Cant tell a difference

[sunToxx]

So i have tried this in The Ascent. Been playing it before on a 4k monitor and had 1440p scaled up by gpu and used sharpening also from nvidia control panel.

Turned off sharpening in the control panel, set the game to windowed mode and had the tool scale it up with FSR.

Is there supposed to be a visible difference? Cause to me it still looks the same as before when I just scaled it up by setting lower resolution ingame in fullscreen mode and used the nvidia control panel sharpening.

[NimBold]

This is exactly what it should do. If you used NIS from the driver, then it's exactly what LS will do. The difference is that by LS you have other options as well like FSR.
In my testings NIS (Nvidia image scaler) does some weird stuff with textures and over sharps the edges. It's a new kid on the block but for now FSR is far better in every aspect.
Try changing the scale method and also play with sharpening values in LS and see for yourself.

[sunToxx]

Hm, true, it does look a bit different. It seems NIS with sharpening 5 or 6 is already as sharp as FSR on 10. FSR on 5 is definitely too blurry for a large screen. Not sure what you mean with the textures. Sharpening on NIS seems way stronger. Comparing medium NIS sharpening with high FSR sharpening, I do not see an advantage on either side by now.

[sunToxx]

Interesting. When I run Pillars of Eternity in a 4k window and then have the app scale it to 4k with fsr, the game actualy looks better. More crisp.

[CrowRising]

It's really easy to tell the difference between NIS and FSR when playing pixel art games such as some of the Shantae, Mega Man, and Castlevania games. Even with NIS at the lowest value you can set it to, there's noticeable "haloing" (lightened colors along the edges of pixels) that gives the pixel art a really odd look to it. FSR allows for this problem to be avoided on lower settings, but setting it too low can cause the pixels to look a bit rounded out, which can be it's own problem if you don't deliberately want that.

Thankfully FSR isn't too difficult to fine tune so that it feels just right.

[sunToxx]

I rarely play pixel art games but gonna keep the tool because it adds quality of life to upscaling, as i can adjust sharpness on the fly instead of in nvidia control panel with a game restart. In The Ascent i cant realy tell a difference between NIS and FSR, except that NIS needs a much lower sharpness value for the same result. But good anyway to have both as an option, especially as you can try it all on the fly.