Image Scaling & Super Resolution: Easy Performance Gains for Your Favorite Sim

Image Scaling & Super Resolution Easy Performance Gains for Your Favorite Sim.png
As nice as beautiful graphics are, visuals in sim racing are secondary - performance is everything. However, this is sometimes difficult to get right - especially Assetto Corsa Competizione is known for its hardware hunger. With DLSS and FSR, Nvidia and AMD Radeon have already introduced solutions for such cases - but both systems only work with compatible games. However, software-independent solution also exists.

The principle of DLSS and FSR is simple: The respective game is output in a lower resolution, which the graphics card then upscales via AI to achieve higher performance in the form of more frames per second - a feature that Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC) has already received last year.

However, not all titles are compatible with DLSS and FSR. Nevertheless, the upscaling principle can also be applied to them: Both Nvidia and AMD have developed a system that works at the driver level instead of the game engine level, and as a result, it works with significantly more titles.

In Nvidia's case, the feature goes by the name Image Scaling and is compatible with graphics cards from the GTX series onwards. AMD's version is called Radeon Super Resolution and runs on GPUs from the RX5000 series and newer. The features can simply be enabled in the respective graphics card driver, the in-game resolution must then be set lower than the native monitor resolution.

A lot of technical terms - but the results are impressive. Both manufacturers show clear performance increases, Yannik Haustein tested Radeon Super Resolution with ACC and Automobilista 2. The result: ACC immediately gained between 20 and 30 frames per second, AMS2 ran almost constantly at 110 FPS or more and did not show any optical disadvantages. ACC, on the other hand, looked a bit blurry in parts - just like with FSR enabled, by the way - but ran more smoothly.

Conclusion: Especially for sim racers with somewhat older hardware, who cannot or do not want to upgrade to a still wickedly expensive graphics card, it is worth trying out the systems to get more out of the hardware and enjoy a fluent performance.

Have Image Scaling or Super Resolution helped your experience? Let us know on Twitter at @RaceDepartment or in the comments below!
About author
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

Comments

Sounds interresting.
But because this feature isnt in my nVidia driver menu then I should maybe update the driver.
Wonder if it is worth the effort on my old GTX 1060 and my gForce391.01 driver:rolleyes:
GTX 570 (.. who laughed?.. ) Having the latest driver. No such setting.
Using nVSlimmer from Guru3D.
If possible, I'll give it a go ! :thumbsup:
 
I tried this for ACC in VR and both DLSS and FSR looked terrible to my eyes. It did give a frame boost of about 20fps but I'd rather leave it on 45fps with better graphics.
I think this is because those methods can render the right/left frames slightly differently from each other while upscaling, which simply is a no-go in VR. Each little difference from the left to the right eye vision is clearly visible.
 
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I think this is because those methods can render the right/left frames slightly differently from each other while upscaling, which simply is a no-go in VR. Each little difference from the left to the right eye vision is clearly visible.
ACC is blurry at 1080p at 100 resolution scale. These methods make it even blurrier (although they were not made with 1080p in mind). My advice for single screen ACC players who suffer with blur is to enable FSR at Custom, increase resolution scale to something like 115 and set FSR sharpening to around 50 and tweak from there. Much better than simple supersampling and using the "normal" sharpening. This is not to improve performance rather improve image quality at around same performance.
 
I'm very impressed with Nvidia DLSS. I use it in ACC and F1 2021 and I'm very pleased with the results. It means my RTX 2070 Super can run in 4k@60Hz with no noticeable loss in graphical quality.
No surprise because as you probably allready know then DLSS is much more advanced than the Nvidia Scaling that is discussed here.
Because unfortunately DLSS does only work with newer g-cards and on games supporting it.
While Scaling should work with most games and does only need cards from GTX and later.
 
ACC is blurry at 1080p at 100 resolution scale. These methods make it even blurrier (although they were not made with 1080p in mind). My advice for single screen ACC players who suffer with blur is to enable FSR at Custom, increase resolution scale to something like 115 and set FSR sharpening to around 50 and tweak from there.
Yep, it is blurry unfortunately... 24" - 1080p monitor user here. It only gets very crisp and clear above 150% image scaling, but that hurts fps so bad. Sorry if i'm wrong but if i recall correctly, when you enable FSR resolution scale option is grays out. But i never tried FSR with "custom" option. I'll take your advice, i'll try when i get home.
 
I am using a 1070. In AC with FSR via CSP... with my setting I went from 85fps to 115fps. So depending on the sim you use it would probably help. Also I would keep the driver updated the latest driver for your card is 512.59.
Hey db just to show that I was actually trying to follow your advice then I checked your 512.59.
Im running Win7 and the latest official Nvidia driver for my 1060 card is 391.35.
Yeah I know its from Socrates/Plato time but my W7 is running jolly good.
And Im not forced to any goofy MS updates :laugh:

GTX 1060 W7 Latest officielle driver 391.35.png
 
Yep, it is blurry unfortunately... 24" - 1080p monitor user here. It only gets very crisp and clear above 150% image scaling, but that hurts fps so bad. Sorry if i'm wrong but if i recall correctly, when you enable FSR resolution scale option is grays out. But i never tried FSR with "custom" option. I'll take your advice, i'll try when i get home.
Yep, if you enable custom you get to control the resolution scale, I find that 130 is already very good with this method, and I could even run it, but only in the dry. Rain spray kills FPS terribly. I use 115 as a compromise in all conditions.

With FSR sharpening distant objects like trees, etc are much more defined, and when you are in motion, turning, those distant objects stay sharpish instead of being a huge blurry smudge with default sharpening.

Give it a go and check back I am really curious if you will like it :)
 
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Hey db just to show that I was actually trying to follow your advice then I checked your 512.59.
Im running Win7 and the latest official Nvidia driver for my 1060 card is 391.35.
Yeah I know its from Socrates/Plato time but my W7 is running jolly good.
And Im not forced to any goofy MS updates :laugh:

View attachment 562294
Oh, didn't know you were on W7. Yeah no updates for that OS. I just searched 1060 latest drivers. I am sure it gave me drivers for 10. If you use AC with CSP try turning on the FRS settings, it works with the older NVidia cards. My 1070 is only one model up from yours so you should see results.
 
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"Have Image Scaling or Super Resolution helped your experience? Let us know on Twitter at @RaceDepartment or in the comments below!"

Image scaling most certainly has! Infact its actually doubled my FPS in AMS2! Here is video evidence. (check video discription for system specs and timestamps). Thats not to say it will do the same for all titles or systems (CPU bound titles, or CPU bottle necked systems). But it sure as hell works in this case!

Hey Potato, nice video. But, have you tried NIS, Nvidia Image Scaling, in rFactor2? The Sim
doesn't support DLSS nor FSR yet. AMS 2 doesn't either but does NIS. You could try it and
do another video on it. Nice going,
 
Oh, didn't know you were on W7. Yeah no updates for that OS. I just searched 1060 latest drivers. I am sure it gave me drivers for 10. If you use AC with CSP try turning on the FRS settings, it works with the older NVidia cards. My 1070 is only one model up from yours so you should see results.
Hehe I dont want to sound like an embecile - but what is FRS?
I did both search "Nvidia FRS" and "AC FRS" but didnt get anything useable.
It sounds like a setting in AC though:unsure:

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: After all these remarks about nearly doubling the fps using this Nvidia scaling thing is the first time I really am tempted to persuade myself to downgrade to Win10:p.
Hehe otherwise that will only happen if I ever want to get on the VR boat :barefoot:
 
Is there an explanation on how to enable AMD's RSR for the Oculus Rift S as it is rendering within it's own Oculus software? I for one didn't find anything specific.
 
Premium
Hehe I dont want to sound like an embecile - but what is FRS?
I did both search "Nvidia FRS" and "AC FRS" but didnt get anything useable.
It sounds like a setting in AC though:unsure:

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: After all these remarks about nearly doubling the fps using this Nvidia scaling thing is the first time I really am tempted to persuade myself to downgrade to Win10:p.
Hehe otherwise that will only happen if I ever want to get on the VR boat :barefoot:
I tried to type fsr. Its in the article. FSR is the AMD solution. But works with the 10 series cards.
 
Give it a go and check back I am really curious if you will like it :)
So, i tried FSR custom & FSR 80 sharpness with 100% image scaling. So far so good... :)
Thank you for pointing that out. I totally missed it. I was so focused to set it "ultra quality"... And that way i have little more room to increase image scale to 105% or 110% without hurting FPS so much. It gives a bit more crispness to image. :thumbsup:
 
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I wasn't going to bother with FSR as my new system does fairly well. 140ish fps at the Nords with 22 C8R Vettes @ 1440p. I even set my fastest lap ever just before trying FSR.(the AMD version) Unrelated to FSR but apparently windows overwrote some part of the radeon drivers and I had to re-install the Andrenaline software. So I installed new drivers and then dug around for the FSR setting and after about 3 failed attempts got it running. Instantly my fps rose to near 200fps with the same cars & track. But, there was something a teeny tiny bit off, like the upscaled image was ever so slightly different from my normal 1440p settings. Probably due to peeking at the fps meter repeatedly, I had more unforced errors with my first laps using FSR. I'll give it a few more attempts to try and determine if there is some controller lag or I'm just a putz. But the FPS increase was very impressive.(AMD 6700XT 12gbVram, 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900KF 3.19 GHz)
 

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