GameScope FSR Misconception

[TheShootist]

I heard many everywhere say FSR and other such scaling tech only works if the rendering resolution runs under the game resolution that's being used. However I play World of Warcraft on my steam deck with it hooked to a 1080p screen. I play using gaming mode to take advantage of gamescope and my game's resolution is set to the steam deck native resolution, as in 1280x800.

I would appreciate if someone else could test this, but FSR 100% makes the game look clearer and crisper even through the game is rendering at 100% of the resolution, not below, and and are both set to the deck's native resolution. I swear FSR sharpens the game and it looks great on the 1080p screen, it even becomes blurry as you would expect on a game running in 800p on a 1080 screen if I turn off FSR.

Bottom line is, it seems FSR works regardless of whether the rendering resolution is 100% or not, if you want to get more performance out of your steam deck, there is definitely an incentive to play your games in gaming mode with FSR on and your resolution set to 800p. The game will look great and your system will be taxed less, just tell the deck to stretch the image and viola.

[Mahjik]

When people are talking about FSR and running a lower resolution, they are talking about the SteamOS FSR. If a game has their own FSR inside, it may and likely will, operate different.

[MarvinR]

not an expert on the technology itself, but it's just an upscaling system.
to upscale you need a low resolution input, and a higher resolution output.

a game's own upscaling can only go up to whatever the game's resolution is set to because that's what it has set as the maximum resolution it can output, so you have to have a rendering resolution lower than the game's resolution to get upscaling.

system upscaling(the option in the steamdeck sidemenu) takes the game resolution as input, and can bring it up to the system resolution(which steamdeck i think can do up to 4k if the connected screen supports it, but is 1280x800 on the built in screen)

your example works because system upscaling takes it from 1280x800(game resolution) to 1920x1080(system resolution).
game upscaling could do that jump too, if the game is configured to render at 1280x800 but run at 1920x1080.

game upscaling tends to be better because it's tailored to the game.(use a native resolution HUD with upscaled 3D for example)
system upscaling is an alternative that works on anything, but doesn't have optimizations for the specific game content.

[TheShootist]

Originally posted by MarvinR:

not an expert on the technology itself, but it's just an upscaling system.
to upscale you need a low resolution input, and a higher resolution output.

a game's own upscaling can only go up to whatever the game's resolution is set to because that's what it has set as the maximum resolution it can output, so you have to have a rendering resolution lower than the game's resolution to get upscaling.

system upscaling(the option in the steamdeck sidemenu) takes the game resolution as input, and can bring it up to the system resolution(which steamdeck i think can do up to 4k if the connected screen supports it, but is 1280x800 on the built in screen)

your example works because system upscaling takes it from 1280x800(game resolution) to 1920x1080(system resolution).
game upscaling could do that jump too, if the game is configured to render at 1280x800 but run at 1920x1080.

game upscaling tends to be better because it's tailored to the game.(use a native resolution HUD with upscaled 3D for example)
system upscaling is an alternative that works on anything, but doesn't have optimizations for the specific game content.

Ah this explains it, see my steam deck is set to only allow a game to go up to 800p, but the system resolution is gaming mode is 1080. So in wow, while resolution is 800p and rendering at 100%, the FSR from gamescope is probably scaling to 1080p due to system resolution. Good explanation. I'll say this though, I do think Steam Deck's system FSR works amazing, you'd think the game was running on 1080p even though it's set to 800p, I definitely think it's somehow superior to the internal FSR of WoW as I've tinkered a lot with that too and didn't find the fidelity as impressive.

[shadowboy813]

In the case of WoW, it does not support exclusive full screen mode. It runs in borderless mode so it is probably running at 1920x1080 with the in-game render resolution set at 800p or 720p (because I presume you've set it there). This will result in UI being sharp but the game world being upscaled. WoW supports FSR 1.0 IIRC, which is the same upscaler as the SD game mode upscaler. If you force 1280x800 for WoW through the game's properties (telling it to render at 1280x800 instead of "native") you'll get worse results because the UI will also be upscaled and hence look blurry. Don't use game mode's upscaler in WoW. It has its own.

[TheShootist]

Originally posted by shadowboy813:

In the case of WoW, it does not support exclusive full screen mode. It runs in borderless mode so it is probably running at 1920x1080 with the in-game render resolution set at 800p or 720p (because I presume you've set it there). This will result in UI being sharp but the game world being upscaled. WoW supports FSR 1.0 IIRC, which is the same upscaler as the SD game mode upscaler. If you force 1280x800 for WoW through the game's properties (telling it to render at 1280x800 instead of "native") you'll get worse results because the UI will also be upscaled and hence look blurry. Don't use game mode's upscaler in WoW. It has its own.

8
In game settings state it's running in 1280x800, in game render scale is set to 100%. My steam deck is set to allow all games to run at 1280x800 at most from the steam deck settings. My system though, connected to a monitor, is set to 1080p. When I launch the game, the game is blurry due to running in 800p while using a 1080p monitor, but when I use the gamescope FSR, it looks perfect. In-game FSR is turned off and set to point. I don't know man, like I said in a previous post, I think the Deck's FSR somehow makes it look better. Maybe someone else can verify if there is a difference in quality between the one the game has vs steam decks own FSR.

[Mahjik]

When you do that, it will read that the external monitor is 1080p and the game resolution is 800p. That's exactly what allows SteamOS's version of FSR to work. It's the same as if you were using the Deck screen at 800p, and then turn the game resolution down to below 800p so SteamOS's FSR would enable.

[retro_Ed]

If game performance is good enough then it is also possible to run game with displays native resolution. (...or higher...)
In this case 1080p
FOR EVERY GAME:
Steam-Settings-Display-Maximum Game Resolution

FOR ONLY SINGLE GAME
Game Page-Wheel Icon-Properties...-General-Game Resolution

Set resolution for internal and external display / toggle ON allows game render higher resolution than decks own display. This helps some games with poor/no antialiasing
(good bad example GTA4)

[Mr Jt (Gog is king)]

Its an upscaler

[TheShootist]

Originally posted by retro_Ed:

If game performance is good enough then it is also possible to run game with displays native resolution. (...or higher...)
In this case 1080p
FOR EVERY GAME:
Steam-Settings-Display-Maximum Game Resolution

FOR ONLY SINGLE GAME
Game Page-Wheel Icon-Properties...-General-Game Resolution

Set resolution for internal and external display / toggle ON allows game render higher resolution than decks own display. This helps some games with poor/no antialiasing
(good bad example GTA4)

Didn't know there were game specific settings for resolution we could do, good tip thanks!