Testing Nvidia DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction Using Cyberpunk 2.0

[Scorpus]

The next iteration of Nvidia's DLSS technology has landed and today we're checking out what DLSS 3.5 is and taking a closer look at ray reconstruction, which has been integrated into Cyberpunk 2.0.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2740-dlss-35-ray-reconstruction/

 

[SalmanIsHere]

As always awesome in-depth writing tim.
Nvidia innovates too much.
No wonder amd is gradually leaving gpu market.

 

[Beerfloat]

As always awesome in-depth writing tim.
Nvidia innovates too much.
No wonder amd is gradually leaving gpu market.

Oh I really don't think AMD is going anywhere anytime soon. It may have been shrinking for many years now but there is still something of a market out there for GPUs that sacrifice features, image quality, driver consistency and energy efficiency for a lower price. There are plenty of unsophisticated customers that just want to play twitch shooters or some other kind of low effort esport thing and these people tend to accept almost anything.

 

[nnguy2]

Pretty high praise for a feature that works half the time from Tim's account.

 

[redgarl]

The reality... 23 FPS...

Not to mention the game crash like crazy while using Path Tracing.

WCCF
Cons

The game crashed a lot (16 times, to be exact),

 

[godrilla]

I'm getting 50 to 60 fps with out frame gen at 4k max settings dlss set to quality. I don't like the added latency. I rather have better latency than latency penalty with frame generation.
Specs 7800X3D
4090 suprim liquid
ram cl30 ddr5 @ 6ghz 32 gigs.
Don't believe the hype! it ain't worth it imo!

 

[godrilla]

As always awesome in-depth writing tim.
Nvidia innovates too much.
No wonder amd is gradually leaving gpu market.

I don't think they are leaving the gpu market though, they are just changing their model to a software premium model ( in the form of dlss) vs a hardware improvement model ( we are leaning away from this). Hence the recent Nvidia talking points here.

Nvidia says resolution upscaling like DLSS (and not native resolution) is the future

In a lengthy discussion over DLSS and ray tracing technology, Nvidia predicted that the industry will eventually move beyond running games at native resolution. The company sees...

www.techspot.com

They still need hardware to charge the premium. Expect more of the software push with Blackwell like we never seen before.

 

[neeyik]

With regards to the performance gain or loss with the use of DLSS RR vs shader-based denoisers, it comes down to the level of resources the GPU has on offer.

Ray Reconstruction hits the tensor cores pretty hard -- peak usage isn't necessarily very high, but it does load up the cores for a lot longer than just using DLSS Super Resolution. For example, here's a GPU trace analysis for one frame of CP2077 at 4K using Path Tracing without DLSS, on an RTX 4070 Ti:



Now here's the same frame again but with DLSS SR in Performance Mode:



Tensor core usage is the very bottom row and you can see that it's just a small blip of workload, all over in just 0.71 milliseconds. And now once more, but this time with Ray Reconstruction enabled:




The last image is a direct time comparison of the two tensor workloads and the sustained demand on the tensor cores is by no means trivial. During this time, the rest of the GPU is relatively idle -- there's a very light shader load (which decreases and then increases across the RR process), but the SM register file is hit pretty hard. There's also a flurry of VRAM activity at the start, but this soon tails off.

In the case of this 4070 Ti, the render time using RR was 1 ms quicker than using the shader-based denoisers, and the same is true for the 3070, 3060, 2060, etc in Tim's testing -- these GPUs all have slightly more tensors resources to hand than shader ones to handle the routine. On the other hand, the 4090 appears to be the opposite: it's marginally faster doing the shader denoisers because it has a ridiculous number of SMs to throw at the workload.

One game isn't sufficient evidence to properly weigh up the performance benefits of Ray Reconstruction over custom denoisers, but at least the tensor cores are actually used for something more significant than a fraction of a millisecond now!

 

[takaozo]

This game move and feel like a console/mobile one. The FPS part feel a bit better than first Doom and driving controls like MotoGP (Comodore/Spectrum era). Even engines like HalfLife/CS 1.6 look and feel they way they should. Now with more shining puddles and more reflections even worse gameplay.

Even the 4090 can't keep up @1080p.

Makes me remeber the Hilbert's Guru3d words about >100 FPS:

"Over 100 FPS? You either have a MONSTER graphics card or a very old game."

 

[godrilla]

This game move and feel like a console/mobile one. The FPS part feel a bit better than first Doom and driving controls like MotoGP (Comodore/Spectrum era). Even engines like HalfLife/CS 1.6 look and feel they way they should. Now with more shining puddles and more reflections even worse gameplay.

Even the 4090 can't keep up @1080p.

Makes me remeber the Hilbert's Guru3d words about >100 FPS:

"Over 100 FPS? You either have a MONSTER graphics card or a very old game."

I was playing a side quest yesterday with cp2077 2.0 patch ( 48 gigs ) and the NPC's neck was clipping it was so cringey. This dlss crutch can be so creepy sometimes. Gets some tweaking to get it right. I guess us beta testers will eventually iron out rt gaming for the future. .

 

[adisoftcafe]

What we've learned? Is useless if you don't have an RTX 4090. Guess what? Most of us don't have an 4090.

 

[VcoreLeone]

The reality... 23 FPS...

Not to mention the game crash like crazy while using Path Tracing.

WCCF
Cons

The game crashed a lot (16 times, to be exact),

lol, played for 2 days, zero crashes. maybe they haven't found out the new grd driver specifically for this update is out.

anyway, tried this on rtx3080, fps went up by at least 10% while image quality got better too (1440p dlssb+rr looks better than dlssq did before, though this situation is probably only thanks to the new denoiser, not the new sr dll version.
I still had to swap the new 3.1.3 dll for old 2.5.1, which has no smear).
pretty sweet.
fps from 45-55 in the city to 60-90 out of city with pt enabled. The into chase scene held 50fps all throughout, despite being very intensive.
with reflex+boost it plays great on a controller.
I even started a new playthrough with so many gameplay changes

 

[godrilla]

lol, played for 2 days, zero crashes. maybe they haven't found out the new grd driver specifically for this update is out.

anyway, tried this on rtx3080, fps went up by at least 10% while image quality got better too (1440p dlssb+rr looks better than dlssq did before, though this situation is probably only thanks to the new denoiser, not the new sr dll version.
I still had to swap the new 3.1.3 dll for old 2.5.1, which has no smear).
pretty sweet.
fps from 45-55 in the city to 60-90 out of city with pt enabled. The into chase scene held 50fps all throughout, despite being very intensive.
with reflex+boost it plays great on a controller.
I even started a new playthrough with so many gameplay changes

Yeah the game is stable in terms of no crashes for me. I did have an issue though with summoning previous vehicles. I was dashing a lot lol becauseI I had no vehicles and didn't want to trigger the police yet. Hopefully restarting the game will fix my bug. Although the strange part when doing a clean install on current driver, the installation failed to get to the completion screen after several attempts. . Update I was updating my driver and downloading patch at the same time.

 

[loki1944]

Very unrealistic; looks like everything is smeared with vaseline.

 

[yRaz]

Very unrealistic; looks like everything is smeared with vaseline.

I think looks like you're playing an animated movie. I was never interested in realism but I also don't have a problem with giving them style points. People don't watch Pixar movies because of how realistic they are. If everyone really is going to double down on ray tracing I think bringing style to videogames is more important than realism. After all, they are just games.

 

[Atmajaya2020]

As always awesome in-depth writing tim.
Nvidia innovates too much.
No wonder amd is gradually leaving gpu market.

they are software company afterall..

 

[SalmanIsHere]

they are software company afterall..

The software is working based on physical hardware aka Tensor and RT Cores.

 

[SalmanIsHere]

I don't think they are leaving the gpu market though, they are just changing their model to a software premium model ( in the form of dlss) vs a hardware improvement model ( we are leaning away from this). Hence the recent Nvidia talking points here.

Nvidia says resolution upscaling like DLSS (and not native resolution) is the future

In a lengthy discussion over DLSS and ray tracing technology, Nvidia predicted that the industry will eventually move beyond running games at native resolution. The company sees...

www.techspot.com

They still need hardware to charge the premium. Expect more of the software push with Blackwell like we never seen before.

The software performance is coming from hardware aka Tensor Core and RT Core.

 

[VcoreLeone]

I think looks like you're playing an animated movie. I was never interested in realism but I also don't have a problem with giving them style points. People don't watch Pixar movies because of how realistic they are. If everyone really is going to double down on ray tracing I think bringing style to videogames is more important than realism. After all, they are just games.

yeah, that was my impression with PT+RR on too. It's a lot like a modern, cgi animated movie. Which is good imo

what's funny is people here like to act like non-rt games look like actual movies..........

I'm not seeing this "vaseline" effect, even in rain.imo wet surfaces look great

btw, I encorage ppl to swap the dlss dll for 2.5.1
dlss RR is a separate file, just like frame gen.(great solution, as all dlss functions are swappable now - you can use whatever SR/RR/FG version you like best)
the dlss SR version that cp2077 comes with now is 3.1.x and it has bad smearing.

 

[VcoreLeone]

I think some people really have to try PT+RR on their own, my actual in-game experience from 3 days of playing is different from all those negative comments I see here.
I haven't seen any game that would even come close to producing this quality of real time reflections (and this is 1440p dlssb,so just 850p internal res!)

And I don't think the game produces excessively shiny reflections on the ground either, tiles really do look like that, just ask that lizard

When lizard gets introduced to smooth floor | The lizard can't understand the smooth floor 😂🦎 | By LADbibleFacebook

The lizard can't understand the smooth floor 😂🦎

www.facebook.com

I find that wet pavement in cp2077 with pt+rr actually produces a result that's really close to what you'll see in real life

Plus we're forgetting that PT+RR doesn't just work on wet/shiny surfaces, it also helps rough/old surfaces (like old leather on this sofa, old concrete floor, flower pot) look very real life-like too. To me, the contact shadows and path traced GI contribute more to the movie-like look of the game than those reflections that everyone talks about.

 

[Atmajaya2020]

The software is working based on physical hardware aka Tensor and RT Cores.

they sell that hardware to support their software..
well, my knowledge about nvidia is based on wiki, so I might be in the wrong here..

 

[godrilla]

The software performance is coming from hardware aka Tensor Core and RT Core.

I miss read your original post my bad. Yes we are the 3rd generation of dedicated cores.

yeah, that was my impression with PT+RR on too. It's a lot like a modern, cgi animated movie. Which is good imo

what's funny is people here like to act like non-rt games look like actual movies..........

I'm not seeing this "vaseline" effect, even in rain.imo wet surfaces look great

btw, I encorage ppl to swap the dlss dll for 2.5.1
dlss RR is a separate file, just like frame gen.(great solution, as all dlss functions are swappable now - you can use whatever SR/RR/FG version you like best)
the dlss SR version that cp2077 comes with now is 3.1.x and it has bad smearing.

The game does look great, but needs a lot of tweaks to get it subjectively palatable per individual from my observation. Just a few tweaks like the ones you mentioned, as well as film grain, Chromatic aberration, hdr settings and imo global illumination can change the look of the surroundings adramatically. Were the colors over saturated on my Oled lg CX, I would say I'm leaning on the yes side. What happened to a plug & play experience? I guess enthusiasts don't do plug and play we love to tweak it to perfection. Any good threads on how to swap the dlss files for the ones still learning the ropes lol?

 

[VcoreLeone]

I miss read your original post my bad. Yes we are the 3rd generation of dedicated cores.

The game does look great, but needs a lot of tweaks to get it subjectively palatable per individual from my observation. Just a few tweaks like the ones you mentioned, as well as film grain, Chromatic aberration, hdr settings and imo global illumination can change the look of the surroundings adramatically. Were the colors over saturated on my Oled lg CX, I would say I'm leaning on the yes side. What happened to a plug & play experience? I guess enthusiasts don't do plug and play we love to tweak it to perfection. Any good threads on how to swap the dlss files for the ones still learning the ropes lol?

Only tweaking I did was put the 2.5.1 dll into the folder to get no smearing on car's tail lights and flying stuff. I use no film grain, no chromatic aberration and no hdr.

 

[kinetix]

I have always wondered why put the comparative images in the order off/on, after/before. We read (mostly) from left to right, we usually do temporal or sequence graphs from left to right. why then are put in that order?. Personally, in my presentations and documents I always provide the comparative images in the before/after order.

now. likewise on a personal level. As long as something I'm interested in runs at 30+ fps in 1080p, I'm happy. I prefer realism in the image to resolution and FPSs.Whatever I buy today should deliver at least 45fps/1080/Ultra now, so it should last me a few years before going down 30fps/High-Med.

AMD must put its matrix computing units to use. They are there, in RDNA3 (and an older version in the XBOX Series X GPU), but I don't know if they have been used in any game (I think not). Maybe they are being exploited in some AI framework (need to find some info about it, I use PyTorch+DirectML in my AMDs). They must including in FSR that small neural network seen in the patent published a few years ago. I programmed and trained that network with images from Witcher 3, with acceptable results in the reconstruction of (independent) images, and that was only with the color information, no depth or specularity, much less motion vectors for temporal information. and the network is tiny. In these experiments I also used a convolutional autoencoder, but the minimum complexity I achieved was double that of the network proposed by AMD and the quality gained was not that great, while the latency was almost double as well. I suppose that when they include it for the final reconstitution of the image, performing the inference of pixels rather than interpolating them in a spatio-temporal manner, it will deliver that quality that is missing. that way they can do the same as dlss. If FSR reaches such current level (yes, lower than DLSS, but not that much), with this additional help it will either equal or surpass it.

 

[PEnnn]

"Cyberpunk 2077, for example, has been updated to use DLSS 3.5 but only for the ray reconstruction part; Super Resolution is still on version 3.1.1, and Frame Generation is on 3.1.13. Similarly, there will be games that use DLSS 3.5 Super Resolution, but don't integrate ray reconstruction. Still with us?"

I think keeping potential (and existing) buyers confused, dazed and dazzled by screen shots has been working very well for Nvidia.

I truly believe that having well informed people is very bad (especially) for certain political parties and definitely for certain technical companies!!!