Upscalers are usually not everybody’s cup of tea. What was considered by many as a nearly free efficiency benefit for these ready to sacrifice a little bit of visible high quality for a greater body charge has now more and more turn into extra of a requirement in lots of video games for glorious efficiency. Builders benefit from the tech to push {hardware} to its most in most of the newest video games.
Nonetheless, there are purists who will argue that each one upscalers ship a “lesser” expertise, and plenty of will nonetheless select to forgo these body charge good points in favour of a non-upscaled native picture. Many video games now supply a selection as to which upscaling answer to make use of, though the tip outcomes can range.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, the sequel to the a lot acclaimed Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, takes an attention-grabbing method to assist gamers resolve which upscaler to decide on. Pausing the sport at any level and getting into the graphics settings menu, gamers are capable of choose a preview choice, by which you are positioned again within the sport on the actual second you paused at.
When deciding between upscalers, a drop down menu permits you to change between them in actual time. This implies you possibly can see precisely what impact every is having on the picture high quality of the body, at the side of a boxout displaying body time, CPU and GPU time, VRAM utilization, and total body charge.
A reasonably helpful function, I believe you will agree, though it inadvertently exposes an uncomfortable fact—every upscaler is sweet at various things, and that makes choosing the proper one a really subjective course of.
There’s DLSS 3, TSR, XeSS, and FSR 3 to select from right here, though solely DLSS will get Body Era.
Testing upscalers in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
Early within the sport, Senua finds herself shipwrecked on a chilly, craggy shoreline, with loads of water results, windy, foggy climate and glistening rocks. Right here, FSR 3 reveals a few of its weaknesses.
Water results show numerous visible artifacting even on the highest high quality settings, whereas shiny moist rocks and their related lighting results can look vague and noticeably blurry. Fog good points a barely pixelated fringe at factors.
XeSS, in the meantime, does a a lot better job. I seen round a two to a few FPS drop in comparison with FSR 3 at High quality, however the 1% lows seemed to be barely larger, making it a lot of a muchness as to which you select by way of efficiency.
With regards to the early sport, XeSS was a straightforward selection to keep up the perfect steadiness of picture high quality and clean body charge.
Shifting ahead into grassier areas later within the story, XeSS reveals some visible weak point of its personal. Tufts of grass and well-lit surroundings lose some distinction in comparison with FSR, which does a barely higher job of dealing with the sharp edges of swaying foliage on grassy plains and jagged mountains. I additionally seen some fog pixelation which wasn’t current within the early ranges, which I can solely assume was a unique kind of impact that was inflicting the Intel upscaler some points.
Admittedly it is a tough factor to see in nonetheless photographs, however FSR 3’s rendering of effective grass is noticeably higher in movement, notably relating to distance. Have a look at the tufts subsequent to the determine within the prime proper, for reference. That being stated, it does sometimes introduce some shimmering, whereas XeSS is not so susceptible.
I discovered myself eager to bounce between the 2 upscalers relying on what scene I used to be . In a sport the place immersion and environment are paramount, I saved searching for artifacting reasonably than taking note of the gorgeous surroundings to see which was doing a greater job.
Unsurprisingly, DLSS offers the perfect picture high quality compromise of the lot, though it is nonetheless not with out its drawbacks. Like all the upscaling choices right here, it generally struggles with fur, clothes, and Senua’s lengthy, braided hair, and I did expertise some odd visible artifacting within the sky in sure scenes.
You additionally want an Nvidia graphics card to make use of DLSS, in contrast to XeSS, FSR, and TSR which all work on any GPU {hardware}.
And as for TSR? In contrast to the others, it is tied to a decision scale slider. Whereas it offers a wonderful picture high quality that is not far off DLSS at excessive settings, the body charge good points are nowhere close to as spectacular, with round a ten to twenty p.c drop over DLSS at comparable picture high quality.
Which upscaler ought to I exploit in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II?
After a lot fiddling, I finally threw my palms up and settled on XeSS on the High quality setting on my AMD-powered RX 7800 XT machine. Extremely High quality made little perceptible distinction to the picture over High quality whereas offering round 10% much less body charge.
Whereas FSR 3 does a greater job of grass and foliage, I want the way in which XeSS handles hair, which—provided that Senua is on display for 99% of the time along with her flowing locks swaying within the wind—I discover a lot much less distracting than the opposite choices. TSR may be very usable, however the body charge good points slimmer than I would really like.
For those who’re an Nvidia card proprietor, it ought to come as little shock that I will advocate DLSS on your upscaling wants. I examined it on an RTX 4070-equipped laptop computer, and located that, whereas DLSS nonetheless struggles with sure visible facets, it offered a very good steadiness of picture high quality and body charge good points. Though it nonetheless shows the odd “fizzing” round hair strands and the occasional odd artifact.
Nonetheless, Body Era is a boon for these of you searching for the best body charge potential, and the picture total seems to be good with it enabled.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is a really spectacular trying sport relating to artwork type. Nonetheless, its reliance on gorgeous vistas, excessive constancy graphical property, fur and hair results, and fog together with that helpful preview operate has the (unintended, I am certain) impact of exposing the weaknesses of every upscaling tech with pinpoint precision.
Upscaling continues to be, at its core, about compromise. This sport throws that reality into such sharp (or on this case, when you’ll forgive me, blurry) aid that it might nearly turn into the poster little one for why upscalers—all of them, to a point—are nonetheless a piece in progress.