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Digital Foundry - Upscaling Face-Off: PS5 Pro PSSR vs PC DLSS/FSR 3.1 in Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart

Lokaum D+

Member
"3000x zoomed in image to spot any difference"

ppl playing games nowadays

Season 3 Nbc GIF by Manifest
 
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All look impressive to me. Wonder what xbox can bring to the table.
At this point next Xbox will likely license PSSR...
You "forgot" about full res reflections on PC:

hqxuZaP.jpeg
SdlGz4C.jpeg


And PSSR has motion trails on RT:

t75y7vt.jpeg
Sure at full res RT on PC is slighty better. But using quality on the moment I shared the reflections are similar but aliasing is terrible with DLSS. Both have pluses and minuses, here some lag, but elsewhere plenty of aliasing on PC and you better not use CBR reflections with DLSS... Overall ratchet and clank running on PS5 Pro looks incredibly similar as running on high end PC with the same resolution and full res RT. Now we understand the recent statements from John and the look of Alex.
 

Bojji

Member
At this point next Xbox will likely license PSSR...

Sure at full res RT on PC is slighty better. But using quality on the moment I shared the reflections are similar but aliasing is terrible with DLSS. Both have pluses and minuses, here some lag, but elsewhere plenty of aliasing on PC and you better not use CBR reflections with DLSS... Overall ratchet and clank running on PS5 Pro looks incredibly similar as running on high end PC with the same resolution and full res RT. Now we understand the recent statements from John and the look of Alex.

Except you can use much higher settings on PC:

3__Pro.jpg
KpnjXxe.jpeg


Alex had to limit PC version to PS5 performance mode for fair comparison.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Overall ratchet and clank running on PS5 Pro looks incredibly similar as running on high end PC with the same resolution and full res RT. Now we understand the recent statements from John and the look of Alex.
Even on a Pro, it doesn't look as good as it could. It's just Performance Mode using PSSR when it could probably do this using Fidelity Mode. The settings on PC scale higher than the Fidelity Mode. It's a meh showcase for the Pro because it just swaps out IGTI for PSSR.
 
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Bojji

Member
Even on a Pro, it doesn't look as good as it could. It's just Performance Mode using PSSR when it could probably do this using Fidelity Mode. The settings on PC scale higher than the Fidelity Mode. It's a meh showcase for the Pro because it just swaps out IGTI for PSSR.

It's a good showcase for PSSR (bright, colorful game - hard for reconstruction techniques) but otherwise quite low effort.
 
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Fess

Member
You try to match visual settings as he's done here, you bring a similar GPU and CPU and you compare framerate.
But why? Who would be interested in such a comparison?

As said in a different thread, nobody who is seriously considering moving from console to PC is going to limit themselves to building a PC with parts comparable to any console and run at console settings.

It’s a stupid idea. People are going to build as powerful PC as they can afford and crank up the settings as far as they can.

It would be more interesting to see a 4090 max settings versus PS5 Pro video, that would show how much better Sony exclusives could be if you’re enthusiast enough to play on best of the best hardware.

As someone who has a Pro preordered I would want to know if I should keep building a library of Playstation games on Steam or if I should pause that and stick to Pro for now.

This video does nothing for me. I don’t even know who it’s made for. Nobody is ever going to choose between the scenarios shown in the video: 1. PC with console-like settings and manually set dynamic resolutions like on console versus 2. PS5 Pro.
 
Pretty much sure PSSR is utilizing AMD hardware.
Yeah and Sony had to basically hand AMD the designs they wanted and told AMD to do it and they are the ones who developed PSSR

AMD didn't do shit, they are being given this for free and it's only because Sony had no choice but to do it themselves because AMD were so incompetent
 

Bojji

Member
PSSRvs-DLSS-1.gif






PSSRvs-DLSS-2.gif





PSSRvs-DLSS-3.gif





PSSRvs-DLSS-4.gif





PSSRvs-DLSS-5.gif





PSSRvs-DLSS-B.gif





PSSRvs-DLSS-A.gif





PSSRvs-DLSS-8.gif





PSSRvs-DLSS-7.gif



Some very obvious differences which somehow DF had failed to recognize.. as usual lol

Are you showing less details of PSSR or more aliasing of DLSS? Both can connected, you can't set sharpening as low as what PSSR have on PC.

If you want to see what technique is more stable look at 10:33 in the vide (timestamped):

 
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Are you showing less details of PSSR or more aliasing of DLSS? Both can connected, you can't set sharpening as low as what PSSR have on PC.

If you want to see what technique is more stable look at 10:33 in the vide (timestamped):





Except that the sharpening does NOT create aliasing :)

Just try sharpening PSSR images and see if you get the same aliasing effect,

or try blurring DLSS image and see if the aliasing effects go away ;)
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
lJZQAo6.jpeg
yL4SGF2.jpeg

Can you see the colour tone differences(orange and blue water under the pipe are the obvious ones) in these closeups from your own posted screengrab? and that's even with an extra half a million more pixels for DLSS3.7 to work with than the last shot analysed at 1584p
Yeah, I can see the different tones. Nowhere near as big as the sky of the earlier shot, but it’s there. I really need to try this out myself. That can be an important difference. It seems subtle most of the time, but it varies.
 
But why? Who would be interested in such a comparison?

As said in a different thread, nobody who is seriously considering moving from console to PC is going to limit themselves to building a PC with parts comparable to any console and run at console settings.

It’s a stupid idea. People are going to build as powerful PC as they can afford and crank up the settings as far as they can.

It seems like actual sales top out around the 4070ish range though. Which is not too far off from the Pro?

The CPU is a bigger deal.
 

Loxus

Member
Yeah and Sony had to basically hand AMD the designs they wanted and told AMD to do it and they are the ones who developed PSSR

AMD didn't do shit, they are being given this for free and it's only because Sony had no choice but to do it themselves because AMD were so incompetent
It's called collaboration.
Remember that Sony is also a hardware company.

Working together to create products is common among these companies.


With your thinking, maybe Sony should just create their own CPU and GPU on their own then.
 
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Bojji

Member
Except that the sharpening does NOT create aliasing :)

Just try sharpening PSSR images and see if you get the same aliasing effect,

or try blurring DLSS image and see if the aliasing effects go away ;)

You are talking about sharpening/softening of images. I'm talking about sharpening running real time with DLSS/PSSR.

On PC sharpening cannot be disabled completely, this is something new that Insomniac added with PSSR build (it was there in first showing of the game) - it was in all reconstruction techniques before.

What do you say about image stability and aliasing in 10:33 part of the video?
 

ap_puff

Banned
To be honest I didn't expect PSSR to be almost trading blows with DLSS 3.x on its first outing. That's really impressive and I feel like justifies the pro 100%. PC still has the advantage in access to better base settings in most games, but the gap has closed significantly. Kudos, the hardware guys at Sony really cooked with this one.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
it's more like the norm vs sharpened & aliased :)
I don't like being that guy nitpicking at zoomed screenshots. I prefer the look of PSSR in the images you posted, mind you. However, there are some details that straight up disappear. The window panes become much harder to separate as well.

78ETiVu.png


Besides, still images conceal the biggest flaw of all upscalers: image stability. If you look at them side-by-side in movement instead of stopping to zoom in on things in the background, that's where the obvious differences manifest themselves. What you're doing is no different than all the people who tried to claim FSR was equal to DLSS by posting screenshots...until we saw them in motion and it wasn't close. PSSR is much better than FSR, but its temporal stability has work to do and that work doesn't show in still images.

As things stand, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find differences at normal viewing distances between PSSR and DLSS, which is all we need. However, both still have issues with temporal stability that can be obvious if you stop for a second.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
Blurred vs aliased. Pick one.
Not really, because the result of those things are in a minification so aliasing is noise, whereas smoothing isn't blurry in minification, it is only blurry in magnification. Here's the most offensive DLSS aliasing giff from above at 50% of the size, and PSSR doesn't look blurry on those offending edges where DLSS is aliasing.

PjtgAEV.gif
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Not really, because the result of those things are in a minification so aliasing is noise, whereas smoothing isn't blurry in minification, it is only blurry in magnification. Here's the most offensive DLSS aliasing giff from above at 50% of the size, and PSSR doesn't look blurry on those offending edges where DLSS is aliasing.

PjtgAEV.gif
But then look at the grate while the video is playing and you can see PSSR being much more unstable than DLSS and it's pretty clear.
 

Zathalus

Member
So DLSS in Ratchet appears to have better temporal stability as well as better in image detail, at the cost of having worse stair stepping aliasing compared to PSSR.

Probably the biggest negative of PSSR at the moment is that temporal stability. At least in this specific game.
 
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Bojji

Member
I don't like being that guy nitpicking at zoomed screenshots. I prefer the look of PSSR in the images you posted, mind you. However, there are some details that straight up disappear. The window panes become much harder to separate as well.



Besides, still images conceal the biggest flaw of all upscalers: image stability. If you look at them side-by-side in movement instead of stopping to zoom in on things in the background, that's where the obvious differences manifest themselves. What you're doing is no different than all the people who tried to claim FSR was equal to DLSS by posting screenshots...until we saw them in motion and it wasn't close. PSSR is much better than FSR, but its temporal stability has work to do and that work doesn't show in still images.

As things stand, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find differences at normal viewing distances between PSSR and DLSS, which is all we need. However, both still have issues with temporal stability that can be obvious if you stop for a second.

Not really, because the result of those things are in a minification so aliasing is noise, whereas smoothing isn't blurry in minification, it is only blurry in magnification. Here's the most offensive DLSS aliasing giff from above at 50% of the size, and PSSR doesn't look blurry on those offending edges where DLSS is aliasing.

But then look at the grate while the video is playing and you can see PSSR being much more unstable than DLSS and it's pretty clear.

Still images are fucking us up. Look at this, more aliased with DLSS?

01dzMHK.jpeg


On the video (11:48) it's "boiling" on PSSR side, it's very unstable while DLSS is stable:

 

PaintTinJr

Member
But then look at the grate while the video is playing and you can see PSSR being much more unstable than DLSS and it's pretty clear.
How? That grate is at an acute angle being anisotropically filtered, so should look like that. where as aliasing even on a still image means there is a base temporal instability in the rendering even if there is no discontinuity popping and fizzing between frames there will be a stair step crawl between frames for every offending aliased edge.

How such aliased imagery can ever be held up as more temporally stable than another with some fizzing on tiny elements is a bit of a can't see wood for the trees faux pas by DF if this imagery is reliable.
 
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FireFly

Member
Except that the sharpening does NOT create aliasing :)

Just try sharpening PSSR images and see if you get the same aliasing effect,

or try blurring DLSS image and see if the aliasing effects go away ;)
If the aliasing is a consequence of discarding more samples from previous frames, then it may result in more detail, if the samples were "correctly" discarded.
 
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PaintTinJr

Member
Still images are fucking us up. Look at this, more aliased with DLSS?

01dzMHK.jpeg


On the video (11:48) it's "boiling" on PSSR side, it's very unstable while DLSS is stable:


I can see far more crawl in the video with DLSS, because it is full length in DLSS.
 

Zathalus

Member
Still images are fucking us up. Look at this, more aliased with DLSS?

01dzMHK.jpeg


On the video (11:48) it's "boiling" on PSSR side, it's very unstable while DLSS is stable:


Yeah that’s pretty definitive. A still image makes PSSR look better in that particular shot, but the video in motion clearly has DLSS being the winner.

Comparisons should really be done by video in these cases.
 
Blurred vs aliased. Pick one.

I think this is down to sharpening.

But aliased vs more temporal stability looks to be the tradeoff to me.

At TV distances going to be hard to tell. Either way it’s amazing that PSSR is right there with DLSS at its first attempt.

Hopefully they can improve temporal stability over time, although it’s already very good in that aspect
 

PaintTinJr

Member
Yeah that’s pretty definitive. A still image makes PSSR look better in that particular shot, but the video in motion clearly has DLSS being the winner.

Comparisons should really be done by video in these cases.
How can you not see the aliasing in the DLSS is like a full length saw tooth - as the stills capture? whereas by comparison the PSSR elements move half the length then smoothly disappear.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
How? That grate is at an acute angle being anisotropically filtered, so should look like that. where as aliasing even on a still image means there is a base temporal instability in the rendering even if there is no discontinuity popping and fizzing between frames there will be a stair step crawl between frames for every offending aliased edge.
The grate should fizzle? Are you serious? It fizzles a whole lot with PSSR but barely with DLSS. Hell, you can also look at the flower pots and they also fizzle with PSSR.

Anyway, not particularly interested in this discussion. What I care about is what they look like at a viewing distance in motion, not in zoomed-in stills.
 
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Zathalus

Member
How can you not see the aliasing in the DLSS is like a full length saw tooth - as the stills capture? whereas by comparison the PSSR elements move half the length then smoothly disappear.
The steps have more defined aliasing on the edges but the grates behind them have a crawling artifact that is not present on DLSS.

Hence DLSS having worse aliasing but better temporal stability. It’s extremely obvious for both.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
Seems like an important omission for an image quality discussion.
It is because without frame-rate, for example a 120fps DLSS render then motion sampled at 60fps would hide more of any unsightly aliasing in motion because the ghosting of the missing frames would hide half the aliasing in motion but wouldn't hide it in stills

Edit:
You can see in the giff there is an animated light that goes up and down showing the PC version frame count per footage is atleast double the Pro frame-rate hiding temporal instability and certainly not a fair comparison for checking such an issue,
 
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Fess

Member
It seems like actual sales top out around the 4070ish range though. Which is not too far off from the Pro?

The CPU is a bigger deal.
Who cares? Enthusiast gamers are a tiny percentage of all gamers but those are the only ones who would ever be interested in tiny details like this. And no enthusiast is going to use console settings on PC and manually set dynamic res with some hack app to match what can be found on console. It’s an absurd comparison. So who exactly is this video made for?

Mainstream PC gamers are on lowend RTX 30-serie cards and 1080p screens or laptops. And console mainstream gamers are on base PS5 or PS4 or Switch. They wouldn’t know what to look for here.

I’m not sure even enthusiasts here would spot these dfferences from a normal viewing distance to a couch in a living room.

My thought is this… When 500% zoom and A-B switching gifs and painted circles highlighting where to look is needed… then it’s probably time to exit the thread and go play some games instead.
 
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