Upscaling Beats Native Resolution 55-45 in TechPowerUp Frontpage Survey

[btarunr]

User preference to super resolution technologies such as NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS, beat playing games without them, at native resolution, in the latest TechPowerUp Frontpage Poll. Spanning nearly a month of polling and over 29,260 votes, the poll provides an interesting insight into the minds of today's gamers. It suggests that gamers are willing to explore super resolution technologies to make their games playable with higher eye-candy, as opposed to playing at native resolutions with watered down settings. The question we asked was what setting of super resolution do gamers use, with "native" suggesting a lack of super resolution. Native could include presets such as DLAA or FSR Native, which render the game at native resolution while using the upscaler to work like an AA technology, smoothing out edges.

Native resolution scored 13,024 votes, or 44.5% of the votes. It is the single largest response, but given that every other response is tied to some form of super resolution, it becomes a minority response. Native is followed by "Quality" preset at 38.8% or 11,341 votes. The "Balanced" present, which tends to be the default super resolution preset in most games, trails "Quality" by a significant margin, scoring just 8.9% of the vote, or 2,593 votes. Only trace sections of our users pick "performance" and "ultra performance" presets that tend to render the game at significantly lower resolutions to make it playable. "Performance" got 4.7% (1,376 votes), followed by "Ultra Performance" at 3.2% or 930 votes.



The voting patterns suggest that gamers do want to use super resolution, and are willing to pick either "Quality" or "Balanced" presets, leaning greatly toward "Quality." Native remains the single largest mode, and a significant minority of 44.5% wants GPUs to be able to play today's games without the crutches of super resolution tech. The split between "Quality" and "Balanced" suggests that when enabling super resolution technologies, gamers do tend to take the time to manually pick the preset to "Quality" from the default "Balanced," suggesting that they don't just flick super resolution on, and are conscious of what kind of super resolution they want. If you were to club "Native" with "Quality," they make an overwhelming 83% of the vote—people want their experience to be either at native or as close to native as possible.

However, considering how terribly some game releases in 2024 ran, upscaling if often the only solution for playable frame rates, especially on systems with weaker GPU hardware. Last but not least, DLSS and FSR are activated by default in many games, which might affect a lot of gamers who just select a settings profile and don't look closer whether they have upscaling enabled or not.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Sound_Card]

I'm sorry, but there is a difference between "preference" and "use". Your poll does not state anything about preference. People's use case could come down to many other factors, like needed performance, but their preference could be completely different. Your poll states, what upscaler do you use?

And Super resolution is a weird name to give an upscaler. Super makes me think of rendering the game above the native resolution and then downsampling. Which is what I think everyone in reality would actually prefer if they have the means to do so.

 

[dgianstefani]

I'm sorry, but there is a difference between "preference" and "use". Your poll does not state anything about preference. People's use case could come down to many other factors, like needed performance, but their preference could be completely different. Your poll states, what upscaler do you use?

You are free to not use an upscaler if you prefer not to.

And Super resolution is a weird name to give an upscaler. Super makes me think of rendering the game above the native resolution and then downsampling. Which is what I think everyone in reality would actually prefer if they have the means to do so.

Even Intel.

 

[Sound_Card]

I know what DLSS stands for. It should be called AI upsampling. Because super would imply a resolution greater than native. Which is what super sampling is. Marketing works like a charm.

If the poll was worded, "what do you prefer to use", I imagine the results would be different.

 

[PixelTech]

I'm sorry, but there is a difference between "preference" and "use". Your poll does not state anything about preference. People's use case could come down to many other factors, like needed performance, but their preference could be completely different. Your poll states, what upscaler do you use?

And Super resolution is a weird name to give an upscaler. Super makes me think of rendering the game above the native resolution and then downsampling. Which is what I think everyone in reality would actually prefer if they have the means to do so.

I agree on this.

 

[W1zzard]

Changed the headline to use "Upscaling"

We also added the last paragraph, added the pie charts

 

[dgianstefani]

I know what DLSS stands for. It should be called AI upsampling. Because super would imply a resolution greater than native. Which is what super sampling is. Marketing works like a charm.

If the poll was worded, "what do you prefer to use", I imagine the results would be different.

I think the idea with "super" is that the output resolution is higher than the render resolution, while having comparable image quality as if it had natively rendered at the higher resolution, unlike traditional upscalers which were never as good, so it is greater than native in that sense. Sure, it took a while to get there, DLSS 3 was hit/miss if it was as good as native or not, depending on implementation. But with the advent of DLSS 4 etc, you can render at 75% native and still get better than 100% native IQ in many/most cases while enjoying some free performance and functional anti-aliasing. Games like Tarkov, where the game's inbuilt profiles are several years outdated can be overruled in the driver too. If you don't like the upscaling part, you can still use the superior to traditional methods anti-aliasing, with stuff like DLAA/FSR 100% render scaling.

So for those use cases it does indeed seem to be "super".

 

[dyonoctis]

I know what DLSS stands for. It should be called AI upsampling. Because super would imply a resolution greater than native. Which is what super sampling is. Marketing works like a charm.

If the poll was worded, "what do you prefer to use", I imagine the results would be different.

Looking at the amount of time that I’ve read « I would rather die than using a Vaseline upscaler » I can understand why the pool was made like that, with the assumption that people who despise upscaling would not use it at all.

 

[Dragam1337]

I get that polls leaves little room for more complicated answers - so of the options given, i chose native.

But ideally i'd use dsr 4x + dlss performance.

 

[JIWIL]

This is precisely why I didn't vote on this. I prefer Native/DLAA but frequently have to use DLSS @ 4k (due to terrible optimization and/or TAA implementation).

 

[Asni]

55%: console gamers with an higher budget.

 

[Mindweaver]

I have to say I enjoy DLSS on my gaming pc and I enjoy the extra frames using FSR on my Steam Deck.

 

[Assimilator]

I'm preparing my popcorn for when the "upscaling is fake frames REEEEEEE" gang gets here.

 

[Nater]

This is a horrible headline. All I gather from this poll is that over 80% of users would rather AVOID sacrificing quality for a blurry image and fake frames.

 

[dirtyferret]

I don't use it!
Therefore nobody else should!
...what are we talking about?

 

[NoneRain]

Sad stuff.
The worst thing for gamers, are the gamers.

 

[Scircura]

I use "All of the above". Just this year I've used:

• DLAA on 1920x1080 display for Returnal
• Quality on 1920x1080 display for Alan Wake 2
• Balanced on 3440x1440 display for Cyberpunk 2077
• Performance on 3840x2160 display for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
• Ultra Performance on 3840x2160 display for Eternal Strands
• DLDSR on 3840x2160 display for Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition
• Native on all displays for a bunch of games without any TAA option

Whatever gets me to 60 FPS on whatever display seems most appropriate for the game. (I'll also do DLDSR + DLSS if I have the patience to set it up.)

 

[BMfan80]

I'm preparing my popcorn for when the "upscaling is fake frames REEEEEEE" gang gets here.

Then maybe you should correct them.
DLSS by itself isn't fake frames. It lowers the resolution to help give you those frames, which is why if DLSS is enabled at the native res of 4k. You shouldn't call it 4k gaming.

It's when rubbish like frame gen is enabled, then you have fake frames.

 

[Assimilator]

Then maybe you should correct them.

You'd have more luck smashing your head against a wall.

 

[BigMack70]

You guys need to rewrite this headline or take this article down. It's misleading at best.

Your poll is "which version of upscaling do you use", not "do you prefer to run native resolution or use DLSS/FSR/XeSS upscaling?"

"Native" upscaling is DLAA. Your poll does not show what you claim it shows.

 

[Baba]

Super Bowl was broadcasted in enhanced 4k. To me putting a word enhanced next to something means it's better. They should call it enhanced 1080p. It sounds like misleading marketing. I wish the resolution it's starting from was used in the settings instead of words like quality, performance, etc.

 

[Nater]

Super Bowl was broadcasted in enhanced 4k. To me putting a word enhanced next to something means it's better. They should call it enhanced 1080p. It sounds like misleading marketing. I wish the resolution it's starting from was used in the settings instead of words like quality, performance, etc.

Is that why it looked like shit? I spent half the game checking/resetting everything on the Roku 4K stick and LG C7 OLED TV. It looked ok at the beginning of the game, and about 1/4 in the stream stuttered and it looked all washed out and trashy the rest of the game.

 

[FeelinFroggy]

Get used to it, upscaling is the future of gaming and the tech will get better. GPUs cannot keep up without it.

 

[b1k3rdude]

I actually like using DLSS upsacaling as it 'can' fix jaggies on wires, fences and other semi-transparent textures, so in that regard I am getting a form of AA and more FPS at the same time.

 

[Toss]

I play only RAW at 4k.
Can't wait for 8k monitor to play even more raw.