Gamers Nexus is an upscaling addict. My brother caught them in the act of upscaling
their benchmarks, thanks to tell-tale artifacts present in the image. Now, there’s nothing
wrong with them doing this- I actively encourage as many people to become upscaling addicts
as possible, because it helps enable me. I upscale all kinds of stuff in my videos.
I enjoy doing it simply to discover how the results turn out. Sometimes, people notice
when I’ve upscaled an image! …but for every time this happens, there are 10 upscaled
images that go unnoticed. And the images that people do notice are upscaled are typically
so blurry and low-res in the first place that, had I not upscaled it, people would have asked
me why I hadn’t done so. So yeah, without meaning to blow my own trumpet
too much, I’m pretty fucking awesome at upscaling these days. So let me give Gamersnexus,
and any other upscaling wannabes out there, some tips!
First of all- it’s best not to upscale if you can help it. Although I love upscaling,
I capture my stuff on a 4K screen to avoid having to in the first place! Of course, Gamers
Nexus already knows that bigger images are better. They’re just having problems with
their software, so have been ‘forced’ to upscale the images, which no doubt takes
them more time to do, and results in an inferior image than a native result would achieve.
Secondly, the upscaling algorithm you choose will greatly dictate the quality of the resulting
upscale. Looking at the upscaled Gamersnexus image, the writing really gives away that
it’s been upscaled; the letters don’t retain an even thickness. Some weird stuff
is going on with the ‘M’ here where the lines converge. And there are dark or green
halos around some of the numbers! Classic upscaling errors right there, often caused
by an upscaler that’s attempting to upscale symbols as though they’re a tree, or person,
or car and is applying copious amounts of sharpening to the result.
Much better for this kind of image is an algorithm trained on upscaling graphs, or lines… or
waifus. I mean, an algorithm that’s endured 300,000 generations of waifus is going to
do great with something as simple as a few lines and curves!
I went and got THIS low-res benchmark from the gamersnexus site to upscale.
We’ll start with some inappropriate upscaling. Gigapixel. This program- bless its heart-
is great if you’re upscaling, say, an eagle… eating a… fish. But it isn’t so great
for line images. Even with the line or art presets! Upscaling it using ‘art’ is,
frankly, horrible. The standard setting is a lot better, but still fails to produce a
crisp, clear result. The free website version of Waifu2x produces
a far superior image. Despite creating 16 pixels for every 1 that originally existed,
there isn’t a hint of pixilation in sight! However, the text becomes a bit hand-drawn
in style, and suffers slightly from coloured halos. But it’s a good upscale. Especially
for one that’s obtainable in just a few kilks online. Just be warned that there is
a size limit, so if you’re wanting 4K results then you may run into these restrictions.
Using cupscale running the catchily named ‘foolhardy remacri extrasmoother’ algorithm,
I THINK does a much better job on the text- but it comes at the cost of colour clarity,
which seems to bleed slightly into its surroundings in a subtle way. As though the whole image
is being smoothed by an extra amount. It’s a real shame. If only there was a version
of this that wasn’t extrasmooth. Lastly, I tried the UltraYandere algorithm,
which delivers a sharper result, but in exchange for a few extra bugs on the text. While I
initially gave the win to this one, after further comparisons, I think the catchily
named foolhardy remacri extrasmoother is the victor for producing the more consistent results.
Oh hey, let’s try Foolhardy Remacri without the extrasmoother. Oh yes, that’s better.
In conclusion: when you have a blurry, low-res graph, Foolhardy Remacri extrasmoother is
a big improvement, but produces a soft result. Yandere Ultra is much sharper, but comes with
a few bugs. But Foolhardy Remacri is JUST right, and looks amazing. Gamersnexus, use
this one pls 😊
Let’s move onto another benchmark- which is much more similar in appearance to the
one that Gamersnexus attempted to upscale. As before, gigapixel mutilates the image.
Waifu2x’s is acceptable but a bit blobby, UltraYandere I think delivers a slightly better
result, tarnished by the slightest whiff of waifu, but again it’s the catchily named
foolhardy remacri that I think is the best all-rounder. It correctly preserves the shapes
of edges, the graph looks graphy and the font looks fonty. A great result, especially given
how low-res the original was! So I have no idea how low-res the images are
that Gamersnexus is upscaling. Maybe they’re already using the best upscaling solution,
but are hampered by a super low-resolution base image. Or maybe -just MAYBE- they should
provide me with the base images and let me experiment with the various upscaling methods
until I find one that looks the best. Come on, Gamersnexus. You know it’s the right
thing to do. Let’s unite and upscale the world together.