#virtual super resolution

[badcarmilla]

How to Take HQ Screenshots Without Using SRWE

Using AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition (maybe works on other versions of AMD GPU settings apps too, try it!)

I came across @thebramblewood's and @glittermutt's posts (x, x) about this topic, went to try it on my AMD card, and turns out it's even easier if you have a card that supports VSR (Virtual Super Resolution).

All you have to do is enable the VSR option, which can be found in the display tab or by searching for it.

Then you can just follow the rest of @thebramblewood's and @glittermutt's posts for the in-game steps! You don't have to create any custom resolutions, there will automatically be a bunch of options already in game, but if you wanted to make some non-standard resolutions you can!

[walklikethedead]

I’ve been experimenting with Virtual Super Resolution in AMD Crimson, and it’s actually pretty nifty. If you don’t know, it’s a game engine-independent function available with newer AMD GPU’s/software, analogous to Nvidia’s Dynamic Super Resolution, wherein games and other programs are run at higher resolutions than your monitor technically supports, then downsampled to your screen’s native resolution. It’s basically Supersampling, more or less, eliminating the need for anti-aliasing by simply rendering scenes at much higher resolutions in the first place, while Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing tries to smooth out the jagged lines producd by lower resolutions in the first place.

Obviously, I can’t run games like Dying Light and Fallout 4 at super high resolutions, but some of my older games are getting a nice boost from VSR. In particular, I can run Skyrim at 4K HD and downsample it to my monitor’s 1366x768 resolution. Everything looks smoother, sharper, more detailed, and there’s almost nothing in the way of jagged lines and edges left over. The only downside is that running VSR on a resolution much higher than 1080p tends to heat my GPU up to almost 80c. That’s well within the safe zone, but I don’t like my GPU getting much hotter than 65c at the most.

But how much a game will get out of this feature seems to be a crap shoot, to be honest. Some games will crash if you try to use it with them at all, while others showcase no real improvements in image quality whatsoever. For instance, I tested both Half-Life 2 & Just Cause 2, and didn’t really see much of a difference between using VSR and simply applying MSAA in each game normally... I mean other than my GPU almost shooting fire out its ass on JC2, that is. Skyrim, on the other hand, looked absolutely fantastic(aside from the piddling draw distance inherent to most “last-gen” games becoming more apparent).

In any event, it’s an interesting feature that can really help if you’ve got the hardware needed to run games on higher resolutions, but are stuck with a relatively low-end screen. If you have AMD Crimson and an AMD GPU that supports VSR, it’s worth checking out sometime.