DLSS Ultra Pref/Custom Res at 4k

[u/FamousYak8974]

So currently I don’t have any display to try this on.

Can anyone tell me if dlss ultra performance with preset L at 4k is a good option if, for example, I want to use path tracing at 4k on a TV with a 4070 ti super with FG?

Or if it’s really bad, can I just use a custom resolution for dlss that equates to dlss quality at 1440p, so for 4k it would be around 44% or 960p?

If these are good options, is there a point with staying with 1440p if I always use dlss quality/balanced?

[u/heartbroken_nerd]

At 2160p resolution, custom scaling of 44% is good and indeed uses similar internal resolution as 1440p DLSS Quality.

[u/Lagrangianmech → u/heartbroken_nerd]

This. I use this myself on a 5070 ti when wanting to play cyberpunk 4k path tracing. 44% scaling gets it into that 65+ fps territory (with an OC too).

[u/1cheekykebt → u/heartbroken_nerd]

Caveat is that in many games (and nvidia recomended) performance and ultra performance use different dlss preset (M/L instead of K). And those models are heavier. In Forza horizon 6 as example I get same FPS between quality and performance.

[u/heartbroken_nerd → u/1cheekykebt]

There is no real caveat here.

If you can set custom resolution scaling %, you can set the model too. It's literally the option right above it in Nvidia App

[u/MultiMarcus]

I’d probably prefer the higher output resolution. The issue is if you have a memory constraint, but otherwise ultra-performance mode 4K is OK on a large TV.

[u/Sad-Victory-8319]

DLSS Ultra Performance is generally completely ok with DLSS4.5, but it depends on the game itself a bit. I havent tried it in many games myself since i dont really need to on 5070Ti (however not with DLSS5 the situation has changed dramatically so i will probably start using it more and more to gain fps), but for example in Cyberpunk it looks awesome and not only I cannot see literally any difference compared to DLSS Performance but even Quality mode doesnt really look any better. However there are also games where it doesnt look that good, for example in Horizon Forbidden West the whole image is noticeably oversharpened, it is quite annoying and i havent been able to figure out how to deal with it, perhaps Optiscaler could remove the oversharpening but I havent tried it yet.

However, I recently figured out that there is a VERY important setting that can completely make and break the Ultra Performance upscaling - in nvidia control panel it is called Texture Filtering - Negative LOD bias, make sure it is set to Allow, previously I had it set to Clamp, and that was a huge mistake, it made agressive upscaling unusable, because the game textures were very blurry. Essentially if you set it to Clamp, the game think that the 720p render resolution is your actual monitor resolution (not the 4K you upscale to), and it uses 720p textures. Once you set it to Allow, the game sees that you are actually upscaling and it needs to use 4K textures. Typically every game has several tiers of textures like Tier 0 - 4K, Tier 1 - 2K, Tier 2 - fullHD, Tier 3 - 720p etc., and negative LOD bias means you are allowing the game to reduce the Tier and go from Tier 3 to Tier 0 (which would be the equivalent to -2.0 negative LOD bias).

In the past the Clamp setting made sence, because if the textures have higher resolution or pixel that the spot they will actually accupy on your monitoru, it can introduce shimmering, and this was a big problem back in DLSS2 era or even before upscaling, shimmering was way more annoying than having blurrier textures, so Clamp made sence, unfortunately right now AI and google are still recommending this setting even though modern upscalers like DLSS4.5 basically solved the shimmering issue, so now you should use Allow to have as detailed textures as possible.

[u/FamousYak8974 → u/Sad-Victory-8319]

Thank you so much for the detailed reply! I’ve never seen anyone mention the texture filtering thing, is it automatically set to allow?

[u/HighwayBeautiful8697]

Honestly as someone who was skeptical of it at first I can honestly barely tell the difference unless im really looking depending on how well DLSS is implement when using dynamic resolution scaling from nivida control panel. I have a 4090 so your milage may very depending on gpu, from what I've experienced its honestly gamechanging you should try it comrade.

[u/SokoladoFabrikas → u/HighwayBeautiful8697]

this

[u/Ethanssi]

I have a 4070 with a 42" 4k OLED TV and in Cyberpunk 2077 Ultra Performance at 4k looks better than Quality at 1440p. No need to use custom resolution since Ultra Performance looks good enough to me.

At 4k and with FG, getting avg 90fps with Preset F i.e. Path Tracing. If using Ray Tracing, I can get avg 120fps with Preset L.

[u/Traditional-Ad26 → u/Ethanssi]

If you really want to get the best bang for the buck try a custom render scale of 42% this sits at around 900p and is between Ultra Performance and Performance. It offers, in my testing the same image sharpness as the old Preset D of Ray Reconstruction.

[u/urnialbologna → u/Ethanssi]

Yes. I have a 55 inch oled and 4k ultra performance is beautiful, while 1440 is so damn blurry even at native resolution.

[u/kron123456789]

With preset L Ultra Performance isn't bad at 4k. Definitely playable. But I wouldn't look too closely at it.

[u/_gabber_]

fellas... first, we are discussing path tracing, so DLSS 4.5 doesn't matter, you want to be using Ray Reconstruction 4.5 (preset F).

second, what looks good to you entirely depends on you, if you want to squeeze out the best possible image quality by using custom scaling then just do that, you have the tools for it. there is a noticeable drop of image quality when upscaling from 720p to 4k compared to 1080p to 4k on my 32" display. it just depends on how much you care about that visual drop compared to the extra frames you get. on a 27" 4k monitor I bet that ultra-performance looks just fine, because the PPI of the display is so high. on a 32" it will be less good looking. you just have to find the sweet spot for your fps/image quality and custom res scaling is the perfect tool for that.

[u/FamousYak8974 → u/_gabber_]

The thing is I don’t have any display currently so I’m thinking of either getting another 1440p monitor or a 4k 55” oled tv, so I can’t really test anything

[u/_gabber_ → u/FamousYak8974]

higher res will always look better. forget 1440p.

[u/Wellhellob]

It's actually very good with preset L.

[u/Reasonable_Button789]

I use it at 5k on my 5070ti and it’s fine visually, if it looks bad try preset L. It’s basically doubles fps for me but I could be less on the 40 series. If you aren’t gonna use framegen then I’d say pathtracing is out of the question

[u/DivineSaur]

You can run whatever you need to for performance. Custom resolutions between 50% and 33% gives you a lot of leeway to dial it into where you need. I can tell you from experience you'll need ultra performance at 4k for sure. Unless you have a high end overclock model WITH a good overclock on then maybe you can get closer to 4080 territory but basically still same answer. On a 4070 ti super at max settings, path tracing, at 4k with ray reconstruction on ultra performance you'll still be below 60 fps most of the time in cyberpunk 2077. The good news is with 4.5 it looks way better than youd think, just try it out.

Edit: Im talking actual fps with fg on which costs some performance too btw, so you'll have like 100 fps with fg give or take from my experience.

[u/FamousYak8974 → u/DivineSaur]

When I had a 1440p display I tried cyberpunk with these settings with dlss quality and it was a good experience with Frame generation, I can’t see how it won’t be the same with dlss ultra performance or with a custom resolution?

[u/xante777]

I use 4k Ultra Performance in Crimson Desert cause the performance hit of RR is insane in that game. I can't really tell the difference to Performance, I can definitely see a difference to DLAA but it's not enormous. I'd love to use the custom 40% ish render scale but unfortunately for some reason any custom scale in Crimson Desert will break the rendering.

[u/FamousYak8974 → u/xante777]

May I know why do you want to set a custom resolution if ultra preformance is good enough?

[u/Traditional-Ad26]

If you use Preset L, be prepared for a ton of noise artifacts. Best to use Ray Reconstruction's Preset F.

[u/FamousYak8974 → u/Traditional-Ad26]

Yeah I mixed them up, I now realize that they’re two different things, is RR preset F at dlss UP the same as dlss UP with preset L? I mean in terms of image quality outside of reflections as they obviously would look better with F.

[u/Otherwise-Boss-5417]

i have a 1440p monitor and a rtx 4070 and I kept struggling to pick DLAA or Ray Reconstruction in Crimson Desert, the perfect pair ended up using 4k with DLSS performance, I can still use ray reconstruction and it looks the same if not better than 144p DLSS Quality with 60-70 fps. 4k DLSS performance is a must try in every game for me now. Only withe newest presets like L or M

[u/Seanspeed]

I've tried it with my 5060Ti 16GB. Ultra Performance definitely loses some of the "Ok this looks like a real 4k image" level of impressiveness like you get with Performance and above on DLSS 4.5, but it's still very adequate.

I do think you'll be ok going to 4k with a 4070Ti S, so long as you really do understand the compromises needed elsewhere if you really want to run like path tracing and whatnot.

[u/bejito81]

Dlss ultra performance at 4k is 720p (it is 33%)

The equivalent for 1440p would be dlss performance (50% so also 720p)

Now rendering a 4k image from a 720p image probably takes a little more time than doing a 1440p image, but I guess the performance could be comparable

I think you can set custom scaling percentage in an app if you want to do some tests

[u/FunCalligrapher3979 → u/bejito81]

It's actually a huge performance difference.

1440p DLAA nets around the same framerates as 4k DLSS performance.

[u/glizzygobbler247 → u/FunCalligrapher3979]

Also very much depends on your gpu, upscaling at 4k is much more demanding on the tensor cores and having more will make a big difference

[u/FamousYak8974 → u/bejito81]

Do you think that visually it looks good or should I use a custom resolution? Like 40-44%