[Bug]: ESRGAN output looks pixelated

[allo-]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [X] I have searched the existing issues and checked the recent builds/commits

What happened?

When upscaling with ESRGAN, the images looks more pixalated than they should. I have another installation of the plain RealESRGAN project and it provides smooth outlines for anime-style images, where the ESRGAN integrated in the webui generates noisy lines.

Steps to reproduce the problem

1. Create a image with clear outlines
2. Go to the extras tab and upscale it
3. ESRGAN (and some others, but I do not know reference results for them) have outputs that look pixelated at edges.

What should have happened?

The results should be comparable to the upstream project, I think.

Commit where the problem happens

737eb28

What platforms do you use to access UI ?

Linux

What browsers do you use to access the UI ?

Mozilla Firefox

Command Line Arguments

No response

Additional information, context and logs

I tried BSRGAN in the past and got much better results for anime-style anyway, but either it got removed or is not shown anymore for some other reason. I use https://github.com/xinntao/Real-ESRGAN for comparision to see that it produces smoother outlines, when run without any parameters.

[victorca25]

Just place the BSRGAN model in the ESRGAN model directory and it will work the same as before.

Can you add images with examples of the issue you have?

[allo-]

Have a look at the skin or the eyes. The esrgan from the webui introduces noise while real-esrgan looks smooth.

[Centurion-Rome]

Maybe include BSRGAN als default in this repo also as it was in the past ?

[victorca25]

@allo- are you using fp16?

[allo-]

I think everything related to this is on default settings. Especially I did not configure fp16 anywhere.

[judgeou]

I download https://github.com/xinntao/Real-ESRGAN/releases/download/v0.2.5.0/realesr-general-x4v3.pth and put in ESRGAN folder，it looks better than default, and more faster

[Splendide-Imaginarius]

I think I may be running into the same bug. Sample images below, using the RealESRGAN_x4plus model:

Original image: https://github.com/Splendide-Imaginarius/stable-diffusion-webui/blob/bug-report-esrgan-corruption/samples/original.png

Upscaled with official Real-ESRGAN implementation: https://github.com/Splendide-Imaginarius/stable-diffusion-webui/blob/bug-report-esrgan-corruption/samples/real-esrgan-4x-official.png

Upscaled with WebUI Extras tab: https://github.com/Splendide-Imaginarius/stable-diffusion-webui/blob/bug-report-esrgan-corruption/samples/real-esrgan-4x-webui.png

Tiling was disabled in both implementations; the official Real-ESRGAN implementation was run with --fp32; the WebUI was run with --no-half. In WebUI, Upscaler 2 was set to None, and all slider bars for Upscaler 2 and face restoration were set to 0. Running WebUI commit 22bcc7be428c94e9408f589966c2040187245d81 on Windows+Firefox; both implementations are using CPU inference.

Observable differences between the images:

• The general color of the foliage near the bottom of the image is mildly different.
• The foliage at the bottom of the image produced by the official Real-ESRGAN implementation has much finer detail, while the WebUI implementation produces blurrier foliage.
• The white X pattern at upscaled coordinates 1391,1053 is fairly clean in the official Real-ESRGAN implementation, while the WebUI produces a much noisier pattern.
• The diagonal white line from upscaled coordinates 360,1106 to 508,1064 is easily visible in the official Real-ESRGAN implementation, while the WebUI mostly blurs it out.

Happy to provide more details or run additional tests on request. If you think this is a different bug, let me know and I'll file a separate issue.