Witchfire’s Efficiency Doesn’t Actually Enhance A lot with DLSS 3, and the Hitches Are Nonetheless There

Polish indie studio The Astronauts launched Witchfire in early entry final week by way of the Epic Video games Retailer. It is the developer’s second sport following The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and it is a utterly completely different style (rogue-lite darkish fantasy first-person shooter) in comparison with that sport.

In January 2023, the studio confirmed NVIDIA DLSS 3 assist, stating that it was a no brainer addition to Witchfire because it allowed the seemingly not possible when it comes to body charge and visible high quality.

In my pre-launch interview with founder and CEO Adrian Chmielarz, he stated of NVIDIA’s know-how:

With solely 67% of sharpness, let’s name it that, the picture upscaled to 100% is possibly 1% worse than if it was instantly rendered to 100%. It sounds bizarre, it sounds not possible, however that’s the reality. And the framerate enhance is phenomenal. So, for the low worth of 1% of picture degradation, which is mainly nothing, you get a a lot better expertise. I find it irresistible.

At the moment, NVIDIA has posted a DLSS comparability trailer that reveals the sport working at over 200FPS with DLSS 3, touting a 2.x3 efficiency enhance over DLSS OFF.

Nevertheless, it’s a must to remember the fact that NVIDIA at all times assessments 4K video games in Efficiency mode (upscaling from 1080p). Secondly, the comparability is at all times DLSS off to DLSS 2 (Tremendous Decision) + 3 (Body Era) on.

In Witchfire, although, DLSS Body Era is barely an enchancment, at the least in my testing with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, RTX 4090 GPU, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM. Graphics settings have been all set to Extremely, with DLSS Tremendous Decision in High quality mode (upscaling from 1440p).

As you’ll be able to see within the seize under, the typical body charge solely went up by 16 frames per second, a mere 8.2% enhance. The 1% percentile FPS fared comparatively higher – DLSS 3 gained 15.6 frames per second, however the proportion enchancment is greater than doubled (18.2%). Nevertheless, the 0.2% percentile FPS is only one.8 FPS, or 4.4%, improved with DLSS 3 enabled.

Even worse, the 0.2% percentile FPS is over half decrease than the 1% percentile determine. This interprets right into a poor expertise the place stuttering may be very noticeable regardless of the excessive common body charge. In response to CapFrameX, over 2.1% of the frames have been troubled by stuttering even when DLSS 3 was enabled. That is a a lot larger proportion than most video games I examined just lately, which all registered 1% or much less of the captured frames labeled underneath stuttering.

It is undoubtedly one thing the oldsters at The Astronauts want to enhance over the course of the early entry interval. As for the DLSS 3 efficiency enhance, it is probably the smallest one I’ve seen but. If I have been to hazard a guess, I would say it is as a result of lack of superior rendering options like ray tracing and the truth that there is not any world simulation right here. Whereas Witchfire does characteristic open-ended maps, they’re pretty small, and there are not any NPCs besides those it’s a must to kill.

DLSS 3 was initially conceived to unlock efficiency in CPU-bound video games. As such, it thrives with complicated video games that supply detailed world simulations, akin to Flight Simulator, Cyberpunk 2077, and the like. Right here, DLSS Tremendous Decision (or one of many different upscalers – the sport already helps all of them) is greater than sufficient by itself.

Players geared up with an RTX 4080 or RTX 4090 GPU ought to have greater than sufficient common FPS (stutters however) to make use of DLAA as a substitute of DLSS. Witchfire would not have native assist for it, although you can strive with the DLSSTweaks software.

On the plus aspect, the sport already consists of graphics settings like Area of View (FoV) slider, FPS limiter, and toggles for post-processing results like Chromatic Aberration, Bloom, Movement Blur, Vignette, Grain, Lens Flares, and Depth of Area. The Astronauts deserve some kudos right here, as we have seen loads of triple-A studios failing to supply the identical stage of customization. Nevertheless, the controller assist is presently incomplete, as there is not any rumble performance.