Ray tracing and DLSS/FSR 1440p performance:
Let’s take a look at the eight games we’ve selected that support ray tracing, DLSS, AMD’s FSR and Intel’s XeSS technology. As we’ve already reminded you, while DLSS remains the property of NVIDIA, FSR and XeSS can be used with any card from AMD, Intel or even NVIDIA. We’ve chosen to remove Watch Dogs: Legion since it’s the only game that supports only one technology, DLSS.
The eight DirectX 12 games we’ll be testing with ray tracing, if available, as well as DLSS, FSR or XeSS are :
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider (RT – DLSS – XeSS)
- Far Cry 6 (DXR – FSR)
- Cyberpunk 2077 (RT – DLSS 3 – FSR – XeSS)
- Hitman 3 (RT – DLSS 3 – XeSS – FSR)
- Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (DLSS – XeSS – FSR 3)
- Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 (DLSS 3 – XeSS – FSR)
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage (DLSS – Xess – FSR)
- Forspoken (DLSS – XeSS – FSR 3)
No change for this new series of games, as we’re sticking with 1440p and 2160p definition, as for rasterization. Depending on the card, we’ll use either DLSS for NVIDIA or FSR or XeSS for AMD and Intel models. If FSR is not available in a game, we’ll use XeSS technology on our AMD card.
DLSS 3: watch out for our results!
As you know, NVIDIA unveiled DLSS 3 with the arrival of the RTX 4000 graphics cards, and in particular with the launch of the RTX 4090 version. So why the warning? Because NVIDIA now offers DLSS 3 support on many games, but this is only supported by RTX 4000s. To put it simply, if we test a game that benefits from DLSS 3, our RTX 4060 Ti will take advantage of it, but an RTX 30xx will make do with DLSS 2, resulting in even greater discrepancies, especially thanks to frame generation. We currently have three games that support DLSS 3, and we’ll be increasing this number over the coming weeks.
But AMD has also reacted by offering its FSR 3, also combined with frame generation technology, which significantly increases the number of FPS. But now it’s time for the graphics, which will speak volumes in terms of performance.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider:
First, which we’re adding to this comparison and which supports Ray Tracing and DLSS 2.0. Three levels of Ray Tracing are offered in the game (medium – high – ultra) and the four levels of DLSS (performance – quality – balanced – ultra performance).
For our benchmarks, we opted for ” very high ” graphics quality, ” ultra ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS.
With Ray Tracing activated in ultra, an average of 154 FPS is achieved in 1440p, and 80 FPS in 2160p. The performance achieved with DLSS 2 in this game is much better than that achieved with FSR 1.
Far Cry 6:
Far Cry 6 supports DXR and AMD’s FSR, but not DLSS.
For our benchmarks, we opted for Ultra graphics quality, activated both DRX options and FSR in ” balanced ” mode.
In Far Cry 6, FSR is the only choice available to boost FPS after activating Ray Tracing. So all our cards can benefit, regardless of manufacturer. Our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER benefits slightly at 1440p, but it’s above all at 2160p that the gain is most interesting.
Cyberpunk 2077:
Cyberpunk 2077 features DLSS and FSR activation in its settings. Note that this was the first game to enable DLSS3 for RTX 40xx graphics cards, as well as frame generation. For our benchmarks, we opted for “ultra” graphics quality, “ultra” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS/FSR.
This is one of our most demanding games, where our cards have a hard time keeping up. Here, an average of 50.6 FPS is achieved at 1440p, and 24 FPS at 2160p. The contribution of the new DLSS 3 and frame generation boosts the number of FPS in both 1440p and 2160p.
Hitman 3:
Hitman 3 now supports DLSS, FSR and XeSS technology. Depending on the model of card tested, we opt for one of these three technologies.
For our benchmarks, we opted for “high” graphics quality, ” enabled ” Ray Tracing and ” balanced ” DLSS/Xess.
We find ourselves in a familiar situation, with our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER in first place at 1440p. Hitman 3, which also benefits from DLSS 3 and frame generation, achieves an FPS gain of almost 176% at 2160p.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora:
One of the three new games we’ve just included in our rasterization tests. It’s a recent game from 2023 that tends to put a strain on our graphics cards. For our benchmarks, we’ve opted for ” ultra ” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, as it supports FSR 3. The idea is to balance games that benefit from DLSS 3 and FSR 3.
There’s no ray tracing here, so we’ve taken the rasterization performance and activated the technologies that enable FPS gains. DLSS 2 does the job perfectly, but we can also see that AMD’s FSR 3 could start to rival DLSS 3.
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3:
We couldn’t do without adding Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 to our graphics card tests. For our benchmarks, we have opted for ” extreme ” graphics quality. This game will also feature in our DLSS/FSR/Xess tests, since it supports frame generation.
As with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, there’s no ray tracing here, so we’ll be activating each manufacturer’s own technology. And in this little game, NVIDIA comes out on top with DLSS 3 combined with frame generation. With over 200 FPS, we’re perfectly at ease in 1440p. Our MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x has nothing to be ashamed of in 2160p either, with an average of 145 FPS thanks to DLSS 3 combined with frame generation.
As we mentioned in this newsletter, FSR 3 is now supported in Call Of Duty Modern Warefare 3. We haven’t yet had a chance to replay the AMD models of our 1440p graphics, but the two 2160p models have been tested with FSR 3.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage:
With a fairly recent integrated benchmark, we decided to add Assassin’s Creed Mirage to our tests.
Here, even if our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER retains the advantage in rasterization and also when DLSS 2 is activated, AMD cards are not to be outdone.
Forspoken:
This is the last game we’re adding, as it will also be used on the next page, with the presence of FSR 3. It’s also a fairly recent game, and one that also plays havoc with our graphics cards.
It’s FSR 3 and frame generation that are the most brutal here. Now, that’s nothing to worry about with our RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, which goes from 89 to 126 FPS with DLSS. In 2160p, activating DLSS performance enables us to reach an average of almost 100 FPS.
What about ray tracing with the MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x?
In the 8 games we tested, our MSI RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Ventus 3x performed perfectly. When ray tracing is enabled, it’s no problem at all, since DLSS is always present behind it. In fact, NVIDIA dominated the exchanges, thanks in particular to the arrival of DLSS 3 and frame generation, but now AMD is fighting back. The reds also came out in force with FRS 3 and frame generation, which also brought an increase in FPS. But it’s NVIDIA that still has the upper hand, as the number of games supported is far greater on the green side. FRS 3 is doing very well, but previous revisions are struggling against DLSS 2, for example. DLSS therefore remains the most interesting technology when available.
A word about the performance gap between the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and the RTX 4070 Ti. We’ll see whether the new BIOS we’ve received, which is too short in terms of timing to repeat our tests, will solve the problem and increase the performance difference.
