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So now to get an image quality similar to 4k, what resolution should we choose to start with before the upscaling?
Consider these things a nice way to gain an extra bit of clarity (or performance when used the other way around), but don’t expect them to do miracles.
Sorry for being such a party pooper here all the time, but none of these upscale methods (nVidia’s DLSS included, and that does a lot more) can truly recreate a natively rendered 4K image from a lower resolution. If you want true 4K, run a game at 4K. If you want a really nice upscale/sharpening filter applied to a lower res image then use what AMD very unfortunately chose to call ‘Super Resolution’, raising expectations the method cannot fulfill. It can upscale a 1440p or 1600p image to come partially close to how an uprocessed 4K image would look, but overall the result is not a true 4K image rendered natively at 4K. This is a traditional upscale/sharpening algorithm. A good one with a twist, but still just an upscaler.
Why do I insist on this so obstinately instead of trying to sell you some magical 4K creation method? Because in a headset pixels are larger and thus more visible than on a monitor or TV two meters away, making it way more obvious that what you get is an upscaled image. I don’t want to see you disappointed when you realize that.
How good it works also varies quite heavily from game to game BTW.
TLDR: This is a really nice upscale/sharpening method, but not more than that. It does not magically create true 4K images out of considerably lower resolutions.
vorpX doesn’t work like a native VR game.
Yes, I was not thinking of a native VR game but a flat game with built-in FSR rendered through vorpX (which is possible even today, but I don’t have any of them in my library).
If I understand correctly vorpX should actually do better. With built-in support there would be an upscale internally in the game from ex. 1970×1108 to 1440p at ultra setting, then another one to whatever is needed in the HMD. If instead vorpX applies FSR there would be a single upscale from the game’s resolution ex. 1080p to the HMD.
…would be a single upscale from the game’s resolution ex. 1080p to the HMD.
That is the case actuallly because it’s done how it’s done. Upscale, Z3D, draw to headset target (or cinema screen) all one operation instead of two (or three). That’s what I tried to explain above.
Just a heads-up that after getting sidetracked a bit by some unrelated bugfixing I finalized this today. An update that includes it will be out early next week. Got to say the time invested into the matter was well spent. I was sceptical before trying, but this is a clear step up from the current sharpening solution. Still, as said above: don’t expect miracles.
To keep things simple the ‘Crystal Image’ setting has been removed from the menu. Instead there is a new setting called ‘Clarity (FidelityFX)’ that combines what it did with the FidelityFX functionality in four steps (off, low, med, full). Mainly because ‘Full’ may cause texture shimmering in some games I opted for more fine grained control over what actually happens instead of just having an on/off switch:
- ‘Off’ unsurprisingly means no image enhancement at all.
- ‘Low’ means default scaling + sharpening.
- ‘Med’ means high quality scaling + sharpening.
- ‘Full’ is what you get when game devs implement FidelityFX directly in their games, i.e. high quality scaling + sharpening + texture enhancement.
The strength of the sharpening effect that is part of the process stays an extra setting like before to allow some additional finetuning. The default (0.5) is a bit conservative to account for edge cases, e.g. some sharpening already applied by the game itself. Typically a value around 1.0 should be fine without creating sharpening artifacts.
If you encounter a game with a sharpening option built in, it’s strongly recommended to not use that together with the vorpX Clarity setting.
I really can’t wait for this, I stopped playing Bioshock Infinite completely until this is released so I’m counting the days, I know I shouldn’t expect miracles but any image quality improvement will be more than welcome so I’ll test this thoroughly once it’s available. As always thanks Ralf for this kind of improvements, I hardly play anything else in VR other than Vorpx, even though I have a Viveport sub that I haven’t used for months.
Probably of no interest for most of you, but just in case anyone occasionally wonders how incredibly exciting a programmer’s life can be. ;)
I had already more or less concluded the matter yesterday, but then had a thought that did cost another one in the end. Since the sharpening part of the algorithm is done as the very last step in the vorpX rendering pipeline at headset resolution (to avoid losing some of its effect by resampling the image again afterwards), it seemed like a good idea to use slightly different sharpening parameters depending on how large a game pixel ends up in the headset compared to an actual headset pixel.
A day later vorpX now is always precisely aware of that no matter what, and whenever you do something that affects how large a game pixel is drawn in the end, e.g. change the game resolution, the ImageZoom setting in FullVR mode, the screen distance in immersive mode, or just move a bit forward in cinema mode, etc., the final sharpening pass is fed with accordingly optimized parameters. I.e. you always get the best possible sharpening and I can sleep well again. :)
The sharpen filter is always the first thing I go to when opening a new profile. I often turn it to max 2.0, as I find it works really well for texture clarity on high resolution headsets, especially when pushing higher resolutions for Z3D. Frankly, I think at least some degree of sharpening should automatically be on by default. I think it might stem some complaints about blurry visuals.
That will be the case from now on. I think you’ll enjoy the AMD sharpening, it creates an overall more visually pleasing effect than the current filter kernel. You can pretty much crank it up to the max almost without any ringing artifacts or similar annoyances usually.
Combined with the other two components of the method, the higher quality scaling (a more subtle improvement), and if possible for a game the texture detail enhancement, the overall result can be pretty stunning in some cases. Varies from game to game though.
I too am really looking forward to this. I’ve been continuing to play Cyberpunk on my 3D display as I need something like 5% more GPU performance to actually pull off the resolutions I need in that title to get clarity to my HMD.
I have a feeling this may be the ticket, as it will hopefully allow me to drive a slightly lower native-game-rendering resolution and still get the clarity I’m looking for.
Thanks for taking a look at this and deciding to make it happen!
Personally I think for CP2077 in FullVR mode 2400×1800 (DLSS at ‘Auto’, i.e. the game originally renders a res below that) is the sweet spot on a high end machine if you aren’t willing to dial down graphics detail and still want a crisp image. An RTX3080 is able to maintain almost stable 60fps that way incl. raytracing, so there even is a bit of headroom. With the clarity setting cranked up that looks quite good even on a headset with high pixel density (e.g. Reverb G2), on headsets with lower pixel density (e.g. Index/Rift S) it’s already borderline overkill.
Personally I think for CP2077 in FullVR mode 2400×1800 (DLSS at ‘Auto’, i.e. the game originally renders a res below that) is the sweet spot on a high end machine if you aren’t willing to dial down graphics detail and still want a crisp image. An RTX3080 is able to maintain almost stable 60fps that way incl. raytracing, so there even is a bit of headroom. With the clarity setting cranked up that looks quite good even on a headset with high pixel density (e.g. Reverb G2), on headsets with lower pixel density (e.g. Index/Rift S) it’s already borderline overkill.
I could probably do that if I didn’t need to turn Parallel Projections on with my Pimax for use with vorpX. Parallel Projection causes a huge overhead. Unfortunately I’m also super-sensitive to blurriness; just massively prefer an extremely crisp gaming environment. Im running a 3080 Ti (factory overclocked, so it runs right over 2GHz out of the box), but because I can see a huge difference, even in Virtual Cinema mode, between 2880×1620 and 3840×2160 in every title I send to my HMD through vorpX, it leaves me really struggling when it comes to performance in some titles. It’s just my unfortunate preference for sharpness getting in the way (well, plus the need for PP). I tell you what, CP2077 at 4K with DLSS at Balanced 64hz/32fps looks, well, it looks incredible (I moved back to CP2007 v1.23). It’s essentially unplayable at that low frame rate, but WOW, just WOW.
I’m very excited to try the FidelityFX enabled version when you release it. Even if it doesn’t help this particular usage scenario, I think it’s going to be great overall.
Judging from my own experience with CP2077, I’d say that sounds a bit unrealistic at this point, after all it’s pretty the much the most demanding you can find. If the highest possible resolution is your main goal, dial down details a bit. Super high resolutions and everything on ultra is something to aim at with the next generation of GPUs in CP2077, at least at 45fps and better.
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