Metro Exodus and Battlefield V DLSS – A Performance Boost With Compromises

Introduction

DLSS

The addition of DLSS is big news for Nvidia and gamers, but does it live up to the hype? We already know from our current testing that turning on Ray Tracing is a good way to cut down those lovely framerates. However, from my own gaming experience, the visual benefits are staggering, especially in Metro Exodus. While Battlefield V only uses it for reflections, and quite well I might add. Metro Exodus uses the effect for global lighting and the results are something to behold. However, even the flagship GPUs from the RTX series are feeling the strain.

What is DLSS?

DLSS stands for “deep learning super-sampling” and it’s basically a powerful upscaling engine. Nvidia trains their AI on footage of the game, images and more. It then tries to upscale that image, and when it does a good job, they tell the software which results were good. This process is then repeated over and over on their supercomputers. Basically, it keeps learning and improving. The end result is the game renders at a lower resolution, which increases FPS drastically (we hope), while the upscaling system tries to maintain the original quality of the higher resolution image. Keeping track? Good.

Battlefield V

Well, this is where things get complicated. As the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 support DLSS at 1080p, 1440p and 2160p. However, only 1440p and 2160p are supported on the RTX 2080. Furthermore, you can only run it at 2160p on the RTX 2080 Ti. I’m not sure why, but that is what it is.

NVIDIA’s New Recommended 60FPS Settings for Battlefield V

• RTX 2060 – 1440p High Preset with Medium DXR + DLSS
• RTX 2070 – 1440p Ultra Preset with Medium DXR + DLSS
• RTX 2080 – 1440p Ultra Preset with Ultra DXR + DLSS
• RTX 2080 Ti – 4K Ultra Preset with Ultra DXR + DLSS

Metro Exodus

You would think DLSS support to be the same as Battlefield V, right? Wrong! This game supports 1080p and 1440p DLSS on the RTX 2060, but only if you have Ray Tracing enabled. The RTX 2070 works at 1080p and 1440p with Ray Tracing enables, but also at 4K with Ray Tracing on or off. Moving on, the RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti can’t do DLSS at 1080p, but will with Ray Tracing on at 1440p, and Ray Tracing on or off at 2160p.

NVIDIA’s Recommended 60FPS Settings for Metro Exodus

• RTX 2060 – 1080p Ultra Preset with High DXR + DLSS
• RTX 2070 – 1080p Ultra Preset with High DXR + DLSS
• RTX 2080 – 1440p Ultra Preset with High DXR + DLSS
• RTX 2080 Ti – 4K Ultra Preset with High DXR + DLSS