Unity Game Engine to Feature NVIDIA DLSS Integration by the End of 2021

[Raevenlord]

NVIDIA and Unity have announced that they're working on seamlessly integrating the green company's DLSS technology into the Unity game engine, thus allowing developers to more easily enable the technology on their development efforts. This is a sign of NVIDIA's power in the gaming arena - the company is actually leading engine makers to integrate its proprietary, RTX-only technology on their game engines. That is sure to give a boost to DLSS adoption throughout the industry - but of course, whether or not that's what would be best for consumers and gamers is very much up for debate.

NVIDIA said that native DLSS support would reach Unity through the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) in the Unity 2021.2. release "before the end of 2021." That means there's still work to be done; however, we have to take into account that this is the second developer of a widespread game engine to adopt the new NVIDIA porprietary technology, after EPIC integrated DLSS into a plugin for its famous (and industry-wide) Unreal Engine. A strong victory for NVIDIA - should developers actually use the plugin instead of AMD's still-coming FidelityFX Super Resolution, which is supposed to be hardware agnostic, and enable the technology for millions of current-gen consoles at the same time. Check after the break for a video announcement.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[P4-630]

AMD's still-coming FidelityFX Super Resolution

The above....

 

[SLK]

GPU : NVIDIA > AMD

 

[renz496]

next maybe will be cryengine? Crytek did use nvidia DLSS for their Crysis remaster. so they probably experimenting to integrate DLSS on future iteration of Cryengine. for game developer this is probably no longer about nvidia vs AMD. for the past decade nvidia consistently sold roughly 70% of discrete GPU in every quarter. so from game developer perspective majority of gamer out there (with discrete GPU) owns nvidia GPU. but the biggest concern is some developer will use DLSS as a meant to cover their poor optimization.

 

[1d10t]

I don't think this will disrupt desktop market as Unity is most commonly used in mobile games. UE will be another story, but seem quite funny now they shifting from Ray Tracing to DLSS.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Ahhh yes, Im going to be able to enable RTX on Hearthstone and dab on them haters.

Otherwise, Im sure asset flippers on steam are also going to rejoice. Another Asset that they can flip for more profit.

 

[xkm1948]

This is great for VR! Lots of small VR titles developed by <10 people teams use Unity's VR engine.

 

[Franzen4Real]

"the company is actually leading engine makers to integrate its proprietary, RTX-only technology on their game engines. That is sure to give a boost to DLSS adoption throughout the industry - but of course, whether or not that's what would be best for consumers and gamers is very much up for debate."

Other than conspiracy theories-- what reason do we have to believe that AMD's solution will not also get support from the game engines, especially since it will be available on all consoles? DLSS is 26 29 months old.... they have had ample time to deliver a similar technique if they wanted to, but it seems that they are treating it as more of a "me too" feature check box, instead of getting it to market and actively working with developers to implement it. So... how many years are the industry and gamers expected to wait around on the "consumer friendly" implementation that may never come, and with the possibility of it being about as useful as their RT solution? Why should non-AMD owners be bound to this minus 2+ year development timeline, when a FidelityFX plug in can still be integrated at some point in the future anyways?

 

[Sihastru]

We can only speculate about the future, but, as of now, we're comparing a proven and tentatively established technology with promises from another company.

Without a good reason (as in money changing hands), no small/indie developer will think about putting in the work to integrate DLSS or any future (but not existing for now) competitor from AMD into their game as they will much prefer enhancing the actual game design aspects in the limited time they have. Having it somewhat "natively" supported by the game engine is a huge development and Unity is a great choice, if they can provide a "key-turn" solution.

Compared to other engines, Unity has an accessible technology stack that gives you the freedom to access markets in almost trivial ways. If you need to port something made with Unity to almost any console, let's say Nintendo Switch, it is infinitely less complicated then it would be with UE, Godot, GameMaker etc. Talking from the perspective of a small/indie developer.

 

[evernessince]

"the company is actually leading engine makers to integrate its proprietary, RTX-only technology on their game engines. That is sure to give a boost to DLSS adoption throughout the industry - but of course, whether or not that's what would be best for consumers and gamers is very much up for debate."

Other than conspiracy theories-- what reason do we have to believe that AMD's solution will not also get support from the game engines, especially since it will be available on all consoles? DLSS is 26 29 months old.... they have had ample time to deliver a similar technique if they wanted to, but it seems that they are treating it as more of a "me too" feature check box, instead of getting it to market and actively working with developers to implement it. So... how many years are the industry and gamers expected to wait around on the "consumer friendly" implementation that may never come, and with the possibility of it being about as useful as their RT solution? Why should non-AMD owners be bound to this minus 2+ year development timeline, when a FidelityFX plug in can still be integrated at some point in the future anyways?

As a 1080 Ti owner, the only game I've played that had DLSS support was CP2077 and even then I enabled AMD CAS with resolution scaling enabled. Given the pathetic number of games that have gained support since DLSS has launched AMD users are not missing a single thing. You are waiting on AMD's solution just like we are still waiting for DLSS to be integrated into a reasonable amount of games. As it is right now, neither company has a solution that's even worth mentioning due to the tiny number of games that support the feature.

 

[Anymal]

Well, if you have 80+% market share...

 

[Night]

I don't think this will disrupt desktop market as Unity is most commonly used in mobile games. UE will be another story, but seem quite funny now they shifting from Ray Tracing to DLSS.

A good percentage of indie games you can find on Steam are made in Unity engine, it's not really for mobile games only. But truthfully, I'm having a hard time seeing most of Unity engine games needing DLSS due to fact they can run well on a P4.

 

[Franzen4Real]

Given the pathetic number of games that have gained support since DLSS has launched AMD users are not missing a single thing. You are waiting on AMD's solution just like we are still waiting for DLSS to be integrated into a reasonable amount of games. As it is right now, neither company has a solution that's even worth mentioning due to the tiny number of games that support the feature.

No, I'm an nVidia owner, I'm not waiting for the AMD solution. Also, of the compatible games that I own, I would say 4 out of 5 were worthwhile to enable DLSS (BF5 being the one that was a bad experience). So we have differing opinions on that, which is fine. People have always rightfully complained (as you just mentioned) that the number of DLSS enabled games are too low. Now, nVidia actively does something about it and gets wide spread support in the two major game engines and the response in the article is "whether or not that's what would be best for consumers and gamers is very much up for debate". I personally do not see any point of debate at all.... Its good. When AMD releases their solution and it is also integrated natively, that too, is good. The article gave me the vibe that OP feels nVidia is using their "power in the gaming arena" to push their tech in to game engines while there is possibly a better, hardware agnostic solution coming some time, maybe, some day, in the future. And my point is, who cares? Just because DLSS is now the only option at the moment in UE and Unity does not mean that FidelityFX can not be added later whenever they decide to actually make it... The sooner both become a plug-n-play solution instead of a burden for game developers, the better.

 

[BMfan80]

This is good,I was tired of lowering my own resolution.
Gaming at 720p like 2005

 

[evernessince]

No, I'm an nVidia owner, I'm not waiting for the AMD solution. Also, of the compatible games that I own, I would say 4 out of 5 were worthwhile to enable DLSS (BF5 being the one that was a bad experience). So we have differing opinions on that, which is fine. People have always rightfully complained (as you just mentioned) that the number of DLSS enabled games are too low. Now, nVidia actively does something about it and gets wide spread support in the two major game engines and the response in the article is "whether or not that's what would be best for consumers and gamers is very much up for debate". I personally do not see any point of debate at all.... Its good. When AMD releases their solution and it is also integrated natively, that too, is good. The article gave me the vibe that OP feels nVidia is using their "power in the gaming arena" to push their tech in to game engines while there is possibly a better, hardware agnostic solution coming some time, maybe, some day, in the future. And my point is, who cares? Just because DLSS is now the only option at the moment in UE and Unity does not mean that FidelityFX can not be added later whenever they decide to actually make it... The sooner both become a plug-n-play solution instead of a burden for game developers, the better.

You are fundamentally misunderstanding.

Never said to wait for AMD. I said currently Nvidia's solution is in so little games (less than 0.01%) that the feature in general is mostly irrelevant, as in not a significant factor, regardless of brand.

"Also, of the compatible games that I own, I would say 4 out of 5 were worthwhile to enable DLSS"

Again, my point was never that DLSS isn't worthwhile to enable. It's the fact that it's in so few games that in the vast majority of cases it doesn't matter whether you want to use it or not, you can't. Out of the 500+ games I own (excluding VR titles), a single game supports DLSS and even then I use CAS in that title anyways.

"The article gave me the vibe that OP feels nVidia is using their "power in the gaming arena" to push their tech in to game engines"

There is substantive evidence that Nvidia has done this in the past and continues to do so. Remember when Nvidia gameworks was pushing tessellation in games far beyond the point of visual difference? That's because Nvidia knew that despite there being no visual benefit past a certain point, it would hurt AMD as their cards didn't have as high a maximum tessellation output. Nvidia is a company that sucker punches and lies. It would not be remotely surprising if the author is cautious.

 

[KainXS]

Its a good thing to get more support but its Unity and most unity games are easy to run anyway unless they are coded like trash.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

You are fundamentally misunderstanding.

Never said to wait for AMD. I said currently Nvidia's solution is in so little games (less than 0.01%) that the feature in general is mostly irrelevant, as in not a significant factor, regardless of brand.

"Also, of the compatible games that I own, I would say 4 out of 5 were worthwhile to enable DLSS"

Again, my point was never that DLSS isn't worthwhile to enable. It's the fact that it's in so few games that in the vast majority of cases it doesn't matter whether you want to use it or not, you can't. Out of the 500+ games I own (excluding VR titles), a single game supports DLSS and even then I use CAS in that title anyways.

"The article gave me the vibe that OP feels nVidia is using their "power in the gaming arena" to push their tech in to game engines"

There is substantive evidence that Nvidia has done this in the past and continues to do so. Remember when Nvidia gameworks was pushing tessellation in games far beyond the point of visual difference? That's because Nvidia knew that despite there being no visual benefit past a certain point, it would hurt AMD as their cards didn't have as high a maximum tessellation output. Nvidia is a company that sucker punches and lies. It would not be remotely surprising if the author is cautious.

Basing your opinion of DLSS on the games you own instead of the number of games coming out recently seems disingenuous. Sure, you could be into card games. Then you say, "None of my games use DLSS, it sucks," that'd be a silly opinion to follow since card games don't really need DLSS. So I guess you don't own Nioh 2, Control, Monster Hunter World, the latest Call of Duty game, Death Stranding, Ghostrunner, Fortnite (meh), Marvel's Avengers (bless you), Outriders (same), or The Medium. I think the important point to DLSS is not whether it's in every game, but in the games that would benefit the most from it and that users are likely to own. That the games you own don't require it, well, that's a good thing. That DLSS is in the bigger titles that have the higher requirements is also good.

And if I was going to make a list of games that either are huge or are performance-hogging enough to benefit from it... I think nvidia's done pretty well to ensure this isn't the worst list of DLSS-capable games. There are some titles I think should be there that aren't, but they hit quite a few of the ones they needed to hit. That being said, I think complaining that "so little games" are using it in an article about them expanding the number by integrating the technology into the big engines of game development also seems like complaining about the company solving the problem.

DLSS is great. More games having it is great. AMD not having its own alternative, not even finalized in how it will work? Not so great.

 

[Franzen4Real]

You are fundamentally misunderstanding.

if so, then I'm fairly certain that it's going both ways here... sorry. All good though.

 

[watzupken]

Actually this article tells me 2 things,
1. It is not an easy task to enable DLSS given the timeline. It may be a 1 off effort, but is the same effort required if the game engine undergoes significant changes?
2. I feel Nvidia is also starting to get worried with competition's AI upscaling technology. Worried not that they are panicking, but considering that AMD is working with game developers to agree on a preferred way of optimising vs Nvidia's "my way or the highway" approach, game developers may be more likely to adopt the easier approach since it will most likely also benefit games made for consoles. That may leave Nvidia's proprietary solution out in the cold. So if they don't actively go out to work with game developers on DLSS now, the adoption may slow down even further once more "friendly" technology appears.

 

[Shihab]

But truthfully, I'm having a hard time seeing most of Unity engine games needing DLSS due to fact they can run well on a P4.

Probably one of the reasons to include this tech: Market the engine to high-end games devs. They've been at it since that Adam thing and the whole HDRP fork, with moderate success.

 

[evernessince]

Basing your opinion of DLSS on the games you own instead of the number of games coming out recently seems disingenuous. Sure, you could be into card games. Then you say, "None of my games use DLSS, it sucks," that'd be a silly opinion to follow since card games don't really need DLSS. So I guess you don't own Nioh 2, Control, Monster Hunter World, the latest Call of Duty game, Death Stranding, Ghostrunner, Fortnite (meh), Marvel's Avengers (bless you), Outriders (same), or The Medium. I think the important point to DLSS is not whether it's in every game, but in the games that would benefit the most from it and that users are likely to own. That the games you own don't require it, well, that's a good thing. That DLSS is in the bigger titles that have the higher requirements is also good.

And if I was going to make a list of games that either are huge or are performance-hogging enough to benefit from it... I think nvidia's done pretty well to ensure this isn't the worst list of DLSS-capable games. There are some titles I think should be there that aren't, but they hit quite a few of the ones they needed to hit. That being said, I think complaining that "so little games" are using it in an article about them expanding the number by integrating the technology into the big engines of game development also seems like complaining about the company solving the problem.

DLSS is great. More games having it is great. AMD not having its own alternative, not even finalized in how it will work? Not so great.

Again not saying DLSS sucks. I'm pointing out the fact that it's hardly in any games.

Here's the complete list of games that support or may support DLSS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DLSS_support

It's a tiny list and 1/3rd of the titles have DLSS listed as TBA.

"So I guess you don't own Nioh 2, Control, Monster Hunter World, the latest Call of Duty game, Death Stranding, Ghostrunner, Fortnite (meh), Marvel's Avengers (bless you), Outriders (same), or The Medium"

Watched someone play Nioh 2

Control never interested me

Monster hunter world is too grindy

COD is bad. Same issues it had 10 years ago. Extremely toxic community. I'd much rather play val or R6S. I'd normally throw in overwatch too but the devs of that game are braindead and continue to make the game more and more COD like.

Death stranding watched same as Nioh 2

No idea what Ghostrunner is

Fortnite is too RNG. I'm not a fan of any Battle royal game for that reason.

Marvel avengers, don't know a single person who's played that game and likely never will due to terrible reviews.

Outriders has issues. Big ones. Not going to touch it until they fix all the issues. Like CP2077 though I doubt it'll ever happen.

I watched the medium, good game. It's the kind of game you play once and are done though. DLSS would be useful here for lower end video cards but unfortunately Nvidia doesn't sell cards with DLSS under $400 USD. It's not really the type of game that benefits much from higher frame-rates either. The video I watched, guy has a 1070. Most people don't have DLSS capable cards and I don't expect that will change until there's reasonably priced card for the lower end of the dGPU market that push performance past 1060 / 580 price / performance for once.


I play a lot of games of varying genres and I think I can be excused for only playing a single DLSS title when a total of 0.001% of all games support it. Then again, I don't really play CP2077 anymore either. I dropped it 40 hours in after I realized the game isn't anywhere near as good as The Witcher 3. 6/10 IMO.

"I think complaining that "so little games" are using it in an article about them expanding the number by integrating the technology into the big engines of game development also seems like complaining about the company solving the problem."

Whether or not said problem is being solved remains to be seen. As another user pointed out, DLSS really needs to be a turnkey solution in order to gain a large amount of adoption. Nvidia made the same claims about how easy DLSS is to add to a game with DLSS 1.0 and as usual with most Nvidiia claims, it turned out to be false. With DLSS 2.0 Nvidia once again claimed easy integration. I'm not holding my breath. I believe it when I actually see much more games with DLSS.

As an Nvidia user who can't use DLSS anyways, I'm more than happy to wait to see whatever happens. IMO by not having cheaper cards that can use DLSS Nvidia is shooting itself in the foot. Not much of an incentive to integrate a feature when only a small portion of users can utilize it. If AMD releases a solution that hardware agnostic that alone would be a huge selling poi9nt to devs simply because it's a feature that everyone will be able to use. No need to worry about which brand hardware you have or if you really want to spend that $400 on that GPU just to get a feature that should be included in the entire lineup. I hope Intel hops in there and comes up with their own solution too.

 

[1d10t]

A good percentage of indie games you can find on Steam are made in Unity engine, it's not really for mobile games only. But truthfully, I'm having a hard time seeing most of Unity engine games needing DLSS due to fact they can run well on a P4.

Can you guess it? 1% of the Steam library enough?Two from (just) dozen indie games that made smash hits are Fall Guy and Among Us, nothing compare to mobile games that topped more than half.

 

[nguyen]

Again not saying DLSS sucks. I'm pointing out the fact that it's hardly in any games.

Here's the complete list of games that support or may support DLSS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DLSS_support

It's a tiny list and 1/3rd of the titles have DLSS listed as TBA.

"So I guess you don't own Nioh 2, Control, Monster Hunter World, the latest Call of Duty game, Death Stranding, Ghostrunner, Fortnite (meh), Marvel's Avengers (bless you), Outriders (same), or The Medium"

Watched someone play Nioh 2

Control never interested me

Monster hunter world is too grindy

COD is bad. Same issues it had 10 years ago. Extremely toxic community. I'd much rather play val or R6S. I'd normally throw in overwatch too but the devs of that game are braindead and continue to make the game more and more COD like.

Death stranding watched same as Nioh 2

No idea what Ghostrunner is

Fortnite is too RNG. I'm not a fan of any Battle royal game for that reason.

Marvel avengers, don't know a single person who's played that game and likely never will due to terrible reviews.

Outriders has issues. Big ones. Not going to touch it until they fix all the issues. Like CP2077 though I doubt it'll ever happen.

I watched the medium, good game. It's the kind of game you play once and are done though. DLSS would be useful here for lower end video cards but unfortunately Nvidia doesn't sell cards with DLSS under $400 USD. It's not really the type of game that benefits much from higher frame-rates either. The video I watched, guy has a 1070. Most people don't have DLSS capable cards and I don't expect that will change until there's reasonably priced card for the lower end of the dGPU market that push performance past 1060 / 580 price / performance for once.


I play a lot of games of varying genres and I think I can be excused for only playing a single DLSS title when a total of 0.001% of all games support it. Then again, I don't really play CP2077 anymore either. I dropped it 40 hours in after I realized the game isn't anywhere near as good as The Witcher 3. 6/10 IMO.

"I think complaining that "so little games" are using it in an article about them expanding the number by integrating the technology into the big engines of game development also seems like complaining about the company solving the problem."

Whether or not said problem is being solved remains to be seen. As another user pointed out, DLSS really needs to be a turnkey solution in order to gain a large amount of adoption. Nvidia made the same claims about how easy DLSS is to add to a game with DLSS 1.0 and as usual with most Nvidiia claims, it turned out to be false. With DLSS 2.0 Nvidia once again claimed easy integration. I'm not holding my breath. I believe it when I actually see much more games with DLSS.

As an Nvidia user who can't use DLSS anyways, I'm more than happy to wait to see whatever happens. IMO by not having cheaper cards that can use DLSS Nvidia is shooting itself in the foot. Not much of an incentive to integrate a feature when only a small portion of users can utilize it. If AMD releases a solution that hardware agnostic that alone would be a huge selling poi9nt to devs simply because it's a feature that everyone will be able to use. No need to worry about which brand hardware you have or if you really want to spend that $400 on that GPU just to get a feature that should be included in the entire lineup. I hope Intel hops in there and comes up with their own solution too.

You know RTX 2060 has DLSS and MSRP of 350usd right? it was selling for as low as 300usd for a good while (bought one for my friend in Jan 2021 for 300usd). RTX2060 is the 5th most popular GPU on Steam with 5% of steam users have them.
DLSS is the best feature that any FineWine lover could wish for, impressive performance uplift in current day AAA games.
In fact if you have the 2060 in an HTPC, you can enjoy games at 4K with medium settings and DLSS Performance mode (well maybe low settings in CP2077). I have transitioned to using 4K 120hz OLED TV for my main PC as well.

Yes I know that you can actively avoid DLSS games and still have fun, but the opposite is also true, you can look for good games with DLSS support and enjoy them even more when you have DLSS capable hardware, I have played over 10 good games with DLSS already (Control, Crysis Remastered, CP2077, Death Stranding, F1 2020, Ghostrunner, Mech V, Mount&Blade 2, Nioh 2, The Medium, WD Legion), the list will continue to grow with Warzone getting DLSS and Naraka: Bladepoint is looking pretty interesting.

Edit: LOL Naraka Bladepoint looks very fun

 

[evernessince]

You know RTX 2060 has DLSS and MSRP of 350usd right? it was selling for as low as 300usd for a good while (bought one for my friend in Jan 2021 for 300usd). RTX2060 is the 5th most popular GPU on Steam with 5% of steam users have them.
DLSS is the best feature that any FineWine lover could wish for, impressive performance uplift in current day AAA games.
In fact if you have the 2060 in an HTPC, you can enjoy games at 4K with medium settings and DLSS Performance mode (well maybe low settings in CP2077). I have transitioned to using 4K 120hz OLED TV for my main PC as well.

Yes I know that you can actively avoid DLSS games and still have fun, but the opposite is also true, you can look for good games with DLSS support and enjoy them even more when you have DLSS capable hardware, I have played over 10 good games with DLSS already (Control, Crysis Remastered, CP2077, Death Stranding, F1 2020, Ghostrunner, Mech V, Mount&Blade 2, Nioh 2, The Medium, WD Legion), the list will continue to grow with Warzone getting DLSS and Naraka: Bladepoint is looking pretty interesting.

Edit: LOL Naraka Bladepoint looks very fun

1. MSRP of the 2060 is $400 USD.
2. You aren't going to get it at the price regardless
3. $350 is not budget

"RTX2060 is the 5th most popular GPU on Steam with 5% of steam users"

Incorrect, it sits at 3.51%, far less than half the 1060.

"DLSS is the best feature that any FineWine lover could wish for, impressive performance uplift in current day AAA games."

Precisely, "wish for" because it's likely not in the games you are playing.

"In fact if you have the 2060 in an HTPC, you can enjoy games at 4K with medium settings and DLSS Performance mode (well maybe low settings in CP2077). I have transitioned to using 4K 120hz OLED TV for my main PC as well."

DLSS performance mode does cause a degradation is visual quality. So yeah, you can achieve the same with most TV's built in upscaling regardless of DLSS. The difference is that LG's and Samsung's AI upscaling built into their new models aren't limited to a handful of games. I don't know a single person that would purposefully build a HTPC to only play DLSS games. That's just pandering to find a reason to use a feature that's hardly in any games.

"Yes I know that you can actively avoid DLSS games and still have fun, but the opposite is also true, you can look for good games with DLSS support and enjoy them even more when you have DLSS capable hardware, I have played over 10 good games with DLSS already (Control, Crysis Remastered, CP2077, Death Stranding, F1 2020, Ghostrunner, Mech V, Mount&Blade 2, Nioh 2, The Medium, WD Legion)"

Or I can just continue to do what I do and buy games that I think will be fun. That's what gaming is about, maybe you should try it instead of trying to justify a purchase. If a game I play just so happens to have DLSS, that's great (although so far that's only 1). If not, I could not care less.

 

[basco]

games should be playable from the beginning in the 300.- price range (hahaha-good times) even without dlss.
i never actively search for a game that has a feature or not like the hair fx thingy in tomb raider from amd or remember batman with physx on or off.
it does not change what i want to play and i had fun with both games.

imagine intel will bring its own features that neither can use-plz no
give us open features for all gpu manufacturers and lets have fun playing.