Introduction

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has finally released on PC, with plenty of visual enhancements over its original PlayStation 5 release, such as higher quality ray traced reflections, ray traced shadows, ray traced ambient occlusion, Direct Storage 1.2, Intel XeGTAO, NVIDIA HBAO+, full support for ultra-wide screens, and this version on PC also has support for NVIDIA’s DLSS Super Resolution (DLSS 3.1), NVIDIA’s DLSS Frame Generation (also known as DLSS 3), NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing (DLAA), Intel’s Xe Super Sampling 1.2 (XeSS 1.2) and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.1 (FSR 2.1) from day one. In order to run this game at maximum graphics settings and reasonable framerates at native resolution, quite a powerful GPU is required, which is why upscaling solutions are so important. But depending on the game, there can be differences in the implementations of NVIDIA’s DLSS/DLAA/FG, Intel’s XeSS, and AMD’s FSR, so we are keen to have a look at these temporal upscalers in this game.

Below, you will find comparison screenshots at 4K, 1440p and 1080p resolutions, and in the various DLSS, XeSS and FSR quality modes; TAA, DLAA and DLSS Frame Generation screenshots are also available in the dropdown menu. For those who want to see how these technologies perform in motion, watch our side-by-side comparison video, to help uncover issues like shimmering or temporal instability, which may not be visible in the game screenshots.

All tests were made using a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU at Very High graphics settings with ray tracing enabled; motion blur, chromatic aberration and depth of field were disabled for better image viewing. DLSS Super Resolution and DLSS Frame Generation in this game shipped with version 3.1.13.

Screenshots

Side-by-Side Comparison Video

Conclusion

In Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart, the in-game TAA solution, DLAA, DLSS, XeSS and FSR 2.1 implementations all use a sharpening filter in the render path, and the game has the ability to tweak the sharpening values through separate sliders. By default each upscaling and anti-aliasing solution is using the highest sharpening value of 10, which can look very oversharpened even at high resolutions, such as 4K, and during this round of testing, we used a balanced value of 5 for the TAA, DLSS, DLAA, XeSS and FSR sharpening filters. The inclusion of a separate sharpening filter for each upscaling and temporal anti-aliasing solution is a great option to have, especially when the sharpening itself is well implemented without causing any negative side effects or artifacts during gameplay.

XeSS comes with three upscaling kernels that are optimized for various architectures. The first is the kernel that gets used on Intel Arc GPUs with XMX engines. This is the most advanced model too, that not only performs better in terms of FPS, but also offers the best upscaling quality, the “Advanced XeSS upscaling model.” Intel also provides an optimized kernel for Intel Integrated Graphics, and another compatibility kernel, used for all other architectures that support Shader Model 6.4, e.g. all recent AMD and NVIDIA cards. These use the “Standard XeSS upscaling model,” which is somewhat simpler, with lower performance and quality compared to the Advanced XeSS upscaling model (we use the compatibility model on our RTX 4080). If DP4a instructions aren’t available, as on the Radeon RX 5700 XT, slower INT24 instructions are used instead.

The in-game TAA solution has a very blurry overall image across all resolutions, even at 4K, and very poor rendering of small object-detail—thin steel objects and power lines, tree leaves, and vegetation in general. Also, the in-game TAA solution has shimmering issues on the particle effects, fur and hair strands in general, even when standing still, and this is especially visible at lower resolutions such as 1080p. All of these issues are resolved when DLAA or DLSS are enabled, due to their superior anti-aliasing solution in this game. With DLSS you can expect an improved level of detail rendered in vegetation and tree leaves in comparison to the in-game TAA solution. Small details in the distance, such as wires or thin steel objects, are rendered more correctly and completely in all Quality modes. With DLAA enabled, the overall image quality improvement goes even higher, rendering additional details compared to the TAA solution, FSR, DLSS or XeSS.

The FSR and XeSS implementations come with noticeable compromises in image quality—in favor of performance in most sequences of the game. Even though FSR and XeSS do not cause excessive shimmering and flickering on vegetation, tree leaves and thin steel objects, as we saw it numerous times in games that we’ve previously tested, in Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart, sometimes the trees are in motion due to dynamic winds and other weather effects, and the in-game TAA solution, DLAA and DLSS implementations handle moving trees and vegetation just fine, but the FSR and XeSS implementations are completely different. FSR and XeSS temporal stability completely falls apart when moving trees are in the player’s view, as if motion blur effects were enabled at the highest value, which even some of our screenshots reveal, and it is visible even when standing still across all resolutions and quality modes. Also, both FSR and XeSS have the same amount of visible shimmering on the particle effects, fur and hair strands in motion.

The NVIDIA DLSS Frame Generation implementation is excellent in this game, the overall image quality is quite impressive. Even small flying particle effects, such as different varieties of the player’s weapons and bullets, are rendered correctly, even during fast movement. Many other DLSS Frame Generation games that we’ve tested, including Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, had issues with the in-game on-screen UI, which had a very jittery look—the DLSS Frame Generation implementation in Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart does not have this issue. Also, the developers have fixed the shimmering and flickering issues on tree leaves and thin steel objects in motion, which was present in Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales.

Speaking of performance, Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart is a very CPU intensive game on PC, and high-powered GPUs such as the GeForce RTX 4080 can end up CPU bottlenecked in some sequences of the game at 1440p resolution and below. In such a CPU limited scenario, comes very welcome help from the DLSS Frame Generation technology, which has the ability to bypass CPU limitations and provide additional frames. With DLSS Super Resolution in Quality mode and DLSS Frame Generation enabled, you can expect almost doubled performance at 1440p and 4K, and during our testing, overall gameplay felt very smooth and responsive, we haven’t spotted any issues with the input latency.