Microsoft's Automatic Super Resolution Arrives To Improve Gaming Performance (tomshardware.com) 53
Microsoft has announced Auto SR, an AI-powered image upscaling solution for Windows 11 on Arm devices. The feature, exclusive to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X CPUs, aims to enhance gaming performance on ARM-based systems. Auto SR, however, comes with notable restrictions, including compatibility limitations with certain DirectX versions and the inability to work simultaneously with HDR.
Oh goodie, another one (Score:2)
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Isn't this just supported by the engine you're using?
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I guess you're right then, the implementations are just gonna have to be really good, or users are gonna revolt against the technology. Perhaps that's the strategy: make it really good, and make sure engines don't fuck it up.
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They all work differently
Which is ... the whole point of adding AutoSR to directX. Literally the whole point. Microsoft is providing a one stop API to everyone else's technology. The Canary build of Windows already demonstrated you didn't need any specific game support to make this work.
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Gamedevs are just going to give up at this point, if your upscaler of choice works it does, if it doesn't then shut up we're not supporting five+ of these damned things.
They really aren't. This is in fact one of the most likely to succeed upscalers. The whole reason for moving to the likes of DirectX originally was that each vendor's damn custom requirements made making games too difficult. When it eventually comes out on x64 architectures you're likely to see a lot of new games support this solution specifically in conjunction with whatever hardware company sponsored the development.
That said these upscalers are not difficult to implement. In fact modders often do it to g
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This is in fact one of the most likely to succeed upscalers. The whole reason for moving to the likes of DirectX originally was that each vendor's damn custom requirements made making games too difficult.
The way I read the article, this upscaler requires Qualcomm GPUs just like DLSS requires NVidia GPUs. If that is true then it will be highly successful only for Windows on ARM devices made by MS. Windows on x86 using Intel, AMD, or NVidia GPUs will not use this upscaler. Any OEM wanting to make a Windows on ARM device has to use Qualcomm GPUs to use the upscaler instead of being able to pick their own.
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The way I read the article, this upscaler requires Qualcomm GPUs
Yes currently, but you need to understand what MS is doing here. They are releasing a whole lot of features that are for no reason what so ever tied to Snapdragon X right now. This is being done specifically to help push some Surface Laptops out of the door and bolster their claim that the Surface Laptop is better than an Macbook.
The reality is all of this was announced previously and works on any architecture / GPU. As was Copilot+ and Recall, etc which also is right now completely arbitrarily linked to o
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Yes currently, but you need to understand what MS is doing here. They are releasing a whole lot of features that are for no reason what so ever tied to Snapdragon X right now.
Again, the upscaler is tied to Qualcomm hardware which is the whole point of the article. That is one of the more important limitations. This is not like a feature like FSR which works on AMD, NVidia, Intel GPUs. Even Apple's MetalFX is believed to be based on FSR.
This is being done specifically to help push some Surface Laptops out of the door and bolster their claim that the Surface Laptop is better than an Macbook.
MS claim whatever they want; that does not make it so. As far as upscaling is concerned, MS is two years behind Apple as MetalFX upscaling was announced in June 2022.
The reality is all of this was announced previously and works on any architecture / GPU.
Ummmm no. The article clearly says "Only supports Qualcomm Snapdragon X and Wind
Lock in (Score:2)
nice way of ensuring someone buys their upcoming Snapdragon hardware. Although they will likely say this is hardware dependent and can't be enabled on amd64 hardware. If this was software related, my guess is that performance would be abysmal
Wonder if this will be faster than nvidia's implementation
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>"Although they will likely say this is hardware dependent and can't be enabled on amd64 hardware."
This particular "super resolution" upscaler is a hardware function available in the GPU in the Snapdragon X:
https://www.qualcomm.com/news/... [qualcomm.com].
Any supported OS should be able to take advantage of the technology. Qualcomm is pushing Linux support for their chips pretty quickly, not sure if that includes super-resolution yet:
https://www.qualcomm.com/devel... [qualcomm.com]
https://www.xda-developers.com... [xda-developers.com]
https://www.phoroni [phoronix.com]
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today qualcomm clarified this is NPU dependent and both Intel and AMD will release one as well
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NPU:
Numeric Processor Unit (a numeric co-processor)
Network Processing Unit
Neural Processing Unit (AI accelerator) - this one
Too many uses for NPU now :) But yeah, it is not in the GPU (which is actually part of the CPU die on this chip, making that an APU, I guess). Yeesh.
But I am thinking most people running an Intel or AMD CPU will not be installing a Qualcomm X series chip in their system, will they?
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nice way of ensuring someone buys their upcoming Snapdragon hardware. Although they will likely say this is hardware dependent and can't be enabled on amd64 hardware.
It can't.
If this was software related, my guess is that performance would be abysmal
Absolutely it would.
Wonder if this will be faster than nvidia's implementation
No.
Utter garbage (Score:2)
Every single video upscalers, enhancers, smoothing, etc. always turn out to be total crap, making the image unnatural, inaccurate or delayed. In games, this matters.
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DLSS looks better than native in a lot of tests.
I do find your comment funny in the environment of today's GPU market where XESS, DLSS, and FSR are all competing furiously.
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The 100 people that are don't matter. For everyone else, there's DLSS.
As far as inaccurate goes- that's just stupid. Aliasing is also "inaccurate". There's no such fucking thing as "accurate", except to have higher resolution.
For resolution X, DLSS can be more accurate than native.
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Every single video upscalers, enhancers, smoothing, etc. always turn out to be total crap, making the image unnatural, inaccurate or delayed. In games, this matters.
No not at all. In fact when you upscale 1080p to 4k it looks significantly better than any attempt to run a 4k monitor at a non-native resolution, which is important because in many games if you happen to have a 4k screen it cripples your performance. Upscalers are a damn godsend.
As for delayed, not only are games not a monoculture with the same requirements (you don't need low latency for the overwhelming majority of games out there), but the delay is actually nothing like people make it out. In fact it is
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>ignorance
>tries to put 4K and 'competitive' in the same boat
I'll give you a different word then: Illiterate, since I specifically said competitive players are *not* likely to use a 4K screen.
So does that mean... (Score:2)
that the "AI" can now turn the Sopwith into an alternative hi-fidelity simulator, with real-looking cows?
Only on ARM... (Score:2, Funny)
So for all those gamers out there not using x64 who care in the slightest about this, you can now get AI upscaling too! All 14 of you!
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What's x64 got to do with it? Snapdragon X is a 64 bit chip.
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Jesus Christ, can you at least pretend to keep up?
x86-64 is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first announced in 1999.
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I am very well aware of it. I did not imply otherwise.
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If you're gonna be a dick, be a dick who is right and informative.
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Nope, you're wrong. I started programming in the 80s with GWBASIC on an 8086. I know all this stuff, grew up with it.
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I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but after a comment that fucking stupid, I don't know that I can.
Person made a comment about gamers and x64, and you said, "uhh, what's that have to do with anything? The Snapdrag is 64-bit too!" (which doesn't matter in the slightest, to anything)
This makes it obvious that the x64 was referring to x86-64, the platform that most games are written for, not the fact that it's 64-bit, which simply does not matter.
You should shut up now.
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OK I will explain it again, moron.
My first sentence "What's x64 got to do with it?" was referring to the chipset. My second sentence "Snapdragon X is a 64 bit chip" was referring to the fact that the X was 64 bit. I literally said this.
It's absolutely bizarre to me that anyone would question my knowledge of this super basic shit based on their own inability to comprehend two sentences.
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OK I will explain it again, moron.
Oh boy. I wouldn't. You're just going ot make yourself look dumber.
My first sentence "What's x64 got to do with it?" was referring to the chipset.
What's it got to do with it? Oh, that's simple. The fact that 99.9% of all computer games are compiled exclusively for x86/x86-64.
My second sentence "Snapdragon X is a 64 bit chip" was referring to the fact that the X was 64 bit. I literally said this.
And this is completely irrelevant.
The X could be 16 bits or 9000 bits. It would make no difference. Your comment was stupid.
It's absolutely bizarre to me that anyone would question my knowledge of this super basic shit based on their own inability to comprehend two sentences.
We question your knowledge, because you demonstrate a lack of it.
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And I already admitted I overlooked that few gamers were on ARM. For some reason my brain went to the "64." Not a big deal. And no reason to conclude I didn't know x64 was a chipset.
Why the fuck are you going on about this?
My last comment on this stupid ass thread. Fuck off, you cunt!
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Dumbfuck says dumbfuck things, and goes into a rage when he realizes he's a dumbfuck who says dumbfuck things.
I love it.
And I already admitted I overlooked that few gamers were on ARM.
Perfect- so what's the problem?
For some reason my brain went to the "64." Not a big deal.
Agreed- so what's the problem?
And no reason to conclude I didn't know x64 was a chipset.
Wait- *that* is it?
None of us know what you do or do not know, we can only judge what was in the text, and the knowledge that the text implies.
Your text demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the concepts being discussed. Whether you had a brain fart, or were truly ignorant- none of us can possibly know.
You're
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I know that. I didn't know if you were talking about the chipset of 64 bit in general. Is AI upscaling something that only works on that chipset?
On a different topic, why the prick-ly attitude?
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I didn't know if you were talking about the chipset of 64 bit in general.
64bit is 64bit. x64 is a CPU architecture (short hand for x86-64, or originally called AMD64) and Snapdragon X is not an x64 architecture. Microsoft seems to be ring fencing a whole lot of new features to ARM specifically to sell their new Surface device so yeah it seems to only work on that chipset.
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I didn't say Snapdragon is an x64 architecture, obviously it's ARM. I said it's 64 bit. Keep up.
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And you are missing the joke
Yup, I guess so.
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There's an emulation layer for old x86 apps. That includes x64 emulation these days.
This is greatly oversimplified, but WinRT failed back in the day because it ran on terribly slow processors and the tooling wasn't remotely there. There was also no industry adoption. But now that Apple has proved this approach can work, there is. Most high end consumer software has already been ported and won't need the emulation layer, and the tooling is vastly improved.
I don't see it failing this time. AAA games will
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Duoh
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For now. This seems to be MS really really pushing their new laptop. It will certainly be released for other architectures shortly.