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Unpopular Opinion @lemmy.world
A_Random_Idiot @lemmy.world
GPU

Upscaling/Frame Generation/Etc are nothing but desperate attempts to fulfilled the failed promise of 4k gaming, and have done real damage to gaming experiences at all resolutions.

Upscaling and Frame Generation are disasters meant to conceal unfulfilled promises from GPU makers for 4k gaming, and as a coverup for the otherwise horrible performance some modern games have, even at 1080/1440p resolutions.

Upscaling will never, no matter how much AI and overhead you throw at it, create an image that is as good as the same scene rendered at native res.

Frame Generation is a joke, and I am absolutely gobsmacked that people even take it seriously. It is nothing but extra AI frames shoved into your gameplay, worsening latency, response times, and image quality, all so you can artificially inflate a number. 30FPS gaming is, and will always be, infinitely better as an experience, than AI frame doubling a 30fps experience to 60FPS.

and because both these technologies exist, game devs are pushing out less optimized to completely unoptomized games that run like absolute dogshit, requiring you to use upscaling and shit even at 1080p just to get reasonable frame rates on GPUs that should run it just fine if it was optimized better (and we know its optimization, because some of these games do end up getting that optimization pass long after launch, and wouldnt you know.. 9fps suddenly became 60fps)

30 comments

  • One important thing - upscaling does help with low spec/low power gaming (esp on smaller screens). Obviously it's a double edged sword (promotes pushing out games quicker), but it has some really cool uses. Now forced TAA on the other hand...

    Both are tolerable, but only if they're not forced, and for some reason companies have a hard-on for forcing them. Kinda like how 103° FOV limit somehow became a standard even in fast-paced competitive games

    • Many... most?... games that can do DLSS/FSR... also have TAA forced on by default. You can find out by digging through their config files and/or console commands, its often the case that basically half of the game's graphical pipeline explodes or glitches out if you hack in and force it off.

      Because the DLSS/FSR algos hook into the motion vectors that the game's TAA give them.

      TAA is very often the foundation layer that DLSS/FSR is built on top of.

      A few games actually let you turn TAA off, but a good deal of them don't, because they never bothered to set up a standalone motion vector layer/component/pipeline that is seperate from the AA part of TAA.

      It continues to amaze me that people don't just generally know this.

      DLSS/FSR are literally built off of TAA, and a lot of game devs are lazy, or are told by management to not bother, whichever.

      • Or i just check pcgw and get disappointed. Oh well, if I can at least change the frame weight it's usually bearable, otherwise I'll just not bother

        edit: or if the game lets me hack it off, otherwise I'd rather skip

        edit2: also you can use FSR on pretty much any game now, regardless of AA, at least that's what it looks like from my driver. So forced upscaling usually equals forced taa

    • I've had shit GPUs.

      playing at lower res and settings gives a better image and performance than trying to upscale 540 to 1080p.

      • That's your preference tbh, same as AA for most people. Also you can upscale from higher res, it doesn't have to be 50%.
        As long as it's not forced - more options are welcome in my opinion.

        Personally I'm not a fan of anything other than NativeAA/DLAA, but it's a smaller issue for me than forced TAA or forced software RT.

  • Absolutely true. I never bother to turn these options on if a game offers them because in the best case it doesn't do a whole lot and in the worst case it makes the game look awful. I'd rather just play with real frames even if it means playing at a lower frame rate.

    • I actively turn them off, if they're on. I actually notice when they're on.

  • Trust me bro, a few hundred more billion dollars worth of R&D spread out between 37 companies that keep taking turns to buy each other out in hopes of making a trillion dollars on some slop somebody vomited out of the dark recesses of their souls over the next 59 years and it will get better I promise trust me bro

  • I think if you can't optimise your games enough or deliver on graphics card specs then faking it till you make it isn't a good band aid for that. feels like false advertising. is this really an unpopular opinion? i thought most people disliked this trend

  • To concretize:

    • Upscaling with ML may make the image acceptable if you don't look at anything the devs don't want you. You're supposed to look at yourself, your objective/enemy and maybe a partner. Everything else, especially foliage, hair etc., looks like shit. Flimmery, changing with distance and perspective. Lighting is weird. Thing is, if we aren't supposed to pay attention, we could just go back to HL-level graphics. Even HL 1. However, this would break the aspect of stuff looking good, of you being able to enjoy looking around and not only feeling immersed, but like you are seeing something that you will never actually see in real life - not because it looks unrealistically artificial, but too beautiful, too crazy and too dreamy to be real. However, when I get literally sick by actually looking around, because stuff changes abstractly, not like my brain expects it, that takes away the only actual visual advantage over GoldSrc.
    • Frame Gen does not make sense for literally any group of people:
    • You have 20FPS? Enjoy even worse input lag (because in order to generate frame B between A and C, the generation algorithm actually needs to know frame C, leading to another 1/20 second delay + time to actually generate it) and therefore a nice 80FPS gameplay for your eyes, while your brain throws up because the input feels like =< 10FPS.
      • You have 40FPS and want 80-160FPS? Well, that might be enjoyable to anyone watching, because they only see smoother gameplay, meanwhile you, again, have a worse experience than 40FPS. I can play story games at 40FPS, no problem, but halving the input lag literally more than doubled? Fuck no. I see so many YouTubers being like: "Next we're gonna play the latest and greatest test, Monkey Cock Dong Wu II. And of course it has 50% upscaling and MFG! Look at that smooth gameplay!" - THE ONLY THING THAT'S SMOOTH IS YOUR BRAIN YOU MONKEY, I CAN LITERALLY SEE THE DESYNC BETWEEN YOUR MOUSE MOVEMENTS AND INGAME. WHICH WAS NOT THERE IN OTHER BENCHMARKS, GAMES OR THE DESKTOP. I'M NOT FUCKING BLIND. And, of course, worse foliage than RDR2. Not because of the foliage itself, but the flimmering between.
      • You have 60FPS? And you know that you can actually see a difference between 60 and 144, 240Hz etc.? Well that's wrong, you only notice the difference in input lag. So it's going to be worse than smooth now. Because, again, the input lag get's even worse with FG, and much worse with MFG.
      • You have 80 FPS but are a high FPS gamer needing quick reaction times and stuff? Well yeah, it's only getting worse with FG. Obviously.

    And about 4k gaming ... play old games, with new GPUs. RDR2 works quite good on my 7800XT. More than 60FPS, which is very enough if you aren't a speedrunner or similar. No FSR, of course.

30 comments