs sooner or later.
@@johnjonson6377 There are affordable alternatives that provide console like performance such as the RX 6700 that can be bought new for 350€ or less, hopefully it will remain true for the next gen 7700 post launch so we get decent raytracing at a discount
I love how Alex is channeling Richard Leadbetter in this video! Talking with his hands, the use of patented Leadbetter lingo, "Ok, so let's", "Yes, you are seeing that correctly", "with that being said", "Altogether I would say", "check this out", he's even got the Leadbetter cadence and inflection :)
The latency analysis, as everyone has pointed out, is mind-blowing and eye-opening. This is literally paper-worthy analysis. Thank you DF team and especially Alex, for giving us an insight into the knowledge that you guys have.
🤯 I'm going to have to watch this a few times to grasp all the nuances of DLSS 3. Thanks for all the hard work Alex and DF put into this detailed early look into this very neat technology.
Great video! One thing to note is that it's a bit visible that you're not looking exactly at the camera, but a bit above, reading a script off screen, which looks kind of awkward. But aside of that I'm impressed by how much effort you've put in the video! Cheers!
Phenomenal work! Highlighting specific areas where DLSS 3 can falter is very useful for discussion, and helps to bridge the gap between the subjective (i.e. what we "notice" in the image) and the quantitative (what we can actually "measure"). I did have a question regarding screen-tearing, G-Sync and latency though. When using DLSS 3, would screen-tearing issues be resolved, and the latency penalty reduced, if you: 1. Enabled G-Sync in the control panel, 2. Left V-sync off in the control panel, 3. Capped FPS using an in-game limiter or RTSS, below the max refresh rate of your monitor? (e.g. 118 FPS in your case) My thinking here is the omission of forced control panel v-sync would remove an extra layer of latency, while an FPS cap would still keep you within the G-Sync window. Of course, I'm not sure if this also breaks normal G-Sync in the process?
I can't speak for DLSS3, but I know that using GSync while Vsync is Off results in tearing at the bottom of the screen, with or without a framerate limiter, even when remaining within the GSync window. The only way to eliminate tearing entirely is to enable Vsync. Without DLSS3, you'd want GSync + Vsync + Cap FPS around 3 frames below your refresh so that, like you correctly stated, you remain within the Gsync window and don't experience Vsync latency. But as Alex has demonstrated, that's not applicable with DLSS3.
Ah cool, thanks for the clarification. Even though Alex mentioned it in the video, I wasn't totally sure if V-Sync was always a prerequisite for G-sync to work, or if this only applied when DLSS 3 was active. I've never owned a G-sync monitor, so this is actually surprising to learn. On my freesync display, I usually just make sure the game is running in Borderless and freesync kicks in just fine.
@@WickedRibbon It applies to Freesync too. These techs alone are a big improvement over running with no sync, but they gotta be combined with Vsync to entirely eliminate it in every game use case.
The amount of effort put into the quality of information and the video is mind blowing. Thank you Alex for always feeding us nerds with everything we look for when new tech launches 😍
Your work is so important, nobody does it like digital foundry. I only wish it was seen by more people, but these things are technical and complicated so the watching demographic is unfortunately a small subsection of gamers.
Unfortunately most gamers are less educated and less informed kids and they are not looking for good quality technical content. Channels that bait fanboys with toxic content get much more attention and views from gamers. it's a shame DF videos don't get nearly as many views they deserve.
This is incredible. I can't begin to fathom the amount of effort that must have gone into both researching the data and making it presentable to the general (admitedly somewhat enthusiast) public.
God damn this was incredible work. I fully expect every other youtuber to link this video when talking about DLSS 3, not worth to even bother covering it when there's such a masterpiece out there already.
23:08 If you look at the label on the bar "El Coyote" - its darker on the DLSS3 side just like DF mentions earlier in the video. Also, the place where bottles are on shelves looks darker. Same with the ceiling lamp in the middle where the brightness is different. This might reduce contrast in some scenes but probably unnoticeable otherwise. Also look at the Dart board? circle next to bartender - that area looks differently lit in DLSS3 vs traditional. However if you look at the middle seat where no one is sitting - the contrast is not lost w.r.t its surroundings. Brightness reduction is most apparent on the skull above the bar. DLSS3 needs work for sure.
I can't even imagine a world without your channel. Thank you so much for all your efforts. I hope you made a revisit video for DLSS frame generation for the latest updates.
Hardware Unboxed found that DLSS3 frame generation heavily breaks dynamically moving HUD elements on screen, like player names in "F1 22" or POI markers in "Microsoft Flight Simulator". In those cases they come across as major issues and are extremely distracting. What sucks for nvidia is that they don't support DP2.0. So no 4K 240fps, although that would be the most viable target. at lower FPS it breaks apart a lot, at higher frame rates outside of the displays refresh range you need to contend with tearing... And once we see 4050 and 4060 cards, frame generation will make even less sense due to the lower framerates.
01:56 You can try to use some losless Codecs to record like UTVideo. Most of them are CPU only and Multithreaded. They have almost no performance impact (since almost no compression is happening), but require a lot of disk space since (at 1080P) they produce 4-7 GB/min. I used this method for almost 8 years for my YT Channel and the resulting quality (at the time) was always A LOT higher than NVenc. The mentioned "frame dropping" should be a result of either the Nvidia Hardware or the current implementation in OBS. This problem is especially annoying if you stream to TH-cam via HLS which results in the exact frame dropping you described.
Not exactly. The issue comes from the fact that anything outside of HW encoding occurs non zero copy performance losses then, so it's actually somewhat unoptimal funnily enough.
It's difficult to overstate how much work you are doing on behalf of the consumer. It makes me wish for an expanded DF empire that looks this deeply into other goods and services.
I'm pretty sure this will never work. If it ever fails to correctly predict the player's inputs at least 99.9% of the time(wich will always happen, since no matter how good the predictions, it can't be 100% accurate), then the output will look and feel terrible, with the camera movements overshooting what the players is asking, and then snapping back to where it should be on the next "real" frame.
Alex you’ve blown this out of the water and gone absolutely next level. Brilliant video. Informative and an absolute pleasure to watch. Keep doing what you do!
Excellent work! Your approach of showing how things can be counter-intuitive, not claiming to know the definitive answers at the moment and to highlight how the methodologies and test cases you'll be using to test DLSS3 relate to the principles of DF image quality analysis is truly brilliant.
LOVE IT !!! I love when Alex gets technical, actually whole DF team in hardware or software technicality "under the microscope", lots of knowledge with ig amount of great and usefull information !! Amazing, great job all ! Keep up the amazing work you're doing for gamers and enthusiasts !
I wanted to thank you for this analysis Alex as I noticed the same panning issue in A Plague Tale: Requiem. Forcing Vsync in the Control Panel cleared up the issue. Top notch job!
DLSS wasn't that great when it was first introduced, but it's improved dramatically over time. It'll be interesting to see DLSS 3 Frame Generation improve over time as well.
@@ahmeti.7595 Sadly that means Nvidia will focus less on the actual performance of the GPU as we have already seen with RTX 20, 30 and 40 series by now.
@@yomamasohot6411 what do you mean? They have made the 4090 nearly double the efficiency of 3090 ti . Check hardware unboxed video where they cap a game to 90 fps. The 3090 to draws 416W whereas the 4090 draws 215W
As impressive as these techniques are on a technical level, DLSS really is a band-aid solution to compensate for display technology outpacing GPUs. Hoping that my 4090 means I can turn it off altogether and get 4k60 on modern titles.
@@yomamasohot6411 They've delivered on rasterized and ray tracing performance improvement over last generation as far as flagship vs flagship. The 4080 cards are embarrassing and quite misleading on their marketing on Nvidia's part.
Great in depth analysis. But I can not understand how anyone still recommend to enable VSYNC. VSYNC always has and always will be introducing terrible output latency, and with HFR screens tearing is basically invisible when playing in realtime. And then he describes how to turn up your settings to reduce framerate below the screens limit and reduce latency again (which only works on a VRR screen anyway). Well then you do not have to enable VSYNC in the first place, VSYNC on or off makes no difference (on a VRR screen) as long as you stay below the screens refreshrate. And for the "accidental" too fast frame, you certainly notice the sudden latency stutter from VSYNC more then the tearing that you may not even see depending on where it occurs and how fast your actual refreshrate and framerate is. The best way of course would be if you can use an ingame framerate limiter, that can prevent you from going into the VSYNC range with no additional latency (often actually less latency) at all. But VSYNC is really a tool from the past that should not be used anymore on modern hardware.
Absolutely exceptional coverage. You're doing a really great job showing and explaining all of these issues and possible concerns for gamers to worry about.
Bravo Alex, once again the most in-depth and informed analysis on a frame-rate increasing subject. I have to say that it looks good enough that most of those things I could only perceive with your guidance. It's apt that we get a frame generation tech on the same year AI image drawers began appearing in mainstream.
DLSS 3 Frame Generation is being modded to work on Turing and Ampere Cards..! Although there are some FPS instability issues and concerns about NVIDIA Locking it through Driver Updates.
NVIDIA will probably allow the frame generation on Ampere Cards so that it can act as a selling proposition for these bulky Lovelace cards. Still.. if one can get atleast a gain of stable 10 FPS .. it's a huge difference ... just like 522.25 Driver's DX12 FPS Gains.
You mentioned that the RTSS FPS cap does not reduce input latency. I think you will find that if you use the in-game FPS cap, it will. I don't know why but this tends to happen in most games. Battle(non)sense has covered this extensively
@9:03 So why didn't NVidia just call it Frame Generation instead of mixing it with other DLSS? They should seperate the distinction. This is NVidia Frame Gen and this is DLSS 3 Upscalling. I know they seperate them in games but it should be seperated in the marketing to.
Impressive Dlss 3 analysis Alex, you did a really good job. Now i understand better how performs dlss 3 it's good to know how to use dlss 3 to not increase input latency too much. Good Job DF!
Amazing video, the only thing I don't understand though is why you would turn on VSync at all anymore if the ultimate aim is to have settings heavy enough to stop the game from exceeding your monitors maximum refresh rate? The lower latency of VSync off is a win and if the aim is to never exceed the monitors refresh then you won't have tearing above say 120hz, so why even enable it? Thanks again for the amazing video.
You'll still exceed the refresh rate sometimes, and the VSYNC only comes into effect when you hit the 120 FPS mark. So you're choosing between having occasional periods of higher latency when you are at or above 120 FPS, or periods of tearing. The tearing would be more noticeable for me and I'd do the same as Alex, but it may depend on the game and the person.
@@jsVfPe3 True, the only reason I'd probably leave it off is the extra 5ms latency you gain back by having it off when even below 120hz, like you can see on Alex's graphs at 28:51 for example. I know it's a tiny gain but I'd probably only enable VSync for games where I know I'll be getting crazy high framerates about 120 such as CS:GO, etc. Most of the games I'd expect these crazy frames in won't have DLSS 3 anyway so I'd just use the in-game VSync toggle on a game per game basis.
Alex, you did it. I didn't think I was going to listen to all that about a graphics card I'm definitely not buying any time soon, but your curiosity and enthusiasm kept me interested to the end. I can see all your hard work behind this video
Really important thing to note: Keep in mind that if you have both G Sync and V Sync active and your FPS is at your monitors refresh rate you will have only V Sync active and that will increase your input latency pretty heavily. Yes, it is recommended to have both G Sync and V Sync active (for no tearing at all) as long as your FPS is below your monitors refresh rate (recommended to limit your FPS with RivaTuner). The reason why it's recommended is because while having G Sync active (below your monitors refresh rate) the downsides of V Sync's higher input latency are mitigated by G Sync (as long as you don't reach your monitors max refresh rate). In conclusion I wouldn't recommend having V Sync forced ON globally because it might negatively impact your experience in some games, especially competitive games that usually have higher FPS and can easily reach the max refresh rate of your monitor. What I personally do is activate V Sync on a game by game basis while having G Sync active for all games (since G Sync will not affect input latency in any way). And sometimes limiting my FPS slightly below my monitor refresh rate for a zero tearing and no additional input lag experience in cinematic games. PS: Regarding 31:00 in the video. Yes, Riva Tuner is enough to reduce the input latency *as long as you limit your FPS slightly below your monitors refresh rate* Ex.: Max refresh rate is 144Hz, I limit my FPS to 138 or 140 FPS.
I understand that this video's topic is slightly different but I wanted to drop this bit of information just to let someone ppl know that it's not the greatest idea to have V Sync forced ON globally and why.
@@musabmohammed8446 Yes, if you also have G-Sync or Free-Sync active and are limiting your FPS to slightly below your monitors max refresh rate. In fact you'll have no impact on input latency if you do this. Basically you'll have the same input latency with V-Sync on or off if you respect these conditions.
Hey Df, Alex as always an insane detailed video and great explanations. At 18:00 you mentioned the lack of games with cycling animations especialy with 1.person games, but shouldnt the constant weapon bopping animation be a good indicator? Its as close to the cam as possible and its constantly cycling
In addition to enabling gsync and vsync, you should limit your frames under your monitor's refresh rate. That way you won't be subjected to the vsync delay.
@@Lackesis I'm more so trying to explain to anyone who happens to read this that while gsync+vsync is the correct thing to do, you need to use a frame cap under the refresh rate. If you use vsync as the limiter, you are not using gsync, rather you are fully vsynced and will get to enjoy the vsync delay in it's full glory.
@@unawarebot2529 There is some weird behavior going on, because Nvidia changed how vsync works recently so that turning on vsync+gsync in the nvidia control panel automatically caps your framerate below your refresh rate (for my 240hz monitor, turning on vsync with gsync caps my frames at 225), but it seems like it doesn't work properly with DLSS 3. Not sure what's going on there, might be part of why Nvidia said that Vsync isnt working with DLSS 3 currently.
But then you get uneven frame pacing, that makes the game look significantly more juddery and less smooth, that's why dropping to 59 fps while targeting 60 makes such a big difference
Kudos on the methodology. I imagine it was really tough to come up with reproducible data to even test the generated frames, let alone display them on TH-cam in a meaningful way. This video did a great job of explaining what could not be easily shown
It would be interesting to see a recording with the "real" frames removed, only showing the AI-generated intermediary frames. Maybe then it would be easier to understand what kinds of artefacts it generates.
@@autodidact7127 it's the huge issue and a deal-breaker for him. He'll stick to DLSS2 and will get superior IQ and easy better latency and still good enough FPS. How about you? @Auto didact is it the huge issue and a deal-breaker for you. Will you stick to DLSS2 and get superior IQ and easy better latency and still good enough FPS?
Awesome video, thank you! The final summary is great, showing the scenarios where DLSS has issues but also where it can truly shine like Cyberpunk at 4K RT on, truly impressive. Thinking this will be very useful in the future Witcher games in the coming years, where having maximum visual fidelity improves the experience a lot.
The rivatuner test was the one I wanted to know. Better animation fluidity(not higher fps because you not getting better frametiems) but not massive input lag increase seems like a good deal for slower paced games
The massive v sync latency issue even with a frame cap when reaching the monitor’s refresh rate is a crucial issue that needs to be resolved! Especially with a powerful card like the 4090
Just for feedback's sake I will say that I found this video easy to follow, sometimes that isn't the case, the last DLSS 3 one was so jargony and so many numbers being thrown around I gave up on it. I was requiring to much of my concentration for very little info per segment. This video was better pace and more clearly laid out and so was no trouble to understand at all. Also the short clips with the Alex's talking head means I was listening more to what was being said and not being distracted by something in the footage (like a Cyberpunk car clipping through the road for example).
There is a way to show 120 fps footage on youtube at it's actual speed. It's to show the 60fps footage like you have been doing, then ask the user to speed up to 2x speed in the video player settings.
15:12 Our brains are incredibly good at compressing down visual information into digestible chunks. In my opinion, if it's not noticeable in play or can't be felt then it doesn't matter. This isn't the first trick games have used to trick our brain into thinking something looks better than it is (eg. parallax to give depth) and if it's successful at its trickery then in my opinion it's essentially equivalent to native. I argue that, because unless a person would notice the differences in a clip with all native frames and one with generated frames then as a whole, both must be equivalent to that person. But definitely issues with flickering and other artifacts should be heavily considered. I find flickering especially (of any kind) to be one of the worst kinds of visual fidelity issues. My eyes are always drawn to flickering and it really takes me out of the game. So super glad you took the time to go in depth on what kind of things DF should evaluate while still emphasizing how, as a whole, it's still an incredibly effective piece of technology.
Its great that you cover RTSS as I believe most people who love frame cap will trying to use them as a tools to get the best input latency but the results speak for itself. Tq Alex.
tbh these stuff is getting more complicated each time they add a new technology. vrr and vsync/framerate limiters already caused some headaches, adding dlss3 just turns everything into a nightmare. even worse if we consider that all these settings (looking at globally enable vsync) might be needed to be applied on a per-game basis. it's crazy, we are al geeks here but just give us something that works out of the box! amazing video from DF as always
Incredible coverage, well done Alex and DF. Clear to see the amount of thought and effort that has gone into this.
Even with something distracting on his shirt 😂
Words can not describe about how impressed I am with your breakdown of DLSS 3. You make it easy to understand complex technologies. I should probably donate to you.
Sign up for the Patreon and get the full quality videos.
this dude has a maximum salary of 18k a month haha i don't think a donation will change a lot, that's not even counting his donation money.
@@NovaTedd how do you know?
Absolutely untrue. Richard owns the company and no chance he pays Alex 18k per month Lmao. I doubt the entire company makes that much a month before tax. Maybe you're a child who doesn't understand money yet!
Oh wow. The amount of effort you put into this analysis. Bravo!
It was worth the effort in order to better understand the tech, but DLSS3 is definitely not worth the effort imho, DLSS2 is what's still relevant...
@@you2be839 well. It's a new frontier. People dunked on DLSS1 for a good long while. This would be great for improving experience at high fps if we can get the vsync and game capping better controlled. I would love a 50 actual boost to 100fps locked. The game would play smoothly and not turn my computer into a toaster for 3rd person action games, for instance. Obviously not applicable for eSports, but those games are rarely dependent on modern tech anyway, outside of Reflex.
@@you2be839 A lot of stuff is small enough that I wouldn't necessarily mind depending on the title. Plus I would take this over Sub 60 fps.
I know vsynch can work if you turn it on manually in the control panel, but it doesn't work great in all games. It's something I learned in a different video
No wonder Alex hasn't had time to cover Quake ray tracing yet. There's a tremendous amount of work done here and some eye opening stuff on this new technology's strengths and limitations. Thanks so much, Alex!
@@ramonandrajo6348 Why are you so angry kid?
@@ramonandrajo6348 Yes, why are you so angry?
@@ramonandrajo6348 What the hell are you even talking about hahahaha
@@ramonandrajo6348 He was talking about ray tracing not 4k lol.
Both releases are fully path traced. Neither are rasterized. Like Minecraft RTX.
Thanks Alex! Great video. The example showing a moire pattern from DLSS upscaling when there is a larger time gap between frames is really interesting - makes a lot of sense, but not something I had considered before. And I really appreciated the discussion on how to think about frame generation quality and the scenarios where it can be noticeable, as well as the conversation about vsync and input latency.
I don't usually comment, but damn, this video is great, and it really shows the knowledge you guys at DF have. Thank you so much!
Man I don't know how you guys can put in so much work. Thank you for this video.
WOW, all I can say is, this is incredible. Must have taken significant time and effort to go through so much frame by frame to find all these issues.
It might be possible to separate the fake frames from the real frames. You could then play a video with only the real frames next to a video with only the fake frames. Could be an interesting way to visualise its effectiveness in different games
Was expecting a slowed down, here's what the AI frames look like, kind of deal. What I instead learned is that you're the expert for a reason. Very cool, very informative. Excellent video.
Alex is the master at these graphical breakdown videos. Great content DF
Not Really!
I would Tim from HUB is.
Not really. Tim from Hardware Unboxed breakdown and analysis is better.
I realized, that you fixed the "pumping" background (created by the auto-focus of your camera) in post (by masking it). Nice level of perfection :)
Yep :) thanks for noticing
Incredible stuff. The quality of YT coverage of things like this is in an amazing place - hugely in awe of the things you have noticed here, as well as figuring out what's causing them! DF's coverage of the software/user experience side of things combined with GN's hardware insight has been so fascinating and useful.
The methodology you explained shows you really know (and love) what you're doing. It's so enjoyable to to see such a thoughtful approach.
That was thorough! Thanks for explaining.
Ayy Karl is into gaming tech! Hell yeah
Crazy to me seeing g your comment in a video like this. Nice interest my Ner Zealand Brother
3:18 Oh my god, his hands are gone 🤯Always thought that would be a real background ^^
This is one of the best videos I’ve seen DF ever produce. Great job making this coherent, interesting, and usefully critical!
17:15 the high visibility of these flickering artifacts around spidey's legs could also be explained by the contrast between the suit and the extremely bright sun reflection. On the other hand the fairly large reconstruction of the brick wall texture is a different beast altogether - the spot is filled with pixels very similar to the surrounding texture, hence you can't see it during 120 fps gameplay.
It's the difference between picking an average color to fill a hole and drawing a new outline for important geometry moving against a contrasting background.
This video is of pure gold: from basic explanation of how DLSS3 through commonly asked questions and even having nice examples of when and how DLSS and other AI-generated frames simply don't work.
Amazing job!
What i like the most about DF videos is that it has a reverse clickbait titles, you always learn more than the title may lead you to watch.
i cant even imagine how much time and effort does it take to make a video with this quality alone👏
its a busy couple of weeks for sure (uncharted pc , a plague tale , cod mw2 ,scorn , Gotham knights, bayonetta 3) i hope all DF team are doing ok
After months of barely any developments over the summer, it's gonna be a non stop freight train now.
@@HeloisGevit yeah .. thats sucks
@@moabd7575 Not for us!
@@HeloisGevit i dont have time to play so it kinda sucks for me too lol
probably ill just play uncharted and a plague tale
@@moabd7575 I was thinking more of the quality analysis we'll be treated to by DF. As fun as playing the actual games.
Such a great video, as always! I agree it's really hard to judge the quality of DLSS 3 atm. Often it looks super impressive, but then in F1 2022 you can see a similar effect to what you show with spider-man's legs. Hard to describe, but that shimmering / flickering can be annoying once you see it.
It's only beggining too, DLSS 2 compared to 1 was a major leap and expecting a major improvement in the years to come
@@ramonandrajo6348 couldn’t get a card today?
Even slowed down from 120fps -> 60fps I'm having an extremely hard time seeing these Frame Generation artifacts. The vsync issues while panning in flight sim were quite obvious, but not much else beyond that. I'm thinking this tech is going to be absolutely fine for everyday use and I'm excited to see it come down to some more affordable cards.
Think of the spiderman example, it's not so much that you clearly see the artefacts, but you might notice weird flickering, or blurring. Or in the case of low framerate sense the input latency. But still it's quite impressive
as long as people pay for the 4080 and 4090s affordable will mean 800 - 1000$. Maybe this is the the decade of consoles and they will become more relevant and a better option(for gaming) than pcs sooner or later.
@@johnjonson6377 There are affordable alternatives that provide console like performance such as the RX 6700 that can be bought new for 350€ or less, hopefully it will remain true for the next gen 7700 post launch so we get decent raytracing at a discount
I don't even own a PC, but love watching these technical videos, lots of information. Thanks
Same here. I have a crappy 4170 without gpu and do my gaming on ps5. But the tech insights covered on this channel are excellent
I think external vs internal framerate limiter might be interesting to look at regarding input lag with dlss 3.
Been super excited for this specific video. Thanks for all the work you do!
Wow very good video Alex. Very in depth and explains the strengths and weaknesses of DLSS3 very well
I love how Alex is channeling Richard Leadbetter in this video! Talking with his hands, the use of patented Leadbetter lingo, "Ok, so let's", "Yes, you are seeing that correctly", "with that being said", "Altogether I would say", "check this out", he's even got the Leadbetter cadence and inflection :)
The latency analysis, as everyone has pointed out, is mind-blowing and eye-opening.
This is literally paper-worthy analysis.
Thank you DF team and especially Alex, for giving us an insight into the knowledge that you guys have.
Alex is absolutely taking it to the next level with these videos.
Interesting stuff. Seeing the huge change in latency from exceeding the monitor's refresh rate was eye opening.
🤯 I'm going to have to watch this a few times to grasp all the nuances of DLSS 3. Thanks for all the hard work Alex and DF put into this detailed early look into this very neat technology.
Bruh, these guys gotta be so GOOD at Where's Waldo
Great video! One thing to note is that it's a bit visible that you're not looking exactly at the camera, but a bit above, reading a script off screen, which looks kind of awkward. But aside of that I'm impressed by how much effort you've put in the video! Cheers!
Phenomenal work! Highlighting specific areas where DLSS 3 can falter is very useful for discussion, and helps to bridge the gap between the subjective (i.e. what we "notice" in the image) and the quantitative (what we can actually "measure").
I did have a question regarding screen-tearing, G-Sync and latency though. When using DLSS 3, would screen-tearing issues be resolved, and the latency penalty reduced, if you:
1. Enabled G-Sync in the control panel, 2. Left V-sync off in the control panel, 3. Capped FPS using an in-game limiter or RTSS, below the max refresh rate of your monitor? (e.g. 118 FPS in your case)
My thinking here is the omission of forced control panel v-sync would remove an extra layer of latency, while an FPS cap would still keep you within the G-Sync window. Of course, I'm not sure if this also breaks normal G-Sync in the process?
I can't speak for DLSS3, but I know that using GSync while Vsync is Off results in tearing at the bottom of the screen, with or without a framerate limiter, even when remaining within the GSync window. The only way to eliminate tearing entirely is to enable Vsync. Without DLSS3, you'd want GSync + Vsync + Cap FPS around 3 frames below your refresh so that, like you correctly stated, you remain within the Gsync window and don't experience Vsync latency. But as Alex has demonstrated, that's not applicable with DLSS3.
Ah cool, thanks for the clarification. Even though Alex mentioned it in the video, I wasn't totally sure if V-Sync was always a prerequisite for G-sync to work, or if this only applied when DLSS 3 was active.
I've never owned a G-sync monitor, so this is actually surprising to learn. On my freesync display, I usually just make sure the game is running in Borderless and freesync kicks in just fine.
@@WickedRibbon It applies to Freesync too. These techs alone are a big improvement over running with no sync, but they gotta be combined with Vsync to entirely eliminate it in every game use case.
The amount of effort put into the quality of information and the video is mind blowing. Thank you Alex for always feeding us nerds with everything we look for when new tech launches 😍
Your work is so important, nobody does it like digital foundry. I only wish it was seen by more people, but these things are technical and complicated so the watching demographic is unfortunately a small subsection of gamers.
Unfortunately most gamers are less educated and less informed kids and they are not looking for good quality technical content. Channels that bait fanboys with toxic content get much more attention and views from gamers. it's a shame DF videos don't get nearly as many views they deserve.
This is incredible. I can't begin to fathom the amount of effort that must have gone into both researching the data and making it presentable to the general (admitedly somewhat enthusiast) public.
God damn this was incredible work. I fully expect every other youtuber to link this video when talking about DLSS 3, not worth to even bother covering it when there's such a masterpiece out there already.
Can't wait for the FSR 3.0 analysis
23:08
If you look at the label on the bar "El Coyote" - its darker on the DLSS3 side just like DF mentions earlier in the video. Also, the place where bottles are on shelves looks darker. Same with the ceiling lamp in the middle where the brightness is different. This might reduce contrast in some scenes but probably unnoticeable otherwise.
Also look at the Dart board? circle next to bartender - that area looks differently lit in DLSS3 vs traditional. However if you look at the middle seat where no one is sitting - the contrast is not lost w.r.t its surroundings. Brightness reduction is most apparent on the skull above the bar.
DLSS3 needs work for sure.
I can't even imagine a world without your channel. Thank you so much for all your efforts. I hope you made a revisit video for DLSS frame generation for the latest updates.
Hardware Unboxed found that DLSS3 frame generation heavily breaks dynamically moving HUD elements on screen, like player names in "F1 22" or POI markers in "Microsoft Flight Simulator". In those cases they come across as major issues and are extremely distracting. What sucks for nvidia is that they don't support DP2.0. So no 4K 240fps, although that would be the most viable target. at lower FPS it breaks apart a lot, at higher frame rates outside of the displays refresh range you need to contend with tearing... And once we see 4050 and 4060 cards, frame generation will make even less sense due to the lower framerates.
Now that's REAL tech stuff we expect from DF and Alex in particular. Extended inspection of scenarios with nearly-scientific precision.
01:56 You can try to use some losless Codecs to record like UTVideo. Most of them are CPU only and Multithreaded. They have almost no performance impact (since almost no compression is happening), but require a lot of disk space since (at 1080P) they produce 4-7 GB/min. I used this method for almost 8 years for my YT Channel and the resulting quality (at the time) was always A LOT higher than NVenc. The mentioned "frame dropping" should be a result of either the Nvidia Hardware or the current implementation in OBS. This problem is especially annoying if you stream to TH-cam via HLS which results in the exact frame dropping you described.
Not exactly. The issue comes from the fact that anything outside of HW encoding occurs non zero copy performance losses then, so it's actually somewhat unoptimal funnily enough.
Even if you have higher quality recording, TH-cam will compress it.
Compression will still be a thing and if weve seen anything its that cpus cant keep up with the 4090 already.
wich recording software are you using ? i've tried many but most of them doesn't support external codecs
@@Daburademo OBS supports ffvhuff for example.
That's what I personally use for recording at barely any performance loss.
Thank you for clearing up any questions I had about the new architecture and DLSS.
40fps -> 80fps output in terms of frame times is actually half way between 30 and 60fps.
This imo is the sweet spot for frame gen
It's difficult to overstate how much work you are doing on behalf of the consumer. It makes me wish for an expanded DF empire that looks this deeply into other goods and services.
Outstanding effort made by DF covering this technical stuff. Kudos
Man I love nerding out with you guys! Thanks for the hard work.
this is undoubtedly the most advanced and relevant testing methodology developed for DLSS 3 so far. absolutely incredible work by Digital Foundry
ending amazed me. 100 with RT vs 90 without. blew me away Alex i was doubting DLSS 3 there for a moment
Great video. I wonder how long it will be until we see frame prediction instead of interpolation at a similar quality in real time.
I'm pretty sure this will never work. If it ever fails to correctly predict the player's inputs at least 99.9% of the time(wich will always happen, since no matter how good the predictions, it can't be 100% accurate), then the output will look and feel terrible, with the camera movements overshooting what the players is asking, and then snapping back to where it should be on the next "real" frame.
Unless the game is reading your mind, I don't see how it could possibly do this accurately and consistently.
Really interesting analysis, wouldn't haven't noticed half of the artifacts if Alex didn't pointed them out.
Awsome job Alex.
Alex you’ve blown this out of the water and gone absolutely next level. Brilliant video. Informative and an absolute pleasure to watch. Keep doing what you do!
Excellent work! Your approach of showing how things can be counter-intuitive, not claiming to know the definitive answers at the moment and to highlight how the methodologies and test cases you'll be using to test DLSS3 relate to the principles of DF image quality analysis is truly brilliant.
LOVE IT !!! I love when Alex gets technical, actually whole DF team in hardware or software technicality "under the microscope", lots of knowledge with ig amount of great and usefull information !! Amazing, great job all ! Keep up the amazing work you're doing for gamers and enthusiasts !
I wanted to thank you for this analysis Alex as I noticed the same panning issue in A Plague Tale: Requiem. Forcing Vsync in the Control Panel cleared up the issue. Top notch job!
DLSS wasn't that great when it was first introduced, but it's improved dramatically over time. It'll be interesting to see DLSS 3 Frame Generation improve over time as well.
We should wait for DLSS 4 for improvements probably.
@@ahmeti.7595 Sadly that means Nvidia will focus less on the actual performance of the GPU as we have already seen with RTX 20, 30 and 40 series by now.
@@yomamasohot6411 what do you mean? They have made the 4090 nearly double the efficiency of 3090 ti . Check hardware unboxed video where they cap a game to 90 fps. The 3090 to draws 416W whereas the 4090 draws 215W
As impressive as these techniques are on a technical level, DLSS really is a band-aid solution to compensate for display technology outpacing GPUs. Hoping that my 4090 means I can turn it off altogether and get 4k60 on modern titles.
@@yomamasohot6411 They've delivered on rasterized and ray tracing performance improvement over last generation as far as flagship vs flagship. The 4080 cards are embarrassing and quite misleading on their marketing on Nvidia's part.
Great in depth analysis.
But I can not understand how anyone still recommend to enable VSYNC. VSYNC always has and always will be introducing terrible output latency, and with HFR screens tearing is basically invisible when playing in realtime. And then he describes how to turn up your settings to reduce framerate below the screens limit and reduce latency again (which only works on a VRR screen anyway).
Well then you do not have to enable VSYNC in the first place, VSYNC on or off makes no difference (on a VRR screen) as long as you stay below the screens refreshrate.
And for the "accidental" too fast frame, you certainly notice the sudden latency stutter from VSYNC more then the tearing that you may not even see depending on where it occurs and how fast your actual refreshrate and framerate is.
The best way of course would be if you can use an ingame framerate limiter, that can prevent you from going into the VSYNC range with no additional latency (often actually less latency) at all.
But VSYNC is really a tool from the past that should not be used anymore on modern hardware.
Absolutely exceptional coverage. You're doing a really great job showing and explaining all of these issues and possible concerns for gamers to worry about.
Bravo Alex, once again the most in-depth and informed analysis on a frame-rate increasing subject. I have to say that it looks good enough that most of those things I could only perceive with your guidance. It's apt that we get a frame generation tech on the same year AI image drawers began appearing in mainstream.
DLSS 3 Frame Generation is being modded to work on Turing and Ampere Cards..! Although there are some FPS instability issues and concerns about NVIDIA Locking it through Driver Updates.
It’s going to run like shit on those cards and be useless. They’re not fast enough to utilize it properly
NVIDIA will probably allow the frame generation on Ampere Cards so that it can act as a selling proposition for these bulky Lovelace cards. Still.. if one can get atleast a gain of stable 10 FPS .. it's a huge difference ... just like 522.25 Driver's DX12 FPS Gains.
Beautiful breakdown. Also like how Alex's hair got combed down towards the end of the video hahaha
You mentioned that the RTSS FPS cap does not reduce input latency. I think you will find that if you use the in-game FPS cap, it will. I don't know why but this tends to happen in most games. Battle(non)sense has covered this extensively
no, it's the other way around, and battle nonsense states this in a Witcher 3 comparison video I watched just last week
The work you guys do is so valuable, your attention to detail and refusal to compromise is honestly inspiring, thank you and well done!
@9:03 So why didn't NVidia just call it Frame Generation instead of mixing it with other DLSS? They should seperate the distinction. This is NVidia Frame Gen and this is DLSS 3 Upscalling. I know they seperate them in games but it should be seperated in the marketing to.
Impressive Dlss 3 analysis Alex, you did a really good job. Now i understand better how performs dlss 3 it's good to know how to use dlss 3 to not increase input latency too much. Good Job DF!
Amazing video, the only thing I don't understand though is why you would turn on VSync at all anymore if the ultimate aim is to have settings heavy enough to stop the game from exceeding your monitors maximum refresh rate? The lower latency of VSync off is a win and if the aim is to never exceed the monitors refresh then you won't have tearing above say 120hz, so why even enable it? Thanks again for the amazing video.
You'll still exceed the refresh rate sometimes, and the VSYNC only comes into effect when you hit the 120 FPS mark. So you're choosing between having occasional periods of higher latency when you are at or above 120 FPS, or periods of tearing. The tearing would be more noticeable for me and I'd do the same as Alex, but it may depend on the game and the person.
@@jsVfPe3 True, the only reason I'd probably leave it off is the extra 5ms latency you gain back by having it off when even below 120hz, like you can see on Alex's graphs at 28:51 for example. I know it's a tiny gain but I'd probably only enable VSync for games where I know I'll be getting crazy high framerates about 120 such as CS:GO, etc. Most of the games I'd expect these crazy frames in won't have DLSS 3 anyway so I'd just use the in-game VSync toggle on a game per game basis.
Alex, you did it. I didn't think I was going to listen to all that about a graphics card I'm definitely not buying any time soon, but your curiosity and enthusiasm kept me interested to the end. I can see all your hard work behind this video
Really important thing to note:
Keep in mind that if you have both G Sync and V Sync active and your FPS is at your monitors refresh rate you will have only V Sync active and that will increase your input latency pretty heavily.
Yes, it is recommended to have both G Sync and V Sync active (for no tearing at all) as long as your FPS is below your monitors refresh rate (recommended to limit your FPS with RivaTuner). The reason why it's recommended is because while having G Sync active (below your monitors refresh rate) the downsides of V Sync's higher input latency are mitigated by G Sync (as long as you don't reach your monitors max refresh rate).
In conclusion I wouldn't recommend having V Sync forced ON globally because it might negatively impact your experience in some games, especially competitive games that usually have higher FPS and can easily reach the max refresh rate of your monitor.
What I personally do is activate V Sync on a game by game basis while having G Sync active for all games (since G Sync will not affect input latency in any way). And sometimes limiting my FPS slightly below my monitor refresh rate for a zero tearing and no additional input lag experience in cinematic games.
PS: Regarding 31:00 in the video.
Yes, Riva Tuner is enough to reduce the input latency *as long as you limit your FPS slightly below your monitors refresh rate*
Ex.: Max refresh rate is 144Hz, I limit my FPS to 138 or 140 FPS.
I understand that this video's topic is slightly different but I wanted to drop this bit of information just to let someone ppl know that it's not the greatest idea to have V Sync forced ON globally and why.
Does this reduce vsync input latency?
@@musabmohammed8446 Yes, if you also have G-Sync or Free-Sync active and are limiting your FPS to slightly below your monitors max refresh rate.
In fact you'll have no impact on input latency if you do this. Basically you'll have the same input latency with V-Sync on or off if you respect these conditions.
This analysis is really incredible. Such a great way to learn about this technology.
Regarding that DLSS3 Vsync question: What if you use just the Frame Limiter in the Control Panel and not Vsync?
yes exactly
I'm not sure where else you could get this level of analysis for us gamers. Really great video.
Hey Df, Alex as always an insane detailed video and great explanations.
At 18:00 you mentioned the lack of games with cycling animations especialy with 1.person games, but shouldnt the constant weapon bopping animation be a good indicator? Its as close to the cam as possible and its constantly cycling
that animation isn't fast enough, the movement across the screen has to be faster than that
No
the movement must be too slow, if that other 3rd person test case running animation didn't garner that. good news =]
Maybe it isn't fast enough?
Amazing coverage Alex! You obviously put a lot of hard work into your analysis. DF will always be one of my favorite channels.
In addition to enabling gsync and vsync, you should limit your frames under your monitor's refresh rate. That way you won't be subjected to the vsync delay.
We still don't know how DLSS3 works with FPS limiter, but i think we will find out soon enough.
@@Lackesis I'm more so trying to explain to anyone who happens to read this that while gsync+vsync is the correct thing to do, you need to use a frame cap under the refresh rate. If you use vsync as the limiter, you are not using gsync, rather you are fully vsynced and will get to enjoy the vsync delay in it's full glory.
@@unawarebot2529 There is some weird behavior going on, because Nvidia changed how vsync works recently so that turning on vsync+gsync in the nvidia control panel automatically caps your framerate below your refresh rate (for my 240hz monitor, turning on vsync with gsync caps my frames at 225), but it seems like it doesn't work properly with DLSS 3. Not sure what's going on there, might be part of why Nvidia said that Vsync isnt working with DLSS 3 currently.
But then you get uneven frame pacing, that makes the game look significantly more juddery and less smooth, that's why dropping to 59 fps while targeting 60 makes such a big difference
Kudos on the methodology. I imagine it was really tough to come up with reproducible data to even test the generated frames, let alone display them on TH-cam in a meaningful way. This video did a great job of explaining what could not be easily shown
It would be interesting to see a recording with the "real" frames removed, only showing the AI-generated intermediary frames. Maybe then it would be easier to understand what kinds of artefacts it generates.
Absolutely brilliant job covering the different image quality test scenarios.
The huge input latency is a deal breaker for me. I'll stick to DLSS2 and will get superior IQ and way better latency, and still good enough FPS.
yeah especially with an rtx 4090 :P
Is it a deal breaker for you? 🤠 Will you stick with DLSS 2 and get superior IQ and way better latency and still good enough fps? 🤠
All good it does incredible with anything so no worries lol
@@autodidact7127 it's the huge issue and a deal-breaker for him. He'll stick to DLSS2 and will get superior IQ and easy better latency and still good enough FPS. How about you?
@Auto didact is it the huge issue and a deal-breaker for you. Will you stick to DLSS2 and get superior IQ and easy better latency and still good enough FPS?
Awesome video, thank you! The final summary is great, showing the scenarios where DLSS has issues but also where it can truly shine like Cyberpunk at 4K RT on, truly impressive. Thinking this will be very useful in the future Witcher games in the coming years, where having maximum visual fidelity improves the experience a lot.
Another glorified Nvidia commercial from DF. Might as well work there.
Much better than Hardware unboxed analysis.
Wow! This is exactly the kind of in-depth nerdery I was looking for about DLSS 3!
Alex dropping analysis masterclasses once again. Regularly scheduled programming.
Given the nature of DLSS 3 and TH-cam limitations, this video is one of the hardest videos ever produced
Love your review!
It would be interesting to analize DLSS 3 + RTSS scanline sync!
Alex content that starts with Klepacki music is always great.
The rivatuner test was the one I wanted to know.
Better animation fluidity(not higher fps because you not getting better frametiems) but not massive input lag increase seems like a good deal for slower paced games
This review is SO GOOD! Can't wait for a follow-up review once DLSS 3 is easier to test!
Great video as always Alex! I love how you not just show examples but also explain the reasoning behind them. Very interesting to watch for sure!
The massive v sync latency issue even with a frame cap when reaching the monitor’s refresh rate is a crucial issue that needs to be resolved! Especially with a powerful card like the 4090
Just for feedback's sake I will say that I found this video easy to follow, sometimes that isn't the case, the last DLSS 3 one was so jargony and so many numbers being thrown around I gave up on it. I was requiring to much of my concentration for very little info per segment. This video was better pace and more clearly laid out and so was no trouble to understand at all.
Also the short clips with the Alex's talking head means I was listening more to what was being said and not being distracted by something in the footage (like a Cyberpunk car clipping through the road for example).
There is a way to show 120 fps footage on youtube at it's actual speed. It's to show the 60fps footage like you have been doing, then ask the user to speed up to 2x speed in the video player settings.
15:12 Our brains are incredibly good at compressing down visual information into digestible chunks. In my opinion, if it's not noticeable in play or can't be felt then it doesn't matter. This isn't the first trick games have used to trick our brain into thinking something looks better than it is (eg. parallax to give depth) and if it's successful at its trickery then in my opinion it's essentially equivalent to native. I argue that, because unless a person would notice the differences in a clip with all native frames and one with generated frames then as a whole, both must be equivalent to that person.
But definitely issues with flickering and other artifacts should be heavily considered. I find flickering especially (of any kind) to be one of the worst kinds of visual fidelity issues. My eyes are always drawn to flickering and it really takes me out of the game. So super glad you took the time to go in depth on what kind of things DF should evaluate while still emphasizing how, as a whole, it's still an incredibly effective piece of technology.
Wow, that was a lot of information! Kudos to DF und auf Wiedersehen!
Its great that you cover RTSS as I believe most people who love frame cap will trying to use them as a tools to get the best input latency but the results speak for itself. Tq Alex.
Outstanding quality of video ! BRAVO !!!!!! Incredible stuff DF !!!
tbh these stuff is getting more complicated each time they add a new technology. vrr and vsync/framerate limiters already caused some headaches, adding dlss3 just turns everything into a nightmare. even worse if we consider that all these settings (looking at globally enable vsync) might be needed to be applied on a per-game basis. it's crazy, we are al geeks here but just give us something that works out of the box!
amazing video from DF as always