Interactive mode lets you change variable-rate shading settings on the fly to see how they affect the frame rate and image quality.
Tier 1 interactive mode
Use the controls on the overlay to enable or disable VRS.
The Time and Pause controls let you move through the timeline to specific points. The Capture frame button exports the original rendered frame with the current settings for comparison. The captured frames are saved to the Pictures\3DMarkVRSFeatureTest folder.
When VRS is enabled, the shading rate varies with camera distance. You can use the Visualizer to see how variable-rate shading is applied in the scene.
VISUALIZER | SHADING RATE | |
| Red | 1 × 1 |
| Green | 2 × 2 |
| Blue | 4 × 4 |
You can change the threshold distance for each shading rate with the sliders. This allows you to experiment with the settings to prioritize performance or visual fidelity.
Tier 2 interactive mode
Use the controls on the overlay to enable or disable VRS.
The Time and Pause controls let you move through the timeline to specific points. The Capture frame button exports the original rendered frame with the current settings for comparison. The captured frames are saved to the Pictures\3DMarkVRSFeatureTest folder.
When VRS is enabled, lower shading rates are used selectively in areas of the frame where there is less detail or contrast. You can use the Visualizer to see how variable-rate shading is applied in the scene.
The Visualizer opacity slider controls the opacity of the color overlay that shows where each shading rate is used.
| Visualizer | Shading rate | |
|---|---|---|
| White | 1 × 1 |
| Yellow | 1 × 2 or 2 × 1 |
| Orange | 2 × 2 |
| Pink | 2 × 4 or 4 × 2 |
| Purple | 4 × 4 |
The Quality setting determines how much variable-rate shading is used.
- Low quality prioritizes performance over visual fidelity.
- Medium quality is the default for the test.
- High quality prioritizes visual fidelity over performance.
Interactive mode effect on frame rate in the Tier 2 test
The shading rate algorithm used in the Tier 2 test uses data from the previous frame to determine how to apply shading rates in the current frame. Each frame partly informs the next.
When VRS is toggled off in Interactive Mode, this chain of frame-to-frame shading rate data is broken. When VRS is then toggled back on, the next frame is based on a frame that was shaded entirely at the original 1 × 1 rate. While this temporal effect diminishes over subsequent frames, the initial effect is that the frame rate may differ from the rate seen before VRS was toggled off.
In general, it is fine to make FPS comparisons when switching from VRS on to VRS off in Interactive Mode, but not vice-versa due to this temporal effect.