Introduction

The Last of Us Part I is out now on PC, with plenty of additional visual enhancements over its PlayStation 5 release, such as higher quality textures, higher quality screen space and real-time reflections, full support for ultra-wide screens and more. The Last of Us Part I also has support for NVIDIA’s DLSS Super Resolution (DLSS 3.1), 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 are subtle differences in the implementation of NVIDIA’s DLSS Super Resolution (DLSS 3.1), and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.2 (FSR 2.2), so we are keen to have a look at these temporal upscalers in this game.

Below, you will find comparison screenshots at 4K, 1440p, 1080p, and in different DLSS and FSR 2.2 quality modes. For those who want to see how DLSS and FSR 2.2 perform in motion, watch our side-by-side comparison video. The video can help uncover issues like shimmering or temporal instability, which are not visible in the screenshots.

All tests were made using a GeForce RTX 4080 GPU at Ultra graphics settings; motion blur and depth of field were disabled for better image viewing. DLSS in this game shipped with version 3.1.2.

Screenshots

Side-by-Side Comparison Video

Conclusion

In The Last of Us Part I, the in-game TAA solution does not use any sharpening filter in the render path and it’s not possible to enable it using a separate sharpening slider. However, for the DLSS 3.1 and FSR 2.2 implementations, both have the ability to use a sharpening filter in the render path through a sharpening slider. By default, the game sets the sharpening values for DLSS at 67 and for FSR 2.2 at 35. Even though DLSS and FSR 2.2 are using the same sharpening slider, the actual amount of sharpening applied is very different even if it is set to equal values, and we used the default settings for DLSS and FSR 2.2 sharpening filter values in our testing. The inclusion of a separate sharpening filter for DLSS and FSR 2.2 is a great option to have, especially when it is properly implemented, like in The Last of Us Part I. The sharpening filter does not cause any negative side effects or artifacts when using upscaling.

The Last of Us Part I is an action game, so when using any temporal upscaling solutions, the temporal stability of the image is key to enjoyable gameplay. When using DLSS or FSR 2.2, the level of detail rendered in vegetation and tree leaves is improved in comparison to the in-game TAA solution, and small details in the distance, such as wires or thin steel objects, are rendered more correctly and completely in all Quality modes, the DLSS implementation has better temporal stability in motion in comparison to the in-game TAA solution and FSR 2.2. However, both DLSS and FSR 2.2 are suffering from a few image quality issues: one of the most noticeable is an excessive shimmering and flickering on steel objects at extreme angles; they are shimmering even when standing still and it is visible even at 4K DLSS/FSR 2.2 Quality mode, which might be quite distracting for some people. The second-most-noticeable issue in both DLSS and FSR 2.2 is the ghosting around your characters head, and it is especially visible at lower resolution such as 1080p Quality mode. Also, the FSR 2.2 implementation has shimmering in motion on vegetation and tree leaves, however, the amount of shimmering is less pronounced in comparison to the usual FSR 2.1 implementations, like in the Resident Evil 4 Remake for example, and these shimmering issues on vegetation and tree leaves are visible only in motion.

Speaking of performance, compared to DLSS, FSR 2.2 has slightly smaller performance gains across all resolutions, while also producing more image quality issues compared to other available temporal upscaling techniques. The Last of Us Part I 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, even at 1440p and below. At 4K, there is no such issue, and with DLSS or FSR 2.2 enabled, you can expect around 30% more performance in “Quality” mode with all graphics settings maxed out.