Editorial NVIDIA RTX Video Super Resolution Tested, AI Enhanced Streaming That Barely Makes a Difference

[Steevo]

We need some CSIs tech enhanced video streaming!

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! EWWWWWwwwwwwww

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

We need some CSIs tech enhanced video streaming!

Best meme ever, I actually belly laughed

 

[R-T-B]

I mean sure, it's something and no one should act like a free feature is bad. But amazing this is not.

 

[R0H1T]

It's not really free though, those Tensor cores probably cost a lot of die space & $$$ overall. Better put them to good use!

 

[Mussels]

Testing this with an 8K video on YT, set to 144p cause why nots?

Before:

After (will edit in after browser restart)

I cant see much change with these 'bears eating grass'



Now we do 720p:
before:

After:

Things like the bees antennae look like they have AA turned on, but that's about it

720p - lvl 4 - 4K native

 

[Solaris17]

I cant see much change with these 'bears eating grass'

are you kidding?? the AI is magnificent. It literally changed from bears to a bunch of bees, I cant even tell where the grass and bears were supposed to be!

 

[Mussels]

are you kidding?? the AI is magnificent. It literally changed from bears to a bunch of bees, I cant even tell where the grass and bears were supposed to be!

Realtime Bee Tracing


I wonder where this works best - videos with film grain and artifacting? High quality videos downsampled? Small screens, big screens?


Ahah, one of the quotes covers it: Basically, good source material over-compressed can be 'restored'

It's GPU accelerated madVR

RTX VSR reduces or eliminates artifacts caused by compressing video — such as blockiness, ringing artifacts around edges, washout of high-frequency details and banding on flat areas — while reducing lost textures. It also sharpens edges and details.

 

[nguyen]

VSR looks good for watch low res Tennis matches

VSR Off vs ON

 

[ancelotti]

Looks excellent to me. I've been using it on my Shield TV Pro for several years and it's amazing how well it can work on the big screen.

I think mileage is going to really depend upon the source and what you're viewing it on. A decent 720p source is going to look a lot better on a large 4k monitor. On a smaller 1080p screen the difference may be negligible.

I can totally understand how someone on a regular 24" 1080p lcd thinks the whole thing is a waste of time, and how someone on a 45" 4K oled thinks it's the greatest tech in the world.

Most people will be somewhere in the middle, where it gives a nice little bump in quality, but nothing to buy a new video card over.

 

[nguyen]

RTX VSR has been ported to VideoRenderer plugin

 

[Selaya]

I mean sure, it's something and no one should act like a free feature is bad. But amazing this is not.

i wouldnt exactly call 240w of power draw waste a free feature but ye

 

[Wasteland]

Looks excellent to me. I've been using it on my Shield TV Pro for several years and it's amazing how well it can work on the big screen.

I think mileage is going to really depend upon the source and what you're viewing it on. A decent 720p source is going to look a lot better on a large 4k monitor. On a smaller 1080p screen the difference may be negligible.

I can totally understand how someone on a regular 24" 1080p lcd thinks the whole thing is a waste of time, and how someone on a 45" 4K oled thinks it's the greatest tech in the world.

Most people will be somewhere in the middle, where it gives a nice little bump in quality, but nothing to buy a new video card over.

I use the "AI upscaler" on my Shield TV too. It's great, but I don't think it's the same tech at all. The Shield certainly isn't pulling an extra 200 watts with the feature active, lol. The Shield's version is more like a glorified sharpening filter, which can work wonders but it also regularly creates quite aggressive artifacts at lower resolutions. The tradeoff is almost always worth it, IMO, but a lot of people would likely disagree.

Anyway, this new feature is much more subtle--subtle to the point of clownishness at the moment, but it seems Nvidia is striving for something here that is substantially more advanced. I look forward to seeing how this thing develops.

 

[loracle706]

Watching a youtube video with 300+ watts, what a dumb idea even if it looks a little better, but the cost of energy and heat are inacceptable, only if you are one of those idiots who wants to fuck the planet quickly !!

 

[ThrashZone]

Realtime Bee Tracing


I wonder where this works best - videos with film grain and artifacting? High quality videos downsampled? Small screens, big screens?


Ahah, one of the quotes covers it: Basically, good source material over-compressed can be 'restored'

It's GPU accelerated madVR

Hi,
Maybe youtube/... should stop compressing videos instead that wouldn't eat up a couple hundred watts and everyone could benefit

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Looks excellent to me. I've been using it on my Shield TV Pro for several years and it's amazing how well it can work on the big screen.

I think mileage is going to really depend upon the source and what you're viewing it on. A decent 720p source is going to look a lot better on a large 4k monitor. On a smaller 1080p screen the difference may be negligible.

I can totally understand how someone on a regular 24" 1080p lcd thinks the whole thing is a waste of time, and how someone on a 45" 4K oled thinks it's the greatest tech in the world.

Most people will be somewhere in the middle, where it gives a nice little bump in quality, but nothing to buy a new video card over.

Well done you beat it's invention by several year's then, it's new this week?!?

It's only just been made, you were probably using something else?!


Tried it, meh, game changing it isn't, and I have the worst network of anyone I know, a sim card equipped mobile WiFi system on 3 in the UK, DL in the low Mb.
It's marginally better yes but not that noticeable and I am not buying a Nvidia GPU for this feature.
As the years roll and DL speeds increase past dial up it will become less required, wait,,,,. were a fair amount past dialup, ,, aren't you all.

 

[R-T-B]

i wouldnt exactly call 240w of power draw waste a free feature but ye

That's actually a fair point.

 

[Super Firm Tofu]

That's actually a fair point.

And it's not actually a free feature - the cost for R&D is baked into what we pay for nvidia cards.

 

[loregnum]

Watching a youtube video with 300+ watts, what a dumb idea even if it looks a little better, but the cost of energy and heat are inacceptable, only if you are one of those idiots who wants to fuck the planet quickly !!

Every single person that has a capable gpu could do what you said and NOTHING would happen to the planet. NOTHING. May I suggest getting out of the climate cult you are apparently in and understanding you have been sold a bunch of bullshit by people who want more control of your life and more of your money to do so. May I suggest actually looking into the history of the world (like the fact the planet right now isn't anywhere close to being as warm as it has been long before the 20th/21st centuries and somehow it still managed to keep on chugging and life prospered!) and simple reality and realizing how insane the climate cult fear mongering is. Maybe I suggest actully realizing the people in your cult have been making doom predictions for decades that have never come true so that in itself should show nobody should trust anything they say.

I do have to wonder though....what if the people you speak of are using solar and wind to power their homes? They still "fucking the planet quickly" or nah?

 

[Fluffmeister]

Hmm yeah not impressed, if I wanted higher power consumption to watch a YouTube video I'd buy a NAVI 31 based card.

I'll leave this option off thanks.

 

[R-T-B]

And it's not actually a free feature - the cost for R&D is baked into what we pay for nvidia cards.

I doubt this one feature factors in much at all on the bill, especially considering it doesn't even really appear high effort.

 

[Laykun]

For brighter videos this seems to work quite well, but for darker content the AI has a hard time distinguishing what's "noise" and what's "detail". The two screenshots post show 1) No VSR 2) VSR level 4. The content is running from my plex server, it's the Aliens from 1986. At the time of taking the screenshot, in both scenarios, the server is transcoding the content to my web browser, so some contrast is lost. But you can clearly see VSR is crushing the details in the blacks, even straight up "grime" is gone, the window shutter horizontal lines become non-existent. When streaming the content without transcoding, you get more contrast and the AI tends to handle it better.

No VSR

VSR Level 4

Weirdly, it seems to add an almost uniform / patterned "noise" to the image that I'm not a fan of, and can again create strange artifacts. The second set of screenshots show deep space nine, first episode, jake sisko's eyes. The first screenshot is VSR level 4, second is off. Notice the vertical patterns on the left side of the image, on Jake's right eye.
VSR:

No VSR

Afraid there's just too many weird quirks, not for me.

 

[nguyen]

 

[loracle706]

Every single person that has a capable gpu could do what you said and NOTHING would happen to the planet. NOTHING. May I suggest getting out of the climate cult you are apparently in and understanding you have been sold a bunch of bullshit by people who want more control of your life and more of your money to do so. May I suggest actually looking into the history of the world (like the fact the planet right now isn't anywhere close to being as warm as it has been long before the 20th/21st centuries and somehow it still managed to keep on chugging and life prospered!) and simple reality and realizing how insane the climate cult fear mongering is. Maybe I suggest actully realizing the people in your cult have been making doom predictions for decades that have never come true so that in itself should show nobody should trust anything they say.

I do have to wonder though....what if the people you speak of are using solar and wind to power their homes? They still "fucking the planet quickly" or nah?

I am climate neutral, but i believe thats a dumb idea.

 

[chrcoluk]

Difference seems tiny, and I did watch that video in as high res as possible. If it really consumes watts in the hundreds then not worth it in my opinion.

 

[nguyen]

Difference seems tiny, and I did watch that video in as high res as possible. If it really consumes watts in the hundreds then not worth it in my opinion.

Dont use Quality setting 4, 1 is good enough and it raise power consumption by 10-30W depending on res