NVIDIA's DLSS 4.5 was compared against native resolution & AMD FSR Upscaling in several games & turned out to be the top choice in a blind test.
Native vs NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 vs AMD FSR Upscaling: Blind Test By Computerbase Reveals Which Is The Top Choice For Gamers
The blind test was done by Computerbase, in which over 1000 community members participated. The premise was simple: have a bunch of games using either Native Resolution, NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, and AMD FSR, and ask the community to pick their preferred choice based on image quality.
For comparisons, the six games that were used included: Anno 117, Arc Raiders, Cyberpunk 2077, Horizon Forbidden West, Satisfactory, and The Last of Us Part II.
The resolution was set to 4K in each game, and for Native resolution, TAA was used, which often leads to a blurry experience, but in most games, it is the only available AA option. For DLSS 4.5 and FSR (4), the "Quality" preset was used. The upscaling technologies have a higher preset, called DLAA, which would have further skewed the result in favor of the technologies, but that is essentially AA at native resolution, and not upscaling from a lower input resolution.
So, as for the results, it looks like the majority picked up NVIDIA's DLSS 4.5 with 48.2% or 3,249 users preferring Team Green's upscaling quality. Native was the second best with 24% or 1,619 users picking that up as the preferred choice. Only 15% or 1,013 users picked AMD's FSR Upscaling, while 12.8% or 866 users found no difference between the three.
| The best image quality is offered by (number of votes cast) | In total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Native | Nvidia DLSS 4.5 | AMD FSR Upscaling AI | Equivalent | ||
| Anno 117 | 282 (22.8%) | 621 (50.1%) | 204 (16.5%) | 132 (10.7%) | 1,239 (100%) |
| ARC Raiders | 328 (27.3%) | 570 (47.4%) | 166 (13.8%) | 138 (11.5%) | 1,202 (100%) |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 372 (32.4%) | 394 (34.4%) | 122 (10.6%) | 259 (22.6%) | 1,147 (100%) |
| Horizon Forbidden West | 208 (19.4%) | 604 (56.3%) | 125 (11.7%) | 135 (12.6%) | 1,072 (100%) |
| Satisfactory | 155 (15.1%) | 627 (60.9%) | 128 (12.4%) | 119 (11.6%) | 1,029 (100%) |
| The Last of Us Part II | 274 (25.9%) | 433 (40.9%) | 268 (25.3%) | 83 (7.8%) | 1,058 (100%) |
| Final result | |||||
| In total | 1,619 | 3,249 | 1,013 | 866 | 6,747 |
| Portion | 24.0% | 48.2% | 15.0% | 12.8% | 100% |
So this blind test kind of answers the question of whether upscaling technologies can be better than the native image quality. I have personally seen this case in real-life that most people who speak against the use of upscaling technologies will actually prefer it over native when they are not told that the tech is up and running. If someone tells them that upscaling is being used, they'll easily be carried away and start pointing out how the upscaling tech is inferior to native, which they hadn't noticed until the use of the tech was still in wraps.
DLSS 4.5 is the latest upscaling solution from NVIDIA, while AMD's FSR 4 has also been out for a while. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. In motion, upscaling technologies still need a lot of work, especially with frame-generation algorithms now going up to 6x modes. With that said, both NVIDIA and AMD have done a fantastic job in enabling more performance by bringing advanced upscaling tech that is eons ahead of what we got a few years back.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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