When I first tried Death Stranding’s DLSS 2.0 technology in the lead up to the game’s release, I couldn’t show you what it really looked like. I could tell you that turning it on would turn any RTX card into a 4K machine at 60fps, but not how his wits, AI-powered scaling magic affected the images in the game. Well now I can, and as you’ll soon be able to see for yourself, there’s precisely … wait, what were my DLSS screenshots again?
DLSS, in case you forgot because there are so few playable DLSS games right now, stands for Deep Learning Super Sampling, and is one of Nvidia’s exclusive RTX features. It’s a nifty scaling technology that uses AI to fill in the gaps when gaming at high resolutions like 4K, helping to keep those frame rates nice and high without affecting your GPU’s performance. The game should look the same as with DLSS disabled, but works better as a result.
The first iteration of DLSS we saw in Final Fantasy XV did a decent job of building the game’s vast environments without rendering every single pixel, but closer inspection revealed some slightly muddy textures towards the horizon.
Final Fantasy XV’s DLSS technology looked good on the move, but look too closely and you’ll see where its artificial intelligence conjecture is making. On the left is a close-up of the horizon in native 4K, while on the right is the same scene with DLSS enabled (click to enlarge).
Since then, Nvidia has refined its DLSS technology and released DLSS 2.0 in August last year. DLSS 2.0 is much faster than its previous incarnation, and Nvidia has somehow brought it to a point where it can produce images that are comparable to their native-resolution originals but only represent 25-50% of the pixels, which is pretty crazy. . It’s also a bit more flexible than before as it gives gamers the option to choose between Quality, Balanced, and Performance modes that control the game’s internal rendering resolution.
There aren’t many games using this new form of DLSS yet: Death Stranding is one of the first, alongside Control, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Mechwarriors 5, and Deliver Us The Moon, but as you can see from my Death Stranding images below (do click to enlarge), it has definitely improved a lot since it was first released.
Death Stranding in 4K at Very High, with DLSS disabled.
Death Stranding at 4K at very high, with DLSS quality enabled.
Death Stranding at 4K at very high, with DLSS Performance enabled.
I swear those are three different images, honest.
Even with zoom, there is very little difference between them, which is quite impressive. All the rocks look equally sharp and detailed to my eyes, there is no discernible difference in the quality of their shadows or lighting, and the grassy hillside also looks green and overgrown.
The only real flaw between DLSS and non-DLSS, at least as far as I can tell anyway, is that the current in the upper right corner is a little more detailed in its native state, showing ripples and righter waves as the water falls down the slope. But live man, I think it would be difficult to detect it without getting close as I did below, and it’s definitely a huge improvement compared to the Final Fantasy XV version.
DLSS disabled extended.
Extended DLSS quality.
Extended DLSS performance.
So yes, if you have an RTX card, it would be crazy not to turn on Death Stranding’s DLSS setting and enjoy those higher frame rates. Without DLSS, for example, my RTX 2070 Super was hitting a decent average of around 55 fps in Very High at 4K, but there were times during some of the scenes where it got a little difficult at some point in the low 40s. In DLSS quality mode, that average frame rate jumped to around 75 fps, while in Performance it shot up to just over 90 fps. All while producing an almost identical image, too.
However, you don’t necessarily need an RTX card to enjoy smooth frame rate in Death Stranding, as the game works wonderfully even on a GTX 1060 at 1920 × 1080. For more information on how it works, head over to my article on the performance of Death Stranding PC.
