Clarity Mode for AMD GPUs

Settings for the best image clarity

Intro

The game is blurry even at native resolution. This is because of the combination of multiple settings which blurs the image. Here's the list of settings to avoid to keep the best clarity possible:

- TAA
- Depth of Field
- Motion Blur
- In-game Upscaling

Let's dig in each setting.

Upscaling

The upscaler used in helldivers is blurry and I'm not sure which one they're using. I made a comparison of the "balanced" rendering and bilinear upscaling at 1440p on a 4K screen. The bilinear was better than the upscaler used by helldivers which is crazy.

My recommendation is to disable the in-game upscaler by setting it at native
Also set your desired rendering resolution (I render 1440p for my 4K screen)
Display mode must be set at fullscreen so we can use AMD upscaler from Adrenalin.



Now we need to enable AMD Radeon Super Resolution which is a driver-level upscaler using FSR. Open Adrenalin software, go to Gaming and add a profile for Helldivers. Enable "Radeon Super Resolution" and that's it.



I prefer using the CAS sharpener of AMD. It has lower overhead and gives more sharpness than the in-game sharpener. Set at 0 the in-game sharpness.



RSR will automatically upscale the rendering buffer using FSR, adds a sharpening filter and displays to the screen at its native resolution (4K in my case). The result will yield a more clearer image than the in-game solution.

Anti-Aliasing

TAA is the only AA available. It is very good to remove aliasing and shimmering but it also brings a lot of blur.

My recommendation is to turn it off.

Optional settings

Depth of Field

This adds blur to distant objects. I prefer turning it off for more clarity.

Motion Blur

This setting helps for motion fluidity at low fps. If your fps sits between 30 and 60 fps, motion blur isn't bad at all. I play at 100+ fps on a 120Hz Freesync monitor so I prefer turning it off.

ReShade (at your own risk!)

Disclaimer: Using an injector like ReShade might be against TOS and can possibly conduct to a ban of your account! Use it at your own risk.

ReShade works with Helldivers 2 giving access to many filters. SMAA is easily the best one for anti-aliasing. It's low overhead and doesn't blur textures. It won't remove all the shimering like TAA but it will retain a very clear image.

SMAA in action

SMAA from Reshade is very customizable allowing fine tuning the AA.

To avoid affecting the HUD ie User Interface, I'm using the "Depth Edge Detection" type. It covers less edges than "Color Edge Dectection" or "Luminance Edge Dectection" but it keeps a clear interface which is much more pleasant to look at.

Here's an example how SMAA works with depth edge detection in debug mode. As you can see it doesn't touch the HUD at all which is amazing.


I use a threshold of 0.1 for maximum edges coverage


SMAA off vs on




SMAA is far from being the best AA solution. A lot of aliasing will remain. Its main advantage is its low overhead costing 1 to 3 fps. At 1440p rendering resolution with SMAA on, it is really good enough that the aliased edges aren't bothering to my eyes.

For 1080p rendering, jaggies can be bothering and aggressive solution can be used. Here are some solutions:
FXAA + SMAA (depth edge detection): Less aliased but it will be more blurry. To gain back some clarity increase the sharpening filter Adrenaline.
FXAA + SMAA (luminance or color edge detection): more edges will be covered by SMAA but the User Interface will be soften and blurried.

[Níðhöggr]

@welove****

Yes I'm using RSR because it offers a clear upscaled image.

What you're suggesting is to not use any upscaler so the default upscaling method would be bilinear handled by the GPU.

In my case RSR gives a much better image clarity. I'm rendering a custom resolution of 2336 x 1314 upscaled to 4K with RSR + CAS filter (the sharpen slider) + lumsharpen from reshade. It is much better than bilinear + CAS filter + reshade.

In other games like D4, I use bilinear upscaler + ingame sharpen. That's because of the artefacts/ghosting produced by FSR1 or FSR2 implemented by the game itself.

[WELOVECOCK]

BTW, you have Radeon Super Resolution enabled in your AMD adrenalin settings, it's the one that blurs your picture, although you turned off the upscaler in the game... AMD has a setting that only affects sharpness - Radeon Image Sharpening...

[soaP]

ReShade is always good as long as you're not using additional plugins to grab depth info etc.
I am fixing artifacts the game has, aliasing on things even with AA enabled (wtf, devs) and sharpening a little bit.
Using effects in this order. Deband; CMAA_2; CAS