[Reddit] Digital Foundry made a critical mistake with their Kingshunt FSR Testing...
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r/Amd - Digital Foundry made a critical mistake with their Kingshunt FSR Testing - TAAU apparently disables Depth of Field. Depth of Field causes the character model to look blurry even at Native settings (no upscaling)
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r/hardware - Digital Foundry made a critical mistake with their Kingshunt FSR Testing - TAAU apparently disables Depth of Field. Depth of Field causes the character model to look blurry even at Native settings (no upscaling)
1,176 votes and 362 comments so far on Reddit
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The original article is found here: AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution tested: big fps wins - but image quality suffers
This is how you find it. Showing this comparison: AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution tested: big fps wins - but image quality suffers
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution FSR Review: Big FPS Boosts, But Image Quality Takes A Hit
Best viewed on a 4K screen. Smart upscaling is becoming a seriously big deal for PC gaming - and having sampled DLSS from Nvidia, it's now time to look at Fi...
youtu.be
Tech PowerUp did a pretty good job with their comparison of the game found below for a comparison. It clearly shows that FSR works quiet well in that game. There is no indication that TAAU was used through UE's UU. Thus doesn't appear to be compared to bring you this comparison between native and FSR. Which is why the comparison is made between reviewer's results.
AMD FSR FidelityFX Super Resolution Quality & Performance Review
Finally! AMD has its NVIDIA DLSS competitor ready, and it even works on NVIDIA cards. We're testing the company's new super-resolution technology in five games. The comparison images in our AMD FSR review let you dig into all the finer details, and our performance results cover multiple...
Cliffs:
In a nutshell. DF used a game called Kingshunt to compare FSR using an app for the unreal engine called unreal unlocker to enable TAAU. Giving TAAU the impression that it was better then FSR. However, based on the investigation by the original poster TAAU disabled something called DepthOfFiedlQuality. Which sharpens the image. Thus giving the illusion that TAAU is "better then native". When in fact it is not. When DepthOfFieldQuality is disabled and compared, properly, FSR is superior to TAAU!!!!
Which makes you wonder how many other games use something like DepthOfFieldQuality that blurs the native image to have an "upscaler" show it's "better then native" when used. However, internally it is disabling a post processing feature that is on by default. It is not clear why these mistakes were made but it, falsely, puts FSR in a bad light. Why was Unreal Unlocker even used in a IQ comparison review just to use TAAU when it's not native in game? For example.
However, this is placed in the rumor, unconfirmed section of this forum. As I would hate to assume this was done intentionally.
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oh nice..part 2... 🤣
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Classic superficial Digital Foundry nonsense, this is like what the 4th, 5th time, they didn't do enough legwork and made a silly mistake ? At this point they're the dictionary example/poster boys of confirmation bias.
This is the DF answer:
I can say the same, for most of the media outlets.
The truth is that, most knowledgeable media outlets already closed long time ago!
The industry wanted influencers, to replace real knowledgeable industry workers/reviewers.
So you are served, stop pointing the finger to DF, do the same for all other media outlets!!!!
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OH I am absolutely gonna point the finger at the worst offenders, same like I'm gonna praise GamersNexus and HardwareUnboxed on the opposite side of the spectrum.
Why do u formulate these few sentences so personally in nature ? If u meant, fault of people in general, and it's just the tone of the last sentence, fine that's understandable able
Personally, I'm not gonna fight the windmills, don't care who or how many are bribed/or not, nor how much on a white-to-black scale. nor do I care how many are negligent or not, from all kinds of reasons and of severity from a scale of 1-100. I can easily figure out at what stage of refined methodology a channel/reviewer/writer is, at what stage of up to the old-school standards of investigative journalism they are, and so on, for all the other metrics.
What I will do, Is, use the in-the-above-sentence aforementioned experience+knowledge+gift to call out and not support the worst offenders, praise and support the best of them, and praise for their progress and support the up and rising rest of them. And I'm gonna talk about it and recommend the same to all the other forums and internet places I frequent as well as all applicable IRL situations.
Change is change, u don't look at it black and white, u don't compare to the past too often, what u do is ADAPT.
What I mean is there's quite a few YouTubers and other reviewers that are very close old-school investigative non-biased journalism. We just can't expect the exact same or compare due to the difference in times and well how much was hidden in past compared now. And so we should venerate them, and not dismiss by misunderstanding or nitpicking semantics.
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You're the joke.....and not very good one at that.
Wipe that green of your lips. You look silly.
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Same mistake made with Godfall?
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FSR is in DOTA 2 already, comes with a slider and it's Marvelous (it can even be setup to be better than native), reddit link no.3 is a detailed testing and guide post:
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Thanks. To everyone else.
Ignore FSR in the image quality slides. Look at the native image quality. It is blurred!!
DF has taken a considerable hit to their reputation as of late, imo. Thier continued negative bias towards AMD has consolidated their FSR analysis as nothing more then a hit piece.
The community as a whole will continue to scrutinize their results punching holes in their test methodology. Which discredits their "findings".
It certainly appears to me that a post processing effect is disabled once a certain "upscaler" is used. This is why it's important to note how that "fixed the blur" in kingshunt.
Which appears to be a nefarious way of showing taau "better than native". By disabling a post-process effect called depth of field quality. Which begs the question what does depth of field quality actually do other than blur the image natively.
At a guess it appears that whenever taau is added to a game it also adds depth of field quality post-processing effect to the native image. Which blurs the native image. When taau or " other upscaler" is used it disables depth of field quality. Making it look like the image has been sharpened. FSR doesn't do that.
Making this a very nefarious way fooling people. If true... however that is not the only way one can nefariously blur an image to make an upscaler look like it sharpened it. And I think we've seen this before.
This finding brings all other "better then native" results in the past games into question/scrunity.
"Better" is a subjective assessment and any comparison that doesn't define what 'better' means isn't of much use.
My issue with DF's assessment is the claim that TAAU 1080p -> 4k is better than FSR ultra 4k is placed in a comparison where there are aspects of the TAAU images that obviously deviate more from native 4k than FSR does. The even point out the sharpness of a dress in one scene when the native 4k image quite deliberately isn't so clear.
Likewise, 'better than native' from running FSR (or whatever) at near native internal resolution is similarly problematic. The image may be crisper and have greater apparent contrast, but it's accuracy is not increasing. It does not look more like native than native, and it may or may not look more like what native is supposed to be showing. It's artistic license and inherently subjective.
Ultimately, we can show where and how an upsampled scene differs from one at native resolution, and even make fairly objective comments about what is more accurate, but labeling the end result on the better/worse spectrum, without further qualifiers, is a largely arbitrary preference.
The images shown clearly have DoF enabled in the first two, with it being absent in the third. TAAU disabling or altering DoF isn't an example of TAAU being better at upscaling and creates an apples to oranges comparison. The article you quote acknowledges this.
The reason the debate is around image quality is because performance is much easier to quantify.
My issue with DF's assessment is the claim that TAAU 1080p -> 4k is better than FSR ultra 4k is placed in a comparison where there are aspects of the TAAU images that obviously deviate more from native 4k than FSR does. The even point out the sharpness of a dress in one scene when the native 4k image quite deliberately isn't so clear.
Likewise, 'better than native' from running FSR (or whatever) at near native internal resolution is similarly problematic. The image may be crisper and have greater apparent contrast, but it's accuracy is not increasing. It does not look more like native than native, and it may or may not look more like what native is supposed to be showing. It's artistic license and inherently subjective.
Ultimately, we can show where and how an upsampled scene differs from one at native resolution, and even make fairly objective comments about what is more accurate, but labeling the end result on the better/worse spectrum, without further qualifiers, is a largely arbitrary preference.
If one has intentionally enabled DoF because they like the effect, disabling it makes the experience worse. If one doesn't want DoF, they are going to turn it off, even if they are using FSR or some other upscaler that doesn't do it automatically. Not taking this into account was definitely a mistake, unless the intent is to mislead.
The images shown clearly have DoF enabled in the first two, with it being absent in the third. TAAU disabling or altering DoF isn't an example of TAAU being better at upscaling and creates an apples to oranges comparison. The article you quote acknowledges this.
The point is to maximize performance while preserving as much quality as possible. It's impossible to assess the utility of the features without taking both performance and IQ into account.
The reason the debate is around image quality is because performance is much easier to quantify.
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In Alex's tweet he only compared FSR performance mode... I don't know how that is supposed to help prove anything.
Edit: I guess it's because they're all 1080p upscaled.
As for the topic, interesting if true. That particular test did look pretty blurry even compared to the other tests DF did so it would make sense if there was actually some other reason.
Reading through the reddit post, it looks like Alex from DF responded and acknowledged the mistake. Seems like there is some uncertainty about exactly how much that impacts the overall assessment. After looking at the images myself, FSR ultra quality mode vs native vs 1080p TAAU all look really similar... But that said, I do think FSR ultra looks better than the TAAU image in this comparison. You can clearly see that the texture detail is sharper with FSR vs TAAU on the tree trunk. The grass on the ground also looks less fuzzy with FSR. TAAU also over corrects the transparent part of the character model's dress compared to native and FSR. Believe it or not, I'm not saying this to upset wannabe, I'm just describing what my eyes see.
4k Native: https://d2skuhm0vrry40.cloudfront.n...14-24/AM_4_002.png/EG11/format/jpg/quality/95
4k Ultra Quality: https://d2skuhm0vrry40.cloudfront.n...14-23/AM_3_002.png/EG11/format/jpg/quality/95
1080p TAAU: https://d2skuhm0vrry40.cloudfront.n...14-23/AM_3_003.png/EG11/format/jpg/quality/95
Edit: I guess it's because they're all 1080p upscaled.
As for the topic, interesting if true. That particular test did look pretty blurry even compared to the other tests DF did so it would make sense if there was actually some other reason.
Reading through the reddit post, it looks like Alex from DF responded and acknowledged the mistake. Seems like there is some uncertainty about exactly how much that impacts the overall assessment. After looking at the images myself, FSR ultra quality mode vs native vs 1080p TAAU all look really similar... But that said, I do think FSR ultra looks better than the TAAU image in this comparison. You can clearly see that the texture detail is sharper with FSR vs TAAU on the tree trunk. The grass on the ground also looks less fuzzy with FSR. TAAU also over corrects the transparent part of the character model's dress compared to native and FSR. Believe it or not, I'm not saying this to upset wannabe, I'm just describing what my eyes see.
4k Native: https://d2skuhm0vrry40.cloudfront.n...14-24/AM_4_002.png/EG11/format/jpg/quality/95
4k Ultra Quality: https://d2skuhm0vrry40.cloudfront.n...14-23/AM_3_002.png/EG11/format/jpg/quality/95
1080p TAAU: https://d2skuhm0vrry40.cloudfront.n...14-23/AM_3_003.png/EG11/format/jpg/quality/95
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Very interesting. TAUU is disabling DOF which makes the texture detail look better than native 4k. FSR is also over sharpening some of the edges compared to native.
I wish the frame rate had been left uncapped. From what I see ultra quality FSR does look a bit better than TAUU 1080p, but in that scene not by a huge amount.
For me I feel like I have seen enough. The best upscaling tech is the one your game includes and is compatible with your GPU. I won't complain about more graphics settings if a game like this one wants to include both.
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Looks like digital Foundry was caught once again forcing taau in a game that doesn't support it. It's becoming quite evident that this implementation of taau in games also forces depth of field in the native image. When taau is enabled it disables depth of field. Making the image look sharper. Giving the impression that taau makes the image look better. When this is 100% false.
This is becoming extremely deceptive and nefarious. It is hard to view this as anything other than intentional.
Again this brings the "other upscaler" into question regarding the older games in which it was claimed that using it may the image look better than native.
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And arguably the only thing that matters. What is pretty is an argument for people who want to argue, not for getting to some deeper truth.
Then bring up the experiance + knowledge + gift you claim owning, when criticizing openly the work of others.
I found none of this knowledge when reading your post, like most of the posts wrote in the current thread, and also in the previously closed thread.
And believe it or not, DF mistake or mislead brought more on the table, than others washed out reviews, that followed AMD marketing material rules!!
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Id be happy to use TAAU or FSR or DLSS or whatever else but as someone without a geforce 2000 or 3000 series card, I haven't played any games that offer any of these options aside from DLSS which I can't use. Does anyone know of any games that use TAAU?
Whatever upscaler I can actually use first is probably going to be one I like.
Whatever upscaler I can actually use first is probably going to be one I like.
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I don't think making quality comparisons with jpg images is a good idea. We need very high quality video to actually get a sense of the quality. My main problems with DLSS 1.0 did not show up in screenshots they way they did in game.
YouTube is useless as well, looking better after YouTube got done with it is not the same as looking better in person.
YouTube is useless as well, looking better after YouTube got done with it is not the same as looking better in person.
Pretty is subjective, but accuracy is quantifiable, I just haven't seen anyone try to objectively measure the differences here.
Pointing out differences is all well and good, but we'd need to put a lossless video sample though VMAF or some other automated quality assessment tool to get a result not influenced by individual bias.
Almost any UE4 engine title that has seen a patch since mid-2018.
I currently use TAAU in MechWarrior 5, though I have to edit the Engine.ini to enable it and tune TAA to my liking; the default settings are crap and there is no option for TAAU in the in-game menus.
On my 6800XT I'm running about 1600p internal resolution upscaled to 4k (via VSR) on a 1440p native display. The effect is pretty good, overall, and definitely the best upscaling I currently have access to on most of my GPUs for this game. Main downside is some motion artifacts, especially shimmering on irregular edges, unless I jack up the TAA samples, but that kills performance of particle effects (it's so bad past 4 samples that I'm better off just disabling post-process AA entirely and jacking up the supersampling) and adds blur that I'm really trying to avoid.
On my 3080, I can use DLSS in MechWarrior 5 and it's probably a bit better than TAAU (and I haven't even tried the new DLSS 2.2 release yet, which should make it even better), but that's mostly because it can replace TAA entirely.
I'd like to see what FSR can do in this game, as it also seems to smooth out edges pretty well and could also replace TAA with a much lower performance hit than raw supersampling, but it's not supported.
I agree, to an extent. There are clearly differences that are not the result of compression artifacts, but compression artifacts definitely muddle things.
This is why lossless video is the way to go.
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