Thursday, April 4th 2024
Intel Releases XeSS 1.3, Improves FPS Across Presets with New Resolution Scaling, Improved Upscalers
Intel on Wednesday released the XeSS 1.3 performance enhancement, which works with Intel Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, and Intel Arc iGPUs powering the Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" processors. The new super sampling technology brings several under-the-hood improvements to the upscaler, which improves image quality at a given resolution. Intel leveraged this improved upscaler to rework the resolution-scale of each performance preset, thereby improving performance per preset; while also introducing new presets at both ends of the resolution scale. The company released the XeSS 1.3 SDK on GitHub, so developers can begin exploring the tech and implementing it on their games.
The XeSS 1.3 update is predicated on an improved upscaler. Intel says that it has updated the AI models with new optimizations, and additional pre-training, particularly with difficult to upscale elements (such as meshes, as in textures with a lot of alpha pixels). The updated upscaler offers better reconstruction of detail, better AA, less ghosting, and improved temporal stability. Intel then used this up change the resolution scale across all its presets as detailed in the table below. It introduced the new Ultra Performance preset that does a 3.0x resolution scale, something that didn't exist in the previous versions of XeSS. On the other end of the spectrum is Native AA, a mode that has zero upscaling, but just the full application of the upscaler as a varnish—this is essentially Intel's take on DLAA.An increase in resolution scale implies that the game is being rendered at an even lower resolution, for the upscaler to work its magic with. The lower render resolution translates to performance improvements, which Intel presented in the tables above, for an Arc A750 discrete GPU, and a Core Ultra 7 155H mobile processor iGPU. Intel has internally tested XeSS 1.3 with a number of popular titles, at a given preset; and all its new presets (new resolution scales) with Cyberpunk 2077.
The XeSS 1.3 update is predicated on an improved upscaler. Intel says that it has updated the AI models with new optimizations, and additional pre-training, particularly with difficult to upscale elements (such as meshes, as in textures with a lot of alpha pixels). The updated upscaler offers better reconstruction of detail, better AA, less ghosting, and improved temporal stability. Intel then used this up change the resolution scale across all its presets as detailed in the table below. It introduced the new Ultra Performance preset that does a 3.0x resolution scale, something that didn't exist in the previous versions of XeSS. On the other end of the spectrum is Native AA, a mode that has zero upscaling, but just the full application of the upscaler as a varnish—this is essentially Intel's take on DLAA.An increase in resolution scale implies that the game is being rendered at an even lower resolution, for the upscaler to work its magic with. The lower render resolution translates to performance improvements, which Intel presented in the tables above, for an Arc A750 discrete GPU, and a Core Ultra 7 155H mobile processor iGPU. Intel has internally tested XeSS 1.3 with a number of popular titles, at a given preset; and all its new presets (new resolution scales) with Cyberpunk 2077.