NVIDIA has unveiled DLSS 3 upscaling technology that can build entire frames

Along with the Ada Lovelace architecture and GeForce RTX 4000 graphics cards, NVIDIA has announced DLSS 3 upscaling technology, which, according to the company, can improve gaming performance by four times (compared to conventional rendering at the target resolution).
NVIDIA promises a rapid implementation of the new technology: the first games with DLSS 3 support will appear in October.
DLSS 3 technology is a further development in NVIDIA's family of AI scaling algorithms.
DLSS 3 differs from previous versions of the technology in that it can now not only generate additional pixels in existing frames when increasing the resolution, but also build entirely new intermediate frames.
When upscaling, DLSS 3 handles four types of data: current and previous frames, the optical flow field, as well as game engine data such as motion and depth vectors.
The optical flow field is a completely new element in upscaling technology and is created by an optical flow hardware gas pedal added to the Ada Lovelace architecture.
Optical flow analysis involves sequentially comparing image frames and identifying relationships between pixel movements and objects (particles, reflections, shadows, etc.).
Comparing this data with motion data taken from the game engine allows you to accurately recreate the changes in geometry occurring in the scene.
The AI algorithm in DLSS 3 analyzes the information from all sources and chooses which data is best used for scaling and for building intermediate frames in each case.DLSS 3 actively uses the hardware features of the Ada Lovelace architecture - not only the optical stream gas pedal, but also the new fourth-generation tensor cores.
Thus, DLSS 3 technology is dependent on the new architecture and will only be available on GeForce RTX 4000 series graphics cards.NVIDIA has shown how DLSS 3 works, using the pre-release version of Cyberpunk 2077.
When you activate DLSS 3, the FPS growth reached four times, while the frame delay was cut in half without any apparent decrease in image quality.A great advantage of DLSS 3 is that the technology allows you to increase the frame rate even when the bottleneck in the system is the CPU.
Building intermediate frames allows you to increase FPS in CPU-dependent games with a large open world.
For example, during the demonstration in Microsoft Flight Simulator game, the frame rate with DLSS 3 enabling doubled.Also NVIDIA shared the summary results of DLSS 3 performance tests in a number of other games.
DLSS 3 has received support from major game and engine developers, and will be added to more than 35 titles in the first phase, including A Plague Tale: Requiem, Cyberpunk 2077, Microsoft Flight Simulator and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.

NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution were compared in games - it's not so clear yet

One of the games that added support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) smart scaling technology was the shooter Necromunda: Hired Gun. Although the game was released very recently, it not only supports FSR, but also NVIDIA DLSS technology, which performs the same function. YouTube channel Back4BuckPC Gamer has tested how both technologies handle scaling to 4K resolution.

It is important to note that NVIDIA DLSS scaled the picture from the original 1440p resolution at the "Quality" setting. AMD FSR technology at "Maximum Quality" settings used the native resolution of 1662p. The image was scaled to 4K resolution at maximum quality settings in the game itself. The higher the quality, the fewer pixels that form the image need to be reconstructed by the smart scaling algorithms. According to Bang4BuckPC, FSR technology compared to DLSS does an excellent job of scaling the picture to almost identical DLSS quality while providing better dynamic performance than the competition.

A completely different picture emerges when comparing the technology in Marvel's Avengers, which also supports both DLSS and FSR. Screenshots of the game in 1080p and 1440p provided by @KanaSaber show that FSR has a problem reconstructing the bridge's battens, while DLSS adds even more clarity than the native 1080p resolution.

Notably, @KanaSaber used the FSR Quality setting for the comparison, not Ultra Quality as in the earlier comparison. The same situation is not in favor of FSR when scaling the picture to 4K resolution using DLSS and FSR in "Quality" mode. FSR scales the picture to 1440p resolution, and compared to native 4K resolution does the job quite well. In this case, however, DLSS does a better job of rendering the heroine's hair - even better than the native resolution.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution AI smoothing will appear on all RDNA GPUs at once, including Xbox and PlayStation

Gradually more and more details about its AI-based intelligent smoothing technology FidelityFX are being revealed. Some of them were revealed by AMD itself during yesterday's Radeon RX 6700 XT announcement, and some were shared by third-party sources.

AMD didn't go into detail about FidelityFX yesterday, but did talk about its improved Radeon Boost technology, which increases frame rate by dynamically reducing resolution. Combined with the upcoming FidelityFX Super Resolution feature, this is expected to achieve high performance with minimal loss of original image quality.

AMD product series with RDNA 2 architecture

NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) feature, similar to FidelityFX, is already giving a clear advantage to Ampere and Turing GPUs. But the road to success has not been easy. First-generation DLSS required custom optimizations for gamers and caused noticeable loss of detail and blurred images. It wasn't until the release of DLSS 2.0 that it became an important competitive advantage for NVIDIA. The importance of AI-powered supersampling is growing as the list of games that support resource-intensive realistic lighting expands. Some games could not achieve acceptable frame rates with ray tracing at all without DLSS.

Super Resolution as part of AMD's FidelityFX suite of visual enhancement technologies

While AMD hasn't confirmed when its FidelityFX Super Resolution will be available, the host of YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips has voiced more information about it. Linus Sebastian claims AMD will launch the technology for all RDNA architecture platforms at once. He states that the company aims to make the technology cross-platform. That is, it will run simultaneously on Radeon RX graphics cards and game consoles Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. It's unclear where this information came from - perhaps the information was voiced confidentially at a pre-event briefing.

"Apparently, instead of rushing to release [FidelityFX Super Resolution] on just one new high-end card, they want it to be cross-platform in every sense of the word. So, in fact, they want the technology to work on all of their GPUs, including those inside consoles, before they pull the trigger. It would be nice if it were ready by the time the graphics cards are released, but as we've seen with NVIDIA's DLSS 1.0 versus DLSS 2.0, that scenario might even be for the best," Linus Sebastian reported. AMD's AI anti-aliasing implementation is supposedly based on the DirectML API, part of the Windows Machine Learning library. It can be used not only on PCs, but can also be easily ported to Xbox. However, it's unclear how FidelityFX Super Resolution will be implemented on the PlayStation 5. Fortunately for AMD, both consoles use RDNA-based GPUs, and for gamers, this could mean that the technology will indeed be polished to run on all devices. Although FidelityFX Super Resolution using API DirectML should work on any gas pedal, including NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards, the maximum impact will be seen in Radeon graphics cards. And the latest Radeon RX 6000 can provide the best results due to the high-speed 128 MB Infinity Cache buffer. Algorithms based on machine learning usually require high memory bandwidth, and that is what this cache is designed for.

AMD will introduce Radeon Boost+ and its answer to DLSS in the spring driver update Adrenaline

We've already drawn readers' attention to the fact that AMD never released the traditional major update to its graphics drivers last year, so all the builds released this year still belong to the Adrenalin 2020 Edition series. There seems to be a good reason for that.

AMD has been working on the software side of its ecosystem since the release of its RDNA family of graphics cards, with the Radeon Software Adrenaline 2020 Edition being one of the biggest updates in recent years. The company introduced 20 redesigned or new features including Radeon Boost, Radeon Chill, Enhanced Sync, Anti-Lag and Integer Scaling.

AMD is apparently working on the next major update to Radeon Software and is reportedly set to launch in the spring. One of the major innovations will be an alternative to DLSS known as FidelityFX Super Resolution. The technology will be open source and will rely on the DirectML API to scale the image with minimal loss of quality. Unlike NVIDIA's implementation, it is a software method that only requires compatibility with Microsoft DirectML.

While FidelityFX Super Resolution should work on any accelerator, including NVIDIA RTX graphics cards, maximum performance will be seen on the Radeon RX 6000 series due to the 128MB high-speed L3 Infinity Cache buffer. Machine learning based algorithms typically require high bandwidth, and that is what this cache is designed for. The current implementation of Radeon Boost to improve performance essentially relies on reducing game resolution in heavy scenes. When it comes to active motion and most details are blurry anyway, this works; but in static or slow-moving scenes, the drop in resolution is clearly visible.

An enhanced version of Radeon Boost+ will improve image quality in static scenes by using a new mechanism that engages Variable Rate Shading technology at the driver level for parts of the frame that are stationary and don't need to be recomputed. To recap, VRS technology, which was presented at GDC 2019 and became a part of DirectX 12 API, is similar to NVIDIA Adaptive Shading and is designed to reduce the load when rendering peripheral objects and zones (for example, homogeneous sea or fog) by reducing the accuracy of the calculations. Based on the slide above, it appears that Radeon Boost+ will require support for gaming. Whether FidelityFX Super Resolution will be able to work with any games is not specified, but based on NVIDIA's DLSS experience, this question can be tentatively answered in the negative.

AMD once again promised an open alternative to DLSS that will run on Intel and NVIDIA PCs, consoles, GPUs

AMD has already talked about working on an open cross-platform alternative to NVIDIA's DLSS intelligent scaling technology, which will work on PCs and consoles. AMD corporate vice president Scott Herkelman noted that the company is working on this issue in partnership with Intel and NVIDIA: the new technology will work on PCs and consoles, as opposed to closed DLSS.

He also said that the performance of the ray tracing technology of current Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards will improve over time. And AMD's leading gaming architect, Frank Azor, added that the company will consider enabling intelligent memory access for non-Series 500-series chipset as well. AMD's new Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT proved to be quite competitive with their NVIDIA counterparts in most games using traditional screening techniques. And while Navi 21 ray tracing is also good for the first time, AMD has nothing yet to answer to NVIDIA DLSS, which is very useful for ultra heavy modes, especially when using ray tracing actively. DLSS allows the graphics card to visualize the picture at a relatively low resolution, and then « restore » it uses machine learning algorithms.

Features DirectX 12 Ultimate and AMD FidelityFX

Speaking to Dave Altavilla and Marco Chiappetta of HotHardware, Frank Azor said that RDNA 2 is primarily focused on games. For non-game workloads, AMD has a separate CDNA architecture used in gas pedals like Instinct MI100. According to Azor, although RDNA2 cards are sometimes good at general-purpose computing, their priority is precisely gaming.

With regard to intelligent zoom (around 30:01 in the video), Scott Herkelman said AMD's goal is the opposite of NVIDIA's when it comes to implementation. Without going into particular detail, he only said that AMD's PC and console game development partners are begging the company not to create an API for any particular platform, manufacturer or game in order to minimize the complexity of cross-platform project development. AMD is committed to working with Intel and NVIDIA to create an open, intelligent scaling method that works in both PC and console games without additional effort. However, it will take time to develop it, so AMD does not go into detail at this time, noting only that it invests a lot of resources in it, and that in the near future the technology will definitely appear on the latest Radeon cards and possibly even other platforms. In the meantime, NVIDIA is still ahead of in this regard; for example, Cyberpunk 2077 will not initially have « rays» AMD cards; perhaps due to the lack of the notorious alternative to DLSS. Herckelmann also believes that the ray tracing performance of RX 6000 laquo cards; is quite good» and while the vast majority of games currently available still do not use this feature, he has confirmed that the performance of ray tracing will improve over time; as more new generation cross-platform games are released. By the way, AMD introduced Smart Access Memory (SAM) technology during the announcement of Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards. If usually PC processors can only access part of the graphics memory (VRAM) at the same time, then with this technology it is possible to expand the data channel, which will allow the processor to use the entire video memory array at once and eliminate potential bottlenecks. This will lead to increased performance. For now the technology works only on RDNA 2 graphics cards in conjunction with Ryzen 5000 processors and X570 chipsets. NVIDIA has promised to implement an analog that runs on Ampere graphics cards with AMD and Intel processors, even when using PCIe 3.0 bus. AMD then confirmed that the technology is open, and support is only temporarily limited to the flagship platforms. Frank Azor in a conversation with HotHardware confirmed that so far the technology is certified to work only with motherboards based on 500-series chipsets and Ryzen 5000 processors. In the future, SAM can work with other chipsets.

AMD promised details of the rays and the DLSS analog before the launch of Radeon RX 6000.

  Co-founder of Alienware and AMD's chief game architect Frank Azor, confirmed on Twitter that AMD will provide more information on ray tracing hardware support and the DLSS analog; AI-based scaling technology before the Radeon RX 6000 is released to the market.

When asked when we will hear more details about ray tracing and scaling, Mr. Azor said: «We will cover these points from now until the date the graphics cards are available on the market. Please be patient. Thank you for your support and interestraquo ;. Just to remind: the launch of new AMD graphics cards is scheduled for the 18th day, so we need to hear new information in the next 2 weeks.

Those answers will come between now and our availability dates. Please stay tuned. Thank you for your support and interest.

The AMD RDNA 2 architecture is the core of next-generation gaming consoles; PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S and X (although Microsoft assures that only its set-top boxes can offer all the benefits of RDNA 2), which will be released this month. Both systems have support for hardware accelerated ray tracing, which is also a distinctive feature of the recently introduced Radeon RX 6000 desktop graphics cards. However, at the time of the announcement AMD was in no hurry to share details about the implementation of the long-awaited technologies: ray tracing and scaling through machine learning technologies, which are key features of the GeForce RTX series. NVIDIA RTX and DLSS require support from & ;nbsp developers; since the launch of Turing two years ago, the number of compatible games has increased markedly, but there are still too few.

AMD has already promised that its intelligent zoom implementation will be open and cross-platform & ; that is, it will be compatible with consoles and should therefore appear in a wider range of games. Unfortunately, no details have been provided yet, but Scott Herkelman, senior vice president of AMD Radeon, said the company is committed to helping developers integrate such technologies. We still need to know whether AMD will make its DLSS counterpart part of the FidelityFX effects suite or rely on standards such as DirectX Raytracing and DirectML Super Resolution. AMD has already told us something about the implementation of ray tracing in DiRT 5 and Godfall. Performance measurements of AMD Radeon RX 6800 in Tomb Raider with « rays»... And judging by some estimates, the performance in the area of ray tracing in RDNA 2 may be lower than in Ampere.