This may be a hot take downvoted to oblivion, but I think DLSS and all similar AI-dependent frame generation type stuff is a band-aid on a problem that won’t (or shouldn’t) exist for long, in the grand scheme of things.
If you have performance improvements, you ultimately don’t need such things once that performance reaches an acceptable level.
So two things may be happening:
Performance improvements are not possible anymore. That seems false, because we still see them. Costs are high, but they’re there.
Things like DLSS allow corps to give you less performance while still maintaining an illusion of a good experience. It ultimately reduces hardware costs, which the corpos ultimately just pocket.
I lean strongly towards 2 at the moment. Notice how nvidia also continues to push DLSS as an exclusive feature – notably different from FSR in that regard, while FSR is admitted to be a tech allowing for better framerate on lower-end hardware.
For nvidia, it’s a selling point, and it allows them to sell you less hardware with fewer actual improvements. It is the same snake that just wants you to (eventually) stream games instead of processing them locally, because it enhances corporate control.
DLSS isn’t just frame generation, the SS in name is for Super Sampling. It’s the best solution we have to graphical issues like subpixel shimmering and moire effects that are especially prevalent in modern titles due to contemporary graphical effects and expectations, and it might be quite a while before we invent something better.
And the other side of that coin is: personally I’ll happily accept shimmering and moire effects if it means I don’t lock myself into yet one more corporate ecosystem.
FSR also combats those things, but can run on any GPU.
This may be a hot take downvoted to oblivion, but I think DLSS and all similar AI-dependent frame generation type stuff is a band-aid on a problem that won’t (or shouldn’t) exist for long, in the grand scheme of things.
If you have performance improvements, you ultimately don’t need such things once that performance reaches an acceptable level.
So two things may be happening:
Performance improvements are not possible anymore. That seems false, because we still see them. Costs are high, but they’re there.
Things like DLSS allow corps to give you less performance while still maintaining an illusion of a good experience. It ultimately reduces hardware costs, which the corpos ultimately just pocket.
I lean strongly towards 2 at the moment. Notice how nvidia also continues to push DLSS as an exclusive feature – notably different from FSR in that regard, while FSR is admitted to be a tech allowing for better framerate on lower-end hardware.
For nvidia, it’s a selling point, and it allows them to sell you less hardware with fewer actual improvements. It is the same snake that just wants you to (eventually) stream games instead of processing them locally, because it enhances corporate control.
It really is an excuse for games to have crappy performance all too often.
DLSS isn’t just frame generation, the SS in name is for Super Sampling. It’s the best solution we have to graphical issues like subpixel shimmering and moire effects that are especially prevalent in modern titles due to contemporary graphical effects and expectations, and it might be quite a while before we invent something better.
And the other side of that coin is: personally I’ll happily accept shimmering and moire effects if it means I don’t lock myself into yet one more corporate ecosystem.
FSR also combats those things, but can run on any GPU.
With the latest version, it cannot.