Ghost of Tsushima: DLSS vs. FSR vs. XeSS Comparison

[maxus24]

Ghost of Tsushima is out now on PC, with support for NVIDIA's DLSS Super Resolution, DLAA and Frame Generation. Also supported is AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling and Frame Generation, and the newest version of Intel's Xe Super Sampling. In this mini-review we compare the image quality and performance gains offered by these technologies.

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[ZoneDymo]

FSR 3? is that even a thing? thought we went from 2 to 3.1 which for some reason is still not here.

Anywho, my take, XESS looks the most fuzzy, and vague, just kinda low res.
DLSS looks a bit better.
FSR 3.0...whatever that is, looks the best imo, the cleanest and sharpest, but it does have a bit of that fizzle though it did not stand out much in the moving footage.

 

[GhostRyder]

FSR 3? is that even a thing? thought we went from 2 to 3.1 which for some reason is still not here.

Anywho, my take, XESS looks the most fuzzy, and vague, just kinda low res.
DLSS looks a bit better.
FSR 3.0...whatever that is, looks the best imo, the cleanest and sharpest, but it does have a bit of that fizzle though it did not stand out much in the moving footage.

I am with you, but I think I would have to see particle effects more because the review states that the particle effects look worse on FSR 3.0 vs DLSS. But when I zoomed in, the FSR detail seems to be a bit better IMO.

 

[Denver]

Add SMAA to the comparison. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never seen a TAA implementation without the already known negative effects.

 

[tomcug]

But when I zoomed in, the FSR detail seems to be a bit better IMO.

More sharpening != detail

 

[the54thvoid]

In previous FSR/DLSS/XeSS reviews, I've criticised the use of stills, as to my eye, the FSR option looks crisper than the DLSS option. But then, in the usual video shots, I see the flicker problem AMD usually has, and it is noticeable, and on that (not a still), I'd normally give Nvidia the win. This is especially true of straight edge scenes, i.e., cityscapes. Perhaps here in these wooded areas, the straight line flicker artifacts aren't showing?

But with the video presentation for this review, I can't see any issues with the FSR option for the author to label it 'worse' quality. They all look pretty decent to me when viewed at 1440p (my montors res). Unless I'm missing something, I think think the summary review is tainted by previous expectations.

Some of the textures are pretty bad to begin with (really blocky brickwork on the wall), but the details on the character are clearer with FSR than with DLSS.

More sharpening != detail

Yes, but more blurring does take away detail.

 

[Solaris17]

I've criticised the use of stills

Agreed, game play can feel a lot different depending on whats used.

 

[Battler624]

Idk why but the DLSS quality at 4K image has a little issue on the house on the left where the blanks extend upward but that issue is not visible on any of the other upscalers (including DLAA or other DLSS presets).
Anyway excluding that, DLSS looks the best when upscaling while FSR3 @ Native, atleast to my eyes.
Motion is a whole different story which I haven't tested nor will I test.

 

[Makaveli]

FSR 3? is that even a thing? thought we went from 2 to 3.1 which for some reason is still not here.

Anywho, my take, XESS looks the most fuzzy, and vague, just kinda low res.
DLSS looks a bit better.
FSR 3.0...whatever that is, looks the best imo, the cleanest and sharpest, but it does have a bit of that fizzle though it did not stand out much in the moving footage.

FSR 3 is a thing the game that uses it best currently is Avatar I believe.

I'm hoping we get a retest of this when FSR 3.1 comes out.

 

[Tomorrow]

I tried many combinations but i was not happy with any of them. FSR3 Native AA was the best (DLAA was still too soft) but i still hated how it made the image softer and the input delay due to DLSS Q+FSR3 FG was very noticeable to me.

So in the end i decided to disable all upscaling and FG and simply lower some graphics setting to achieve stable 60-90fps. I lowered the volumetric fog to the lowest and shadows one step below maximum. Disabled vignette and bloom. AO was set to HBAO+. Everything else i left at VH/Ultra.
1440p. 2080 Ti and 5800X3D.

 

[Vya Domus]

DLSS clearly looks more blurry than FSR (XeSS is not even worth comparing) in both the stills and the video, it's crazy to me Nvidia fans will look at this and insist that you're just blind and DLSS looks much better.

 

[trulex]

DLAA with sharpnes at 28% in control panel is the best image quality for me.

 

[64K]

I guess would be happy with either the DLSS or FSR. If I were going to nitpick then maybe the tree leaves in the distance looked a bit more blurry with DLSS.

 

[Double-Click]

Sounds like DLAA is about the best you can do here so long as you have an Nvidia GPU.
It looks like crap in still shots with DLSS, TAA, and FSR has the flicker issue when moving...

 

[nomdeplume]

I am with you, but I think I would have to see particle effects more because the review states that the particle effects look worse on FSR 3.0 vs DLSS. But when I zoomed in, the FSR detail seems to be a bit better IMO.

I found this one a bit shocking after seeing well chosen evidence. The video below is by no means a widely applicable example since it was chosen specifically to show the extreme end of contrast.

Every review/video setup is different - yada yada - so your system and your monitor may perform differently etc and so on.


Time cued so you only need to watch about 10 seconds of relevant video.

In previous FSR/DLSS/XeSS reviews, I've criticised the use of stills, as to my eye, the FSR option looks crisper than the DLSS option. But then, in the usual video shots, I see the flicker problem AMD usually has, and it is noticeable, and on that (not a still), I'd normally give Nvidia the win. This is especially true of straight edge scenes, i.e., cityscapes. Perhaps here in these wooded areas, the straight line flicker artifacts aren't showing?

But with the video presentation for this review, I can't see any issues with the FSR option for the author to label it 'worse' quality. They all look pretty decent to me when viewed at 1440p (my montors res). Unless I'm missing something, I think think the summary review is tainted by previous expectations.

I think the correct conclusions were drawn even where they appeared to contrast with the specific utility of stills. Which I do appreciate having simply because stationary objects you move around are now very obvious. As are textures and models of the very actively moving items that distract from stationary or less obvious elements.

There are tons and tons of videos but this interactive still format really shines through when your aptitude isn't directed towards pass/fail analysis of images in sharp detail as opposed to best capturing the natural and atmospheric. These latter are parts that make a game interesting and replayable even if the mechanics don't exceed expectations or offer something overly unique.

 

[ZoneDymo]

I found this one a bit shocking after seeing well chosen evidence. The video below is by no means a widely applicable example since it was chosen specifically to show the extreme end of contrast.
Every review/video setup is different - yada yada - so your system and your monitor may perform differently etc and so on.

Time cued so you only need to watch about 10 seconds of relevant video.

interesting, the footage just before it with the plants shows FSR as superior imo, everything as defined as it is without upscaling where DLSS and XESS show the same amount of blur.
But when the particles come FSR just seems to omit them entirely where DLSS and XESS show them nicely.

Again though...cant wait till this nonsense is behind us and we have ONE universal well working upscaler that is only needed for those who seek really high framerates and for the rest we just have solid hardware and optimization so we can all do 60+ fps without it.....

 

[wolf]

I agree with the conclusion of the article, having extensively played the game myself, DLSS/DLAA clearly offer the best image quality. And for those that disliked repurposed text, it appears to be all fresh

If you however enjoy a crunchy, shimmering broken up pixel soupy mess, with slightly more sharpness on distant detail when standing still, AMD has a solution that's right up your alley. Yes it's that bad in game,4k doesn't even help.

I wish I could say it's crazy to me AMD fans will look at this, not play the game, and insist that you're just blind and FSR looks much better, but it's par for the course.

 

[Mysteoa]

FSR 3? is that even a thing? thought we went from 2 to 3.1 which for some reason is still not here.

Anywho, my take, XESS looks the most fuzzy, and vague, just kinda low res.
DLSS looks a bit better.
FSR 3.0...whatever that is, looks the best imo, the cleanest and sharpest, but it does have a bit of that fizzle though it did not stand out much in the moving footage.

FSR3 was released alongside Frame Gen. It only offered FSR Native quality, and I don't think it had any other improvement. They then quickly released 3.1 with improvement for less flickering and ghosting, and decoupled FG to be used with other technologies. So the game might be using 3.1 and Avatar will be the only game with 3.0, if it doesn't get updated.

 

[Makaveli]

FSR3 was released alongside Frame Gen. It only offered FSR Native quality, and I don't think it had any other improvement. They then quickly released 3.1 with improvement for less flickering and ghosting, and decoupled FG to be used with other technologies. So the game might be using 3.1 and Avatar will be the only game with 3.0, if it doesn't get updated.

FSR 3.1 has not been released yet.

 

[nomdeplume]

I agree with the conclusion of the article, having extensively played the game myself, DLSS/DLAA clearly offer the best image quality. And for those that disliked repurposed text, it appears to be all fresh

I suspect there are so many options with so many unheard of combinations because PC users are less concerned about actual quality and more about settings they expect to be present. The AMD link can't be ignored. The unheard of options surrounding FSR are important.

Right off the bat, we would like to point out several major issues that Ghost of Tsushima currently has. The first issue is a very underwhelming image quality when using the native TAA solution. The TAA implementation in this game has an extremely pixelated and shimmery look on the whole image across all resolutions, even when standing still, and this becomes much worse in motion. The amount of artifacts is unusually high to the point where we think the native TAA solution just does not work correctly at the moment, and needs to be fixed in future game updates.

Very immediate statement on where the larger problem with this port actually lies. Some jiggery pokery to avoid completely double dipping visuals hard coded into the carefully designed look of this game.

Even a few moments of watching actual gameplay from PS4/PS5 version should clue you in to the fact you are constantly swinging the camera around as fast are you are a sword. Focus in these moments is key. Not every single object flashing by. Focus that allows momentary actions without being distracted by things that could look prettier outside of action taking place dead center and peripherally.

I hope patches bring back some more of the intended emotion and atmosphere in TAA (or elsewhere). As I suspect the author does.

 

[sip555]

>> AMD's Frame Generation image has some weird small black pixels around trees in the distance that are constantly flickering when standing still, and half of them will disappear when you start moving the camera. These artifacts are present with any antialiasing or upscaling solution as the base image, which indicates that they are caused by AMD's Frame Generation alone.

And where is the image/video with a demonstration of this problem? How "small" are these black pixels?

 

[wolf]

I suspect there are so many options with so many unheard of combinations because PC users are less concerned about actual quality and more about settings they expect to be present. The AMD link can't be ignored. The unheard of options surrounding FSR are important.

Absolutely, I am 110% happy it exists and is put in games, more tools in the box for tweaking the experience to your liking, and it's awesome for older cards, especially those for which XeSS is too computationally heavy to get maximum benefit from.

However, to keep hearing from AMD users who can't and don't use DLSS, that FSR is better because in stills it applies more sharpening , becuase to them sharpening = quality and lets ignore the other multitude of immersion breaking artifacts, and we're somehow the ones that are delusional/lying, can't see properly, (insert makebelieve reason here), is just outright bulldust. Yet here we are, seeing it in every comparison thread. Somehow, an opinion on DLSS from those who have a outspoken bias against Nvidia/DLSS and can't even use it themselves just feels absolutely worthless to anyone who doesn't share that exact bias, and still it so happens those are the people that scream the loudest about it sucking, you can't make this crap up.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

X.e.S.S is the only that has the correct shadowing in the grass blades which is completely gone it both D.L.S.S & F.R.S.

 

[EsliteMoby]

I'm a 4080 laptop user but judging from the 4k comparison FSR does look a bit better and sharper than DLSS. I don't know why people keep praising DLAA/DLSS. It's the same temporal upscaling gimmick as TSR and XeSS. It's not even AI upscaling.

 

[Tomorrow]

Absolutely, I am 110% happy it exists and is put in games, more tools in the box for tweaking the experience to your liking, and it's awesome for older cards, especially those for which XeSS is too computationally heavy to get maximum benefit from.

However, to keep hearing from AMD users who can't and don't use DLSS, that FSR is better because in stills it applies more sharpening , becuase to them sharpening = quality and lets ignore the other multitude of immersion breaking artifacts, and we're somehow the ones that are delusional/lying, can't see properly, (insert makebelieve reason here), is just outright bulldust. Yet here we are, seeing it in every comparison thread. Somehow, an opinion on DLSS from those who have a outspoken bias against Nvidia/DLSS and can't even use it themselves just feels absolutely worthless to anyone who doesn't share that exact bias, and still it so happens those are the people that scream the loudest about it sucking, you can't make this crap up.

I have an Nvidia card that is about as fast as 4060 Ti (albeit with more VRAM - 2080 Ti) and oddly AMD is the one who is giving me the Frame Gen option, not Nvidia.

Also to me all upscale methods make the image too soft and frame gen adds noticeable input delay that i hate.
So in the end i decided to simply use "optimized" settings instead of making the game look blurrier (trees mostly) and adding input delay so see a bigger number in framerate. Also every single upscaling method screwed up distant particles (fire embers).
Im not opposed to using Nvidia's tech but only if it benefits me with minimal performance cost, like HBAO+

Also downloaded some mods:

Ghost of Tsushima Desktop Icons: Much better than the all black one that is hard to see on desktop and task bar.

Ghost of Tsushima Desktop Icons

Adds up to 7 different icons for Ghost of Tsushima.

www.nexusmods.com

Fast Launch (Skip Startup Videos): One of the first things i do for every new game:

Fast Launch (Skip Startup Videos)

Makes the game launch instantly by automatically skipping startup videos.

www.nexusmods.com

4K Upscaled prerendered cutscenes: 8GB. Use the link provided in the Posts tab for faster downloads (NM free tier is capped at 1Mbps)

4K Upscaled prerendered cutscenes

Replace the prerendered cutscenes wit AI upscaled ones

www.nexusmods.com

I hope someone takes and AI upscales all the textures for a mod as some of the texture quality is not that great. Obviously this will increase VRAM requirements. Currently the game seems to be using about 9GB at 1440p with max texture related settings.