Last year, Microsoft announced plans to integrate AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution into Xbox consoles, and now, we have the second generation of the technology heading into the Xbox game dev kit for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles.
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR2) is an upscaling technology that uses machine learning to produce sharper images from comparatively lower resolution scenes. Scaling technology like FSR and NVIDIA’s DLSS have become increasingly popular, since the tech allows you to get crisper images without sacrificing frame rates. If you’re dedicating compute to intensive graphics features like ray-tracing lighting and shadows, FSR2 and DLSS helps you to reclaim some overall resolution fidelity using deep learning and super sampling technology. It also helps improve performance on lower-end hardware, since you can move more resources over to maintaining frame rates, with super sampling putting in some heavy lifting to improve visuals.
Excited to continue to partner with @AMD and @GPUOpen to provide the latest techniques in graphics performance to game developers on both @Xbox and PC. #FSR 2 samples are now included with the GDKX for @Xbox developers. https://t.co/rDHv8JnbfxJune 23, 2022
FSR has been available to Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC devs for a while, but FSR2 is now heading into the Xbox game dev kit for the first time.
The more powerful (and more expensive) Xbox Series X generally has little issue running games at 4K60, but we’ve seen games make sacrifices for their “performance modes,” in some cases. Some games let you enable ray-tracing for example, at the cost of stable frame rates or resolution quality. FSR2 could help mitigate some of these trade-offs, particularly on the Xbox Series S, which has rather impressively managed to keep up with the more powerful Xbox Series X and PS5 at least where baseline frame rates are concerned. FSR2 could help the Xbox Series S achieve improved image quality too, down the line.
Microsoft is a heavy investor in machine learning technology, having invested $1 billion dollars into OpenAI which touts AI imaging models like DALL-E 2, which can create realistic photographs from practically any user prompt. As super sampling tech improves, it will undoubtedly bring benefits to more affordable consoles like the Xbox Series S, as well as Xbox Game Pass‘ cloud streaming video algorithm.
For an example of how FSR2 improves over FSR1 and native gameplay, Microsoft studio Arkane recently offered a demo of its implementation in Deathloop which you can check out above.
