Introduction

Remnant 2 is out now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and is one of the first games developed on Unreal Engine 5.2. However, even though the game is using this cutting edge version of Unreal Engine, only Nanite virtualized geometry is fully supported, so other Unreal Engine 5.2 technologies such as Lumen or Virtual Shadow Maps are missing. This release 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 1.1 (XeSS 1.1) and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.2 (FSR 2.2) 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 2.2 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 Ultra graphics settings; motion blur, chromatic aberration and depth of field were disabled for better image viewing. DLSS Super Resolution in this game shipped with version 3.1.1 and DLSS Frame Generation shipped with version 3.1.13.

Screenshots

Side-by-Side Comparison Video

Conclusion

In Remnant 2, the TAA, DLAA, DLSS, XeSS and FSR 2.2 implementations all use a sharpening filter in the render path, but the game doesn’t have any options to tweak the sharpening values through separate sliders. Each upscaling and anti-aliasing solution is using very low sharpening values set by the developers and is well tuned, 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 very poor rendering of small object detail—thin steel objects and power lines, tree leaves, and vegetation in general. The TAA solution also has shimmering issues on the whole image, even when standing still, which are especially visible at lower resolutions such as 1080p. All of these issues are resolved when DLAA, DLSS or XeSS are enabled, due to their superior anti-aliasing solution. With DLSS and XeSS 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. However, in this game FSR 2.2, DLSS and XeSS are suffering from black smearing issues on small flying objects, such as falling petals, and only the TAA and DLAA solutions do not have these issues. With DLAA enabled, the overall image quality improvement goes even higher, rendering additional details compared to the TAA solution, FSR 2.2, DLSS or XeSS.

The FSR 2.2 implementation comes with noticeable compromises in image quality—in favor of performance in most sequences of the game. We spotted excessive shimmering and flickering on vegetation, tree leaves and thin steel objects; they are shimmering even when standing still, visible even at 4K FSR Quality mode, which might be quite distracting for some people. If switching from FSR Quality mode to Balanced or Performance, the whole image will shimmer even more. The amount of shimmering is less pronounced in comparison to the usual FSR 2.1 implementations, but is clearly more visible compared to the in-game native TAA image. The anti-aliasing quality is also inferior, as the overall image has more jagged lines in motion, especially visible on small particle effects during combat and in vegetation.

The NVIDIA DLSS Frame Generation implementation isn’t perfect in this game, as it has a quite significant issue—a forced framerate cap based on your monitor’s refresh rate, without the ability to change the value or fully unlock the framerate. Forza Horizon 5 has similar behavior, where the game automatically applies a framerate cap, but in FH5 you can change the framerate target or unlock the framerate completely after activating DLSS Frame Generation, whereas in Remnant 2 these settings are grayed out and unavailable. For 120 Hz or 240 Hz panel owners it might not be a big issue, but if you are running the game on a 4K 60 Hz panel for example, as we did in this test, a forced framerate cap will create graphical issues when DLSS Frame Generation is enabled, such as an extremely jittery image quality after a few minutes of gameplay, which makes it impossible to properly play the game when DLSS Frame Generation is enabled. There is also increased input latency because of the framerate cap, which will affect the responsiveness of your gameplay in this fast paced action game.

Speaking of performance, the XeSS implementations usually have around 10-13% lower performance gain while using the compatibility kernel instruction set that works with all GPU architectures, when compared to competing upscaling solutions from NVIDIA and AMD. However, in Remnant 2, the XeSS 1.1 implementation is practically identical to FSR 2.2 in terms of performance gain over native TAA across all resolutions. For XeSS 1.1 especially it is a quite welcome upgrade to receive improved performance gains while using the DP4a instruction set, while also producing image quality better than FSR 2.2 with essentially the same performance. Overall, the DLSS, XeSS 1.1 and FSR 2.2 performance uplift at 4K is a great improvement to the game, you can expect almost doubled performance in “Quality” mode, with all graphics settings maxed out. The DLAA solution has a performance cost of around 4%, compared to the TAA solution, but offers the best graphical experience overall.