Question I'm dumb. Is DLSS supposed to be used or not?

[Stg-Flame]

From what I've read, it appears to be similar to V-Sync in that if you don't need it, don't use it, but I've heard so many differing opinions on a game-by-game basis that I'm thoroughly confused now. Granted, 99% of my information is coming from users on Reddit and Steam discussions and I'm aware that different hardware configurations will change a user's experience so I take everything I read with a massive grain of salt but I'd like to understand whether or not this option is good or not. For a game like Escape From Tarkov, I don't see any noticeable improvement to FPS with or without DLSS and a lot of users report they see a significant boost without it enabled. For Cyberpunk, I saw a very slight increase to performance but it seemed like some of the graphics appeared blurry or out of focus in some sequences after enabling it. I had a similar effect with Tarkov when DLSS was enabled, some of my movement made certain scenery objects appear to have a "warp-speed" effect if I turned too sharp. However, when I was playing Dying Light 2, the graphics appeared sharp and much more clear with DLSS enabled while not seeing any change to my FPS.

I've been out of the graphical loop for over a decade so I never kept up with this feature but I kept hearing people rave about DLSS cards and I honestly can't tell the difference when playing a game. Can someone break this down for me? Hardware is in my signature (I just got my new PSU back from EVGA so I need to stress test the absolute **** out of my machine tonight to see if my past crashing issues were in-fact PSU related).

Edit: All my games are being played at 4K resolution (3840X2160) @ 144hz G-Sync.

 

[Heartbreaker]

DLSS 2.5.1 deprecated sharpness setting. It no longer does anything which is great. No more sharpening related issues and completely neutral image. That version also fixed some visual artifacts and now it looks really, really good. In Uncharted 4 DLSS quality looks better than native (if you use 2.5.1 - it also solves the issues with the sharpness slider). Combine it with custom resolution so that it actually is rendering at native resolution and quality is going to be fantastic. It will handle motion much better than the in-game TAA (which also happens to have annoying oversharpening). Also subpixel detail in static scenes is better.

What was the issue with the sharpness slider?

IMO, the amount of sharpening should be left to the end user. Some sharpening can improve the look if applied judiciously.

 

[Stuka87]

That's basically FSR issue. In general DLSS handles that better than native TAA implementations. Uncharted 4 is a good example, especially with version 2.5.1.

Both FSR and DLSS have various modes. Performance, Balanced, and Quality. If they are both in Performance, the quality is not great with either.