How to lose less?

[andrea68707 CdkeyIT]

What can someone do in order to still get scaling and fg with losing the least amount of base fps? or what about upscaling from lower resolutions? does that only improves fps or not? like upscaling can harm base fps?

[Space Detective]

I haven't experimented much, though I have heard that a lower res helps frame generating since making in-between frames for e.g. a 1080p video stream is more intensive than a 720p one, which is pretty much my hunch.

For best results though, make sure the window is actually smaller, rather than just the internal resolution. This pretty much means you'd want to use LS's image scaling over whatever the game provides. Otherwise, LS is still doing frame-gen based on your fullscreen resolution; while your GPU is doing less 3D rendering work, it's still doing just as much frame-gen work.

[andrea68707 CdkeyIT]

Originally posted by Space Detective:

I haven't experimented much, though I have heard that a lower res helps frame generating since making in-between frames for e.g. a 1080p video stream is more intensive than a 720p one, which is pretty much my hunch.

For best results though, make sure the window is actually smaller, rather than just the internal resolution. This pretty much means you'd want to use LS's image scaling over whatever the game provides. Otherwise, LS is still doing frame-gen based on your fullscreen resolution; while your GPU is doing less 3D rendering work, it's still doing just as much frame-gen work.

so in order to get the most out of everything, you may suggest to play in 720p upscaled + fg? But what about disabling completely upscaling or disable completely frame gen for certian games?

[Space Detective]

Originally posted by andrea68707 CdkeyIT:

so in order to get the most out of everything, you may suggest to play in 720p upscaled + fg? But what about disabling completely upscaling or disable completely frame gen for certian games?

1: 720p is just kind of an arbitrary example, you could use any resolution you want. There's a good guide for recommended resolutions to upscale from when using LS1/FSR here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2571051375
2: You could completely disable upscaling, but then the game would just kinda occupy a portion of the screen in the center rather than filling it up. More helpfully, you could try Nearest Neighbor or Sharp Bilinear, which are basically free.
All that said, I do suggest at least trying the LS1 or FSR upscaling options to see how they perform and look. While they're more complicated than NN/SB, they should still provide more performance than running the game at native res.

3: I mean, yeah you could disable frame gen, but I thought the point of your question was how to optimize for frame gen lol. Kinda defeats the point if you disable it.
Not using frame gen would certainly help reduce the work your GPU has to do, though you then don't get the improved visual fluidity. Depends on what you really want to do, I guess.
You could try using the Performance toggle or the older version of LSFG from the dropdown if you're willing to take some more visual oddities in exchange for more performance.

[Space Detective]

Basically, when using frame gen, you want to not overwork the GPU; try to keep overall utilization around 80% or so IIRC. That's good advice for PC gaming in general too, really.

Whether you accomplish this by lowering the game resolution and using built-in upscaling, lowering other game settings, by tweaking options in LS and/or using it to upscale the game, or some other combination of these, it doesn't matter so long as the end result runs well and looks good to you.

[sir_ordz]

One option available so that you lose absolutely no FPS at all is to use a secondary GPU to handle up-scaling and frame generation, just make sure to select the second GPU in the preferred GPU setting of the lossless scaling menu.

For example on my main PC I use an old spare secondary GPU in my rig (1660 Super) for up-scaling and frame generation and use main my main GPU (3080 ti) dedicated to the game.

On my gaming laptop I use the iGPU included in the CPU (Vega 7) for up-scaling and frame generation and the main GPU (3060m) dedicated to the game.

This arrangement has worked flawlessly for me even using other utilities like specialK to reduce latency alongside lossless scaling. By using a secondary GPU it completely eliminates the FPS overhead when lossless scaling is enabled.

Be aware however that a very weak secondary GPU like the Vega 7 in my gaming laptop can only handle lossless scaling 4X frame generation in performance mode, the spare 1660 super in my main rig however easily supports 4X frame generation quality at 4K resolution no problem.

Also if your using two GPU's from two different vendors like say a one GPU from Nvidia and the other from AMD you might run into driver conflicts or default rendering device conflicts.

[Space Detective]

Originally posted by sir_ordz:

[snip]

Hm, I've heard elsewhere that using a secondary GPU for upscaling really doesn't work that well, unless you're on a laptop.

[sir_ordz]

Originally posted by Space Detective:

Originally posted by sir_ordz:

[snip]

Hm, I've heard elsewhere that using a secondary GPU for upscaling really doesn't work that well, unless you're on a laptop.

Using two discrete GPU's works absolutely perfectly for me although I did have to make sure to synchronise my nvidia driver settings between each GPU to match exactly, and importantly have the lossless scaling app set to prioritise running on my secondary GPU in both windows graphics settings and inside of the lossless scaling app itself.

With some tinkering of settings I have it setup so when I activate framegen and up-scaling I lose no FPS on my main GPU at all.

Presumably if you have integrated graphics in your CPU like most modern Intel CPU's you could do the same thing and it would work fine too although the integrated graphics may not be performant enough to keep the frame generation smooth at high framerates.

[Space Detective]

Originally posted by sir_ordz:

Using two discrete GPU's works absolutely perfectly for me although I did have to make sure to synchronise my nvidia driver settings between each GPU to match exactly

...Nvidia drivers give each GPU their own set of profiles?

I mean, I guess I can see why; you probably wouldn't want the weaker GPU to e.g. do 8x forced SSAA in a game, but that must get really confusing when tweaking things. "I thought I had enabled forced anisotropic filtering on this game! ...Oh, I was editing the profile for my 1660 Ti and not my 3080."

[sir_ordz]

Originally posted by Space Detective:

Originally posted by sir_ordz:

Using two discrete GPU's works absolutely perfectly for me although I did have to make sure to synchronise my nvidia driver settings between each GPU to match exactly

...Nvidia drivers give each GPU their own set of profiles?

I mean, I guess I can see why; you probably wouldn't want the weaker GPU to e.g. do 8x forced SSAA in a game, but that must get really confusing when tweaking things. "I thought I had enabled forced anisotropic filtering on this game! ...Oh, I was editing the profile for my 1660 Ti and not my 3080."

They both use the same profile, sorry my explanation was crappy, on laptop I use separate drivers and the settings must match, on PC it's more difficult, because windows gets picky about it's output and drivers become an issue because they must support both GPU's,

For the time being I've got my setup working great but with driver and windows updates things can go wonky.

A processor with an iGPU output is probably the easiest way to offload the full FPS the cost of the lossless scaling app on a PC.

[andrea68707 CdkeyIT]

Originally posted by sir_ordz:

Originally posted by Space Detective:

Hm, I've heard elsewhere that using a secondary GPU for upscaling really doesn't work that well, unless you're on a laptop.

Using two discrete GPU's works absolutely perfectly for me although I did have to make sure to synchronise my nvidia driver settings between each GPU to match exactly, and importantly have the lossless scaling app set to prioritise running on my secondary GPU in both windows graphics settings and inside of the lossless scaling app itself.

With some tinkering of settings I have it setup so when I activate framegen and up-scaling I lose no FPS on my main GPU at all.

Presumably if you have integrated graphics in your CPU like most modern Intel CPU's you could do the same thing and it would work fine too although the integrated graphics may not be performant enough to keep the frame generation smooth at high framerates.

i'm on a single gpu setup, so... i can't really do that and the psu wouldn't agree with such an option hahahah

[andrea68707 CdkeyIT]

Originally posted by Space Detective:

Originally posted by andrea68707 CdkeyIT:

so in order to get the most out of everything, you may suggest to play in 720p upscaled + fg? But what about disabling completely upscaling or disable completely frame gen for certian games?

1: 720p is just kind of an arbitrary example, you could use any resolution you want. There's a good guide for recommended resolutions to upscale from when using LS1/FSR here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2571051375
2: You could completely disable upscaling, but then the game would just kinda occupy a portion of the screen in the center rather than filling it up. More helpfully, you could try Nearest Neighbor or Sharp Bilinear, which are basically free.
All that said, I do suggest at least trying the LS1 or FSR upscaling options to see how they perform and look. While they're more complicated than NN/SB, they should still provide more performance than running the game at native res.

3: I mean, yeah you could disable frame gen, but I thought the point of your question was how to optimize for frame gen lol. Kinda defeats the point if you disable it.
Not using frame gen would certainly help reduce the work your GPU has to do, though you then don't get the improved visual fluidity. Depends on what you really want to do, I guess.
You could try using the Performance toggle or the older version of LSFG from the dropdown if you're willing to take some more visual oddities in exchange for more performance.

ok, i've got it overall but i was asking a secondary question, can upscaling low resolutions to desktop resolutions, somewhat lower the base fps?

[andrea68707 CdkeyIT]

so a rule of thumb may be switching between ls1, nn, sb and fsr, cutting in half the res and using fg?

What about the cursor being invisibile outside the window and games that don't autoscale?

[Space Detective]

Originally posted by andrea68707 CdkeyIT:

ok, i've got it overall but i was asking a secondary question, can upscaling low resolutions to desktop resolutions, somewhat lower the base fps?

Compared to just running at that low res without any scaling? Well, your GPU is doing more work when you use upscaling, though it'll probably be fine. You're always able to test and see the results, and try different scaling types if you don't like the performance of one.

Originally posted by andrea68707 CdkeyIT:

so a rule of thumb may be switching between ls1, nn, sb and fsr, cutting in half the res and using fg?

Kind of, though NN/SB are more a matter of taste or if LS1/FSR actually has a noticeable performance impact. I'd suggest trying LS1 first, and only going with others if it has a noticeable performance impact or if you're unhappy with the visual results.

You don't necessarily have to cut the res in half either; you can upscale from arbitrary resolutions, though lower does give better performance (unless you're bottlenecked elsewhere), and a nice clean 1/2 division does mean you have to do less math.
If you scroll back up, that guide I linked provides some resolutions you can try that imitate FSR's performance/quality profiles, if you're interested in trying to optimize base resolution vs. performance.

Originally posted by andrea68707 CdkeyIT:

What about the cursor being invisibile outside the window and games that don't autoscale?

The "windowed mode" option (the one that just expands a window without making it fullscreen) is considered deprecated AFAIK, so you're probably not going to be able to get any help with it. If it helps, alt+tabbing out of LS is pretty fast as well as unscaling and rescaling a game, so unless you actively need to look at a window as you play using LS in fullscreen is quite fine.

As for autoscale, I don't use that feature; I prefer using the hotkey. I don't recall what it is by default, but you can click on the settings button (the cog icon) to see what it is, and change it to whatever you want.
I think adjusting the delay before autoscale can help with games that don't want to cooperate, but again I don't use the feature, sorry.