Yeah, I am shocked, too. I am really going to nix DLSS in favour of AMD’s FSR even when taking part in Dying Gentle 2 on an Nvidia GPU. And I by no means thought I would say that about any sport when the pink group first launched its spatial upscaler. DLSS has traditionally been the better-looking resolution, however with Dying Gentle 2 it is the primary time I choose the look of AMD’s tech.
Throwing the Radeon RX 6500 XT and GeForce RTX 3050 at Dying Gentle 2 I am each impressed by how effectively you may run the sport on the 2 least expensive GPUs of this technology and stunned by my choice for the look of AMD’s FidelityFX Tremendous Decision (FSR) over Nvidia’s Deep Studying Tremendous Sampling (DLSS).
Dying Gentle 2, nevertheless you are feeling in regards to the runny jumpy zombie antics, is a reasonably ol’ sport. It is also slightly graphically intensive, to the purpose the place we have struggled to get something like playable body charges out of even a GeForce RTX 3080 at excessive 4K settings. However we have nonetheless found out Dying Light 2’s best settings to tweak on your setup.
However, with the launch of the primary two price range graphics playing cards of this technology—the RX 6500 XT and RTX 3050—I wished to see how Dying Gentle 2 fared on the lowest-spec silicon launched from AMD and Nvidia this yr. And, considerably surprisingly, the outcomes are literally fairly spectacular.
This can be a fashionable open world sport, with dense city environments, lengthy draw distances, an entire lotta foliage, and an entire lot else occurring, too. And but each AMD’s least expensive RDNA 2 card and Nvidia’s most reasonably priced Ampere GPU are capable of supply playable body charges on the highest customary settings.
And by ‘customary’ I imply with out ray tracing turned on, as a result of that fairly lighting stuff will typically brutalise a price range GPU. Nicely, typically.
However whether or not or not you care about reasonable lighting results, one of the best ways to get gaming body charges out of those two graphics playing cards is thru the magic of the respective corporations’ upscaling know-how. And Dying Gentle 2 provides each DLSS and FSR, in addition to its personal Linear upscaling, too.
Meaning we get to check DLSS and FSR cheek-by-jowl on each the brand new GPUs, in addition to see how the upscalers look on one card.
However first, how do they carry out?
If you wish to play Dying Gentle 2 with the bottom-end Radeon GPU then you definitely completely need to allow FSR, no less than if you wish to play on the ‘Excessive’ preset with something like a playable body charge. At 51 fps at 1080p the sport is eminently playable, even when it does not hit the commonly desired 60 fps minimal people have of their heads.
I went by way of the primary 5 hours of the sport at just below the 60 fps threshold and did not have a difficulty. If you get into the primary open world space, with all its zombie-punchy parkour-y goodness, nevertheless, you could really feel such as you want the next body charge.
Which is why I would additionally say that the RTX 3050 wants upscaling to be totally playable at Excessive 1080p settings. At its 52 fps base it was advantageous to start out with, however enabling both DLSS or FSR punches that determine to 67 fps (that is with DLSS, whereas it is really 66 fps with FSR, however who’s quibbling over a single body?). At that stage you are getting a great-looking sport, taking part in at a strong body charge, that will not go away you dangling off a ledge due to some random stutter.
Single digit body charges are a slideshow, not a sport
DLSS additionally lets you bask in slightly ray tracing, in case you’re prepared to drop beneath that 60 fps marker. Contemplating it is a nominally $250 GPU, the very fact it is capable of supply the 44 fps on the high Excessive High quality Raytracing setting in Dying Gentle 2 is damned spectacular.
Sadly FSR can’t be the silver ray tracing bullet for the RX 6500 XT.
AMD’s low-end RDNA 2 card merely does not have the grunt to have the ability to deal with each the calls for of rasterized rendering in addition to ray traced lighting. No matter AMD desires to say in regards to the structure’s ray tracing silicon, it solely ever actually looks like an afterthought on a Radeon GPU. Even with a Radeon RX 6900 XT we in all probability would not ever trouble enabling ray tracing, and that was a $999 card at launch, so you may think about how we really feel a couple of $199 trying it.
Really, you do not have to think about, simply have a look at the ray tracing efficiency figures—single digit body charges are a slideshow, not a sport.
So, that is the uncooked efficiency numbers, however why am I erring on the aspect of FSR when DLSS will enable the RTX 3050 to do ray tracing? Just because I am not going to be enabling ray tracing on the RTX 3050; it is nonetheless not likely a stage I am comfy taking part in at full time. Although if I have been, or I used to be working an RTX 3060, you’ll really see greater body charges utilizing FSR and the HQ raytracing settings than you do with DLSS.
If you’re working at customary settings, nevertheless, each FSR and DLSS ship the identical important body charges to the price range GeForce card. So then it simply comes right down to particular person choice by way of how they give the impression of being.
On that entrance, I am going to admit, it’s shut. And DLSS does some issues very effectively, however there’s an total muddiness in movement to the picture with Nvidia’s upscaler that jogs my memory of the first-gen iteration in one thing like the unique Metro Exodus. There are occasions then the place FSR on the Nvidia card simply appears higher, sharper, and extra detailed.
But it surely does not at all times. Dying Gentle 2 has plenty of tall buildings in it, and people tall buildings have sharp strains and straight edges, however neither upscaler appears notably comfy with that. Regardless of working with the best anti-aliasing settings, you get very noticeable jaggies with both DLSS or FSR, and they’re fairly clearly worse with AMD’s resolution.
So yeah, if jaggies are a deal breaker for you, then DLSS remains to be the upscaler to go for. When the sport’s in movement it does not trouble me, but additionally a few of you could merely choose how the Nvidia upscaler appears typically. Once they supply the identical efficiency it does turn out to be a subjective expertise. However, for me, I am really nonetheless sitting in camp AMD right here with FSR.
Although I nonetheless not going to be satisfied to make use of its GPU, that factor is weeeeeeeeeeak.
