NVIDIA Announces Updated Open-Source Image Scaling SDK

[Uskompuf]

For the past two years, NVIDIA has offered a driver-based spatial upscaler called NVIDIA Image Scaling and Sharpening, for all your games, that didn't require game or SDK integrations to work. With the new November GeForce Game Ready Driver, we have improved the scaling and sharpening algorithm to now use a 6-tap filter with 4 directional scaling and adaptive sharpening filters to boost performance. And we have also added an in-game sharpness slider, accessible via GeForce Experience, so you can do real-time customizations to sharpness.

In contrast to NVIDIA DLSS, the algorithm is non-AI and non-temporal, using only information from the current low resolution image rendered by the game as an input. While the resulting image quality is best-in-class in comparison to scaling offered by monitors or other in-game scaling techniques, it lacks the temporal data and AI smarts of DLSS, which are required to deliver native resolution detail and robust frame-to-frame stability. By combining both NVIDIA DLSS and NVIDIA Image Scaling, the developer gets the best of both worlds: NVIDIA DLSS for the best image quality, and NVIDIA Image Scaling for cross-platform support. You can read how to enable the feature for any game down below.





Activating NVIDIA Image Scaling Through The NVIDIA Control Panel

• To activate the newly updated feature, simply open the NVIDIA Control Panel, click onto "Manage 3D Settings", and activate the "Image Scaling" setting as shown below
• When you enable Image Scaling, the driver generates 5 additional scaling resolutions based on your native monitor resolution that you can select from in-game settings menus to use with NVIDIA Image Scaling. We recommend doing a quick reboot to ensure your games recognize these new resolutions
• You can set global sharpness settings for all your games at once, or manage per-game tuning through the Program Settings tab of "Manage 3D Settings.
• For each game, go into the in-game settings and select Fullscreen mode
• Set the desired render resolution. NVIDIA Image Scaling will automatically upscale the lower render resolution to your display's native resolution and sharpen (e.g. 2880x1620 upscaled to 3840x2160)
• If you enable the overlay indicator, a "NIS" text label will appear in the upper left corner of the screen. A green text color indicates that NVIDIA Image Scaling is scaling and sharpening the game. If the text is colored blue, then NVIDIA Image Scaling is sharpening but not scaling

Activating NVIDIA Image Scaling Through GeForce Experience

• To get early access to these features, you will first need to "Enable experimental features" by opening GeForce Experience's Settings via the top right cog icon.
• In the "About" box, click "Enable experimental features". After a few moments, a new version of GeForce Experience will be downloaded.
• Once the new version is downloaded, restart GeForce Experience and reenter the Settings screen. You should now see a new "Image Scaling" option further down the page. Enable it and the "In-Game Overlay". The Image Scaling options selected here will be the defaults for your games, though you can quickly and easily change them on a per game basis.
• With NVIDIA Image Scaling activated, click the pop up that appears on the bottom left when you enable Image Scaling.

This will instantly optimize your settings using Image Scaling in the 1000+ games supported by GeForce Experience that are installed on your system. Note that if you have a RTX GPU, GeForce Experience will enable NVIDIA DLSS in supported games instead of NVIDIA Image Scaling to provide the best image quality and performance.

Alternatively, you can select one of the new NVIDIA Image Scaling resolutions via the game's specific Optimal Playable Settings, or in-game in the options menu. When playing a game, press Alt+F3 and you can manually adjust the degree of sharpening during gameplay, enabling you to instantly see its impact on image clarity. And in the same screen you can apply other filters to change the look and feel of each game.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[damric]

Been using the Lossless Scaling application from Steam. The $5 version allows any resolution or scaling you want and has multiple scaling algorithms including AMD FSR and adjustable sharpening. I must say it has saved me some money as now I can easily 4K with my Vega with good looking visuals. It's good that Nvidia has a free version as well, but I wonder why they are advertising this now. Is it to keep old GTX users from using FSR? I'm guessing no one really cares about DLSS if the cards to run it are overpriced.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

This sounds like its not a card specific setting. Included with 496.76 drivers

 

[noel_fs]

nvidia next to open source i must be dreaming

 

[han32]

its only effects 4k? how about 1440p 1080p?

 

[StefanM]

its only effects 4k? how about 1440p 1080p?

Try the sample (which is for whatever reason still in DX11...)

 

[Mussels]

Is it me or is Alt-F3 the ballsiest in game shortcut to use, ever?

Tested this out with GR: Breakpoint, in Vulcan. Extra resolutions did not appear, but dropping to 1080p worked fine - it still output a 1440p 165hz signal.

With sharpening at 0% (deliberately, to see it at its worst) i saw some aliasing - fields of red flowers in the background shimmered. I'll re-test now with 50% (default) and look for them.
(Edit: still shimmers)

If this works on GTX cards, my 1080 is about to get some 4K action.

Edit: yes, it works on my GTX 1080.

 

[nguyen]

Is it me or is Alt-F3 the ballsiest in game shortcut to use, ever?

Tested this out with GR: Breakpoint, in Vulcan. Extra resolutions did not appear, but dropping to 1080p worked fine - it still output a 1440p 165hz signal.

View attachment 225470

With sharpening at 0% (deliberately, to see it at its worst) i saw some aliasing - fields of red flowers in the background shimmered. I'll re-test now with 50% (default) and look for them.
(Edit: still shimmers)

If this works on GTX cards, my 1080 is about to get some 4K action.

Edit: yes, it works on my GTX 1080.

Try the hotfix driver 496.84 if the additional resolutions don't show up.

 

[Mussels]

Okay i found the problem, on 496.84 they show up as 16:10 aspect ratio not 16:9

So in games that let you choose an aspect ratio, they dont show. Set it to any or 16:10, and they appeared.


My GTX 1080 can now run breakpoint at low (medium textures) at 75FPS with that 85% setting for 4k60, quite a pleasant experience.

 

[arni-gx]

Is it me or is Alt-F3 the ballsiest in game shortcut to use, ever?

Tested this out with GR: Breakpoint, in Vulcan. Extra resolutions did not appear, but dropping to 1080p worked fine - it still output a 1440p 165hz signal.

View attachment 225470

With sharpening at 0% (deliberately, to see it at its worst) i saw some aliasing - fields of red flowers in the background shimmered. I'll re-test now with 50% (default) and look for them.
(Edit: still shimmers)

If this works on GTX cards, my 1080 is about to get some 4K action.

Edit: yes, it works on my GTX 1080.

weird, is that new nvidia driver 496.84 is hotfix driver ??

 

[Mussels]

weird, is that new nvidia driver 496.84 is hotfix driver ??

Yes, it may have more than one fix but that was a key part of it


I found the resolutions seem confused in games who think they have the wrong aspect ratio, and that may be why they hide for some users (Seems like someone coded them on a 16:10 screen, and fudged a number up somewhere)

 

[nguyen]

Yes, it may have more than one fix but that was a key part of it


I found the resolutions seem confused in games who think they have the wrong aspect ratio, and that may be why they hide for some users (Seems like someone coded them on a 16:10 screen, and fudged a number up somewhere)

Maybe using CRU to remove 16:10 resolutions would solve the problem.
My OLED CX is detected as 4096x2160 display and it bugs out when I tried 8K DSR, manually removing 4096x2160 resolution solves the problem.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Try the sample (which is for whatever reason still in DX11...)

Why applying a filter to a static image would ask something more.

It looks ugly nevertheless.

 

[InVasMani]

Can it adjust down to the second decimal point or just whole numbers values for sharpening and scaling!!? As a example 0.85x is the only default scaling option that divides evenly within 8-bit color space 0-255. I don't know why Nvidia didn't include 0.51x and 0.68x because they too would have. A really nice perk with the Image Scaler over using Nvidia's custom display resolution is it maintains the color space of the native resolution based on the refresh rate of the native resolution.

I like to run 10bpp 120Hz on my 27" 1440p 165Hz IPS because at 165Hz it drops down to 8bpp which just does not look as good as 10-bit color space. In my case if I switch the scaling resolution to run at 120Hz it'll run 10bpp which is great. It's worth noting if you've got display capable of different color depth qualities and resolutions.

I can't wait until 12-bit panels start to become common and can push 120Hz 1440p it'll help nicely with color gradients. It'll be nice as well when 1440p 120Hz 10bpp/12bpp displays are offered in 24" sizes and even 21.5" sizes putting them more on par with 4K's DPI. What 4K at lower display sizes has going for it is the crazy high DPI which helps negate the need for AA significantly. I think the tap filtering on this combined with a higher DPI display will see more upside to the tap filtering effect itself it stands to reason.

 

[Mussels]

Maybe using CRU to remove 16:10 resolutions would solve the problem.
My OLED CX is detected as 4096x2160 display and it bugs out when I tried 8K DSR, manually removing 4096x2160 resolution solves the problem.

No it has somehow marked 16:9 resolutions as 16:10 - dont ask me how.

GR: wildlands will show black bars in the menus as if it's 16:10, but then go fullscreen 16:9 in the game and benchmark. It's a little odd.

 

[mNiosu]

I don't have the "Image Sharpening" option in Control Panel any more.
Am I missing something?

Edit: I'm just stupid, the sharpening option is in the image scaling menu now. So no more film grain slider?
Also, let me get this straight: you must enable image scaling as a global setting as per game option is greyed out.
This makes some old game black screen for me (the overlay indicator is there, but no game image) so I must disable image scaling to be able play them. So now I can't even use image sharpening on that old games any more?
Is this kind of stupid or it's all me?