Wednesday, September 13th 2023
Starfield to Finally Get DLSS Support
The space opera RPG everyone's been lapping up over the week, Starfield, is finally getting official support for NVIDIA DLSS, among a handful of other glaring omissions for its PC version. Bethesda Game Studios on Wednesday announced that it will release a "small hotfix patch" for the game which adds a few must-haves for the PC version. To begin with, it adds support for the 32:9 ultra-wide monitor aspect-ratio (something that should have made it to a space sim), along with an FOV slider. The display settings include brightness and contrast controls, along with an HDR calibration menu. The most important of these announcements is that the game will now receive first-party support for NVIDIA DLSS. This would be DLSS 2 (super resolution), and not the newer DLSS 3 frame generation.
Source:
Bethesda
73 Comments on Starfield to Finally Get DLSS Support
Out of the 25 nvidia sponsored games, 21 have fsr. There are nvidia sponsored games that have fsr but not dlss.
It paints a clear picture. Very very clear picture.
Should we talk about when AMD gimped their GPUs with x8 instead of x16 for PCIe3? Or when they released a "high-res" uncompressed texture pack for Shadow of Mordor (AMD sponsored) that did nothing for the end-user in terms of improving visuals, but used twice the VRAM to force some Nvidia cards down in performance? They released Radeon VII and made it EOL 3 months later? 9-12 months of black screen issues, VRM overheating, crash to desktop or blue screen issues on 5700XT following launch? Yeah AMD did plenty of stupid stuff as well. All companies do. Thats why you always read reviews.
Most AMD users ramble about VRAM all the time, but 3070 8GB still beats 6700XT 12GB, even in 4K gaming, in 2023. TLOU1 was a rushed console port that was optimized for AMD as well, with patches, performance was good even on 8GB cards. Cherrypicking a few games with problems don't show entire picture. That is why I look at overall performance across many games, every single time. Some run better on Nvidia, some run better on AMD. However overall, Nvidia is doing better. Especially outside of popular games and in early access titles. Plus Nvidia have superior features and better RT perf + higher resell value (demand is higher and Nvidia don't lower prices as much as AMD over a generation).
You pay slightly less for AMD GPUs, however features are worse and you will get less when you sell it as well. Makes no difference in the end really. 100 dollars more or less don't change anything. AMD has to be more aggressive with pricing to eat marketshare and improve their features (FSR, VSR especially)
www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-7800-xt/32.html
www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-7800-xt/35.html
3070 8GB beats 6700XT 12GB ... and these cards launched at 499 and 479 dollars.
Meanwhile 3060 Ti was 399 dollars and 6700XT competes more with 3060 Ti than 3070 in terms for performance. 3060 Ti and 6700XT are pretty much even in 2023, even tho 3060 Ti cost 78 dollars less and have DLSS/DLAA/DLDSR/Reflex/ShadowPlay among other things.
So what did the extra 4GB VRAM do for 6700XT? Nothing really. GPU is the weak link.
DLSS and FSR will improve longevity for sure and DLSS easily beats FSR. DLAA offers superior anti aliasing but DLSS on its own also does very good anti aliasing. FSR does AA too but to a lesser degree hence the shimmering and jaggies -> www.techpowerup.com/review/starfield-dlss-community-patch/
FSR looks much worse in motion than DLSS in Starfield, even with a mod. You can't really see this in compressed still photos. Loss of detail is bigger with FSR as well. Some lines just disappear. Look at the windows in the building on the right side. With FSR they are gone. I saw exactly this, in many scenes. Detail was lost.
I use DLAA in Starfield. DLSS mod supports DLAA like pretty much any new games with DLSS support.
The performance boost from FSR and DLSS in this game is mediocre anyway. I prefer best visuals over a small fps boost and DLAA gives me that. No other AA solution even comes close and the TAA solution in Starfield is horrible. Blurry.
So you can use CAS/FSR/DLSS/DLAA in this game. If you have a GTX or AMD GPU you are stuck with CAS and FSR and I would honestly NOT use FSR even tho it's part of the default presets because it looks way worse than CAS or even AA OFF IMO.
So yeah, it has become too useful, as someone that likes to play at native res, I am sad
Sony ports the games to pc cause they want to sell copies, not to participate in amds blocking policies.
It doesn't matter though as the fact remains that it will be more feasible for Sony and MS to use Software they helped develop other than Software that is locked away to a certain tier. The objective argument that FSR is Open and DLSS is locked will likely go the way of things for the last 10 years in this space anyway.
Most people in Germany do not watch the Super Bowl so when AMD launches a card the propaganda that comes with it is not as effective as it is not Nvidia. In Canada it is not as bad either because AMD bought ATI (a Canadian Company) and that is the one reason GPUs did not go the way of Windows. Now I live in a world where I have to debate with individuals how weak my card is and the one I love the most. X3d chips are only good with budget GPUs because AMD cannot do anything right. Yep I am going to load Horizon Forbidden West and then play some GT7 later on my Win 11 machine.
No one talks about it because the devs already said that it's in the works
Obviously a huge part of the above paragraph is full in sarcasm, where arguments about the lack of DLSS in Starfield whare giving the impression that the game is unplayable without DLSS support. Just pointint here at that double standards that in the end only promote Nvidia's marketing department narative, in my opinion, while NOT helping the gaming community at all.
22 out of 25 amd sponsored games do NOT have dlss, only Sony games do.
AMD got devs to release this pack to starve VRAM on Nvidia, nothing else. AMD sponsored the game. This texture pack did not bring anything useful not even for AMD/Nvidia GPU owners with enough VRAM to run it. Made zero difference.
Frametimes with Crossfire were bad for years and then it got fixed and then multi GPU died soon after. Crossfire was considered a joke most of the time it existed with lower minimum fps that a single card and wonky frametimes. Best forgotten. Multi GPU is dead for gaming.
Yes you need upscaling because no AMD GPU can do 4K properly. 4090 destroys 7900XTX in 4K gaming overall, being 25% faster, 50-75% faster with RT if not 100% and has support for DLSS, DLAA etc. Features that only make 4K better looking meaning sharper visuals or improves performance. Your choice. Even DLSS can improve visuals and DLAA beats any other AA solution with ease.
Please stop acting like 7900XT is a fast card for native 4K gaming. Even 4090 has issues in many games fully maxed out and is much much faster. 4070 Ti performs 5 fps less than 7900XT across tons of games in 4K minimum fps -> www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-7800-xt/35.html
4090 is close to 50% faster than 7900XT in 4K when looking at minimum fps.
Personally I would not go below 4080 or 7900XTX for 4K gaming, 4090 is in a league of its own tho.
4K gaming means you needs to upgrade every other year to keep up anyway, especially if you refuse to use upscaling. Or settle with lower settings. So good luck with your 7900XT.
You are one of those people that think "native 4K" is all and everything, but even DLSS improves visuals at 4K -> www.rockpapershotgun.com/outriders-dlss-performance - DLSS Quality makes 4K Native look bad here.
You see. Native 4K can be improved, easily. With both DLSS but especially with DLAA and AMD has nothing that even comes close. Built in AA in games are often mediocre, just like TAA in Starfield, which TPU states in their DLSS Starfield review. They also say DLSS easily beat FSR and I know this for sure, since I am playing it right now. Using DLSS mod with DLAA preset active offers superior visuals to what you call "native" by far and waaay better than FSR2 which mostly is a joke, since its blurry in comparison.
You can speak about raw specs all you want, don't really matter when you compare different architectures. Upscaling is here to stay and developers are embrasing it. Even replaces AA in some games. FSR2 is part of default preset in Starfield for example. Same with other new games, like Remnant 2. You can disable it, sure, and most GPUs will struggle at 4K, including your 7900XT.
It's funny how many AMD GPU users that think DLSS is all about improving performance. It's not only that (DLSS does great AA) and DLAA is part of DLSS presets which is best in class anti aliasing. Choosing DLAA instead will improve visuals 100% of the time but even DLSS using Quality preset will do this while improving performance by 50% or so on average.
Also, RTX users can use DLDSR to downsample 4K/UHD to lets say 1080p with way lower performance hit than native 4K + Can use DLSS/DLAA on top if they want. Meanwhile AMD only have FSR and VSR which both are not even close to these.
VSR is more like DSR and no RTX users should use DSR because DLDSR exist. DSR is for GTX users and is pretty much the same as VSR (Nvidia came up with DSR first, like pretty much all new GPU features in the last 5-10 years - AMD tries copy/paste and falls short pretty much every time).
FSR was a panic move by AMD because of DLSS. DLSS beats FSR easily overall, if you dont believe this, read TechSpots comparison across 26 different games.
DLSS1 was crap, just like FSR1.
DLSS2+ is magic and AMD have yet to deliver this magic as well.
FSR is the reason why most AMD users hate upscaling, because it is barely usable compared to DLSS which is way more than simple upscaling.
I used DLSS, DLAA, DLDSR and Reflex in tons of games with my 3080 Ti and I keep doing it with my 4090. As long as AMD can't match these features, I won't even consider their GPUs.
I thought it humorous that he basically fessed up.
People's bias lead them to either crucify AMD like Nvidia's media team had co ordinated and planned, or don't own Nvidia parts, stock.
And Tim didn't register the irony of himself going straight to finger pointing at AMD.
I feel tricked :(
Though I can understand the frustration of nVidia users, the cards they paid for aren't fully utilised.
As for DF they are just entertainers pretending to be experts, they don't even hide their fanboyism towards nVidia. If you look for proper analysis IGN of all places is the best place.
Maybe you should read the 7000 owners club thread to get some context. My card is more powerful than anything in the consoles and AMD spent 3 months making sure that my card is part of the Universal driver package. You can talk about as many acronyms as you want but HPYR-RX improves Gaming by turning on features that have been in AMD software for years. Most AMD users hate FSR? I guess that is all
those people enjoying their Steam Decks. I guess all the console owners will also hate Gaming as well. Now let's get triggered with some truth.
When the 6500XT launched it was maligned for having 4 GB of VRAM, 64 bit bus and 4 lanes. So I bought one. It cost me $229 (169 US). Not many reviews said it was 20% the cost of a 6800XT. Then I get the card and notice the good.
1. It can OC like no other 3 GHZ is possible on the GPU
2. The Memory also OCs to 2500 MHZ
3. It fully supports my 4k TV with HDMI 2.1 meaning that even at 1080P I still get 45-120 hz Freesync support. No other card in this range can do that.
4. It i faster than a RX570
5. It uses a 6 Pin connector
So I went on Amazon and Newegg and saw nothing but 4 star reviews. Then I opened the card and was shocked to see a GPU smaller than the Memory chips.
Now I have 6 of those connected to an i/O(in my opinion) and yes I bought a 4K 144 Hz monitor when I heard about the specs of the 7900 series cards (1 year) and used it at 1440P with my 6800Xt in the Games I play.
I never said anything about hating DLSS. My position has always been that I do not need upscaling. What you don't see in any of those and keep in mind that opinions can be much different when someone actually pays money for what they are testing is that Driver and Game updates usually improve Day 1 performance. What I can say with confidence is that my 8 months of use has more weight than a Day 1 review.
Just to add one more thing. The Division 2. When TPU put that in their review I noticed that they were getting different FPS than I was. I was getting 144 FPS consistently. So I posted a screen shot and asked. The response was the same thing I got in a PC World stream when I put in a chat I have a 7900XT and do not experience the Games that they were talking about. On TPU they could not answer. On PC World I was told that if you brute force it you don't need to worry about that.
Now let's get to the real. Why is it called a PC? Do we all have the same MBs, storage, Drivers, CPUs, RAM? This is my issue. Why bag on AMD? People bag on AMD because of propaganda. In reality there is nothing wrong with FSR or DLSS but with AMD I have always had a card that gave me everything I wanted in Gaming. The 7950 was great, Vega was great (Especially for Water Cooling) Polaris was good and RDNA1 was good but RDNA2 & 3 are both spectacular at Gaming. BTW in the reviews of the 7800XT look at where the 3090 sits in Games. When I first got into Gaming I experienced Nvidia's hubris and have not looked back or been disappointed since. Yep that is also why I love my 7900X3D.
Also, RTX can do so much more than simple rasterization, that you have a hard time settling with AMD after using a RTX GPU. Not a single AMD feature is on par with Nvidias and AMD don't even have a counter for many RTX features (DLAA, DLDSR, DLSS 3 + FG + 3.5 to name a few).
Even if 7900XTX had matched 4090 in raster, I would have picked 4090 anyway because of DLSS, DLAA, DLDSR and Reflex mostly + Much better RT perf. I am using many RTX mods and RTX features to improve the experience of older games (DLDSR, RT mods etc) - features like this can transform old games - and I can't wait for Half Life 2 RTX. There's many other features present (with RTX or Nvidia in general) and every single one of these features beats what AMD is offering. Pretty much all streamers use Nvidia because of ShadowPlay and the native integration on Twitch and most big streaming platforms. ReLive is not really close and has bigger performance hit + less native support on platforms and way more issues.
This is why AMD has lower prices. Lack of features. Worse features. Worse drivers and support especially when you leave the most popular games. AMD spends most of their time/money optimizing for games that actively gets benchmarked so their GPUs look good in reviews. AMDs performance in early access games, betas or just lesser popular titles are not on par with Nvidia 9 out of 10 times. Most developers use Nvidia and optimizes for Nvidia because 80% of the PC gaming segment uses Nvidia. Nvidia have tons of money for inventing features, improving features and perfect experience in games (driver optimization). AMD have much lower R&D funds and software department in general.
Also, AMDs main business is not GPUs but CPUs and APUs. Nvidias is. They are industry leader in gaming GPUs, enterprise GPUs and AI GPUs.
Gaming GPUs are not really profitable for AMD. They earn more per wafer by selling CPUs and APUs (both OEM and Consoles) and all their chips uses the same TSMC lines, meaning it makes more sense for AMD to just make CPUs and APUs. AMD decides what chips to put out and CPUs are more profitable. More chips per wafer equals more money for AMD.
I know it's hard to accept the fact that AMD lacks features, but they do. This is why every AMD GPU user hates the word upscaling, rt, downsampling and more, because their cards can't really do it properly. They are stuck with "native" and good old raster, which is why they praise native all the time and talk RTX features down - because they can't use them = Denial.
Yet native can easily be improved and beaten with features like DLAA or even DLSS on the higher presets if you want some performance on top as well. However DLAA beats native and every other AA solution every single time when it comes to visuals and DLAA is a preset of DLSS now. DLSS don't just mean upscaling (with built in AA), it also means best AA method today; DLAA.
Even developers embrace upscaling, downsampling, sharpening filters and next gen anti-aliasing. Like I said several times now, FSR2 is enabled as default in Starfield. Upscaling is enabled in Remnant 2 as default. They officially stated the game was designed with DLSS/FSR/XeSS image upscaling in mind.
Native is not really better these days, especially not if you use DLAA or DLDSR. DLSS will only on lower presets make visuals worse, but performance skyrocket - This is up to the user to decide. AMD can't match these features at all. This is what you pay extra for, when you buy Nvidia. And resell value of AMD hardware is lower as well because demand is lower and AMD lowers prices several times thru a generation.
I then hit my hotkey for GPU stats and my 3080 needs to run at about 50% utilisation at max turbo clocks for 60fps o_O. So although the game is running fine, its very heavy utilisation for what its actually displaying, just seems modern game development now has everything requiring so much resources. This is even if the case if I have the game paused on a menu or something.