Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2024]


Apologies for commenting on this older video but I found this fascinating and could possibly be a precursor to Xbox AI scaling.

For one this is basically a video upscaler as it works only on the final frame and can be applied to ALL games. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Nvidia first start with a video upscaler on the nvidia Shield before they moved on to DLSS? It was essentially the same as this but for video. Could MS be doing the same here? Working on their general algorithm before having a DLSS type solution?

Another thing I felt was interesting is that DF tested this on the Ayaneo KUN mobile gaming handheld. This handheld has an NPU with only 16 TOPS. I'm guessing it probably doesn't take the entire 16 for this algorithm but for simplicity's sake I'll just go with 16 TOPS needed. The Xbox Series X has a total of 96 TOPS for the whole GPU. So for around 17% of the GPU power (or roughly 8 CUs out of 52) they could push graphics at 720p and get a pretty impressive 4k final image in the end.

They also showed how MS essentially hijacks the internal resolution of the game before the upscale. Forcing the games to run at 720p. Perhaps they could do that for existing Xbox games forcing them to run at 720p and thus freeing up the 17% GPU performance needed to get this 4k image?

This also has great opportunity for a handheld as you essentially get a great 4k image when 'docked' from a mere 720p image. Pretty cool stuff IMO especially if it requires even less than 16 TOPS.
 
720p to 4k is dog shit on any upscaler.

1080p as a minimum input resolution is required to hit 4k target using ML.
1080p would be even better but my question still stands. Could MS force lower resolutions on Xbox games to free up resources for this AI upscaling? It would essentially be MS's version of PSSR but using existing hardware and work for all games.
 
1080p would be even better but my question still stands. Could MS force lower resolutions on Xbox games to free up resources for this AI upscaling? It would essentially be MS's version of PSSR but using existing hardware and work for all games.

Why would Microsoft want to ruin the image quality of their games?
 
1080p would be even better but my question still stands. Could MS force lower resolutions on Xbox games to free up resources for this AI upscaling? It would essentially be MS's version of PSSR but using existing hardware and work for all games.
Microsoft cant 'force' anything no. They could provide potential solutions for devs, but it'd have to be up to them whether to use it. Or they could maybe offer an option for users, but it wouldn't change the source resolution of a game, no.

Like, all the work they did with their XB1X and XSX BC upgrades and whatnot required specific permission from each dev/pub of each game. It's not something Microsoft could just go in and hack into for any game no matter what. Devs/pubs would not accept such an overreach on Microsoft's part.
 
Why would Microsoft want to ruin the image quality of their games?
Did you watch the video? The image quality would be better as Xbox can't reach 4k native anyway. Check out Final Fantasy on PS5 Pro. Way better image quality.
Microsoft cant 'force' anything no. They could provide potential solutions for devs, but it'd have to be up to them whether to use it. Or they could maybe offer an option for users, but it wouldn't change the source resolution of a game, no.

Like, all the work they did with their XB1X and XSX BC upgrades and whatnot required specific permission from each dev/pub of each game. It's not something Microsoft could just go in and hack into for any game no matter what. Devs/pubs would not accept such an overreach on Microsoft's part.

Are you sure about this? Yes MS got permission to add games to the BC program as they needed to be recompiled but from my understanding they did not need permission on what resolution or framerate to run them at. If the API MS uses allows them to hijack and set their own resolution they could theoretically use this for much better IQ.
 
Did you watch the video? The image quality would be better as Xbox can't reach 4k native anyway. Check out Final Fantasy on PS5 Pro. Way better image quality.

I have watched the video and also played more than enough games with DLSS to know that 720p to 4k is dog shit.

Final Fantasy's performance mode also has dog shit image quality, which is why Pro looks so good, in your average game the difference won't be like that.
 
You are
Isn't Direct SR done in post, and was measured to add one frame of input?
Not talking about frame gen.

Ps: went to the video by Richard and he says that there is an additional 12 milliseconds of lag.
I think you may be confusing things - Direct SR is Just a Framework for developers to integrate upsampling through Windows where each Driver (Intel, AMD, NV) Put Forward their own scaler, it has no Input latency at all.

AutoSR is a single frame ML upscaler running in NPUs currebtly from Qualcom in Windows. That has a frame or so of lag.

Completely different Things.
 
You are

I think you may be confusing things - Direct SR is Just a Framework for developers to integrate upsampling through Windows where each Driver (Intel, AMD, NV) Put Forward their own scaler, it has no Input latency at all.

AutoSR is a single frame ML upscaler running in NPUs currebtly from Qualcom in Windows. That has a frame or so of lag.

Completely different Things.
You are right, I was misnaming the feature.

But like, c'mon Microsoft, auto sr? Direct sr? A bit too easy to forget the difference 😅
 

Apologies for commenting on this older video but I found this fascinating and could possibly be a precursor to Xbox AI scaling.

For one this is basically a video upscaler as it works only on the final frame and can be applied to ALL games. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Nvidia first start with a video upscaler on the nvidia Shield before they moved on to DLSS? It was essentially the same as this but for video. Could MS be doing the same here? Working on their general algorithm before having a DLSS type solution?

Another thing I felt was interesting is that DF tested this on the Ayaneo KUN mobile gaming handheld. This handheld has an NPU with only 16 TOPS. I'm guessing it probably doesn't take the entire 16 for this algorithm but for simplicity's sake I'll just go with 16 TOPS needed. The Xbox Series X has a total of 96 TOPS for the whole GPU. So for around 17% of the GPU power (or roughly 8 CUs out of 52) they could push graphics at 720p and get a pretty impressive 4k final image in the end.

They also showed how MS essentially hijacks the internal resolution of the game before the upscale. Forcing the games to run at 720p. Perhaps they could do that for existing Xbox games forcing them to run at 720p and thus freeing up the 17% GPU performance needed to get this 4k image?

This also has great opportunity for a handheld as you essentially get a great 4k image when 'docked' from a mere 720p image. Pretty cool stuff IMO especially if it requires even less than 16 TOPS.
I don't think it's out of the question that MS will bring out a specialized upscaling for the Series consoles. They have to give some answer to the competitor's pro machine, and they can do this even this year. Of course, they can just leave it to FSR3.1.

However, it is certain that they are working on their own AI-based upscaling for their next-generation console, which could even be revolutionary.
 
I don't think it's out of the question that MS will bring out a specialized upscaling for the Series consoles. They have to give some answer to the competitor's pro machine, and they can do this even this year. Of course, they can just leave it to FSR3.1.

However, it is certain that they are working on their own AI-based upscaling for their next-generation console, which could even be revolutionary.

FSR4 (AMD's own AI based upscaler) will be very mature by the time MS brings out the next Xbox. I would assume they would just use that rather than develop their own totally independent model.

The interesting thing to me is what, if anything is the difference between PSSR and FSR4. And also, will FSR run on older AMD GPU's (including Series consoles) or will it be tied to RDNA4. My guess is the former - but perhaps more accelerated or higher quality on RDNA4 in line with how XeSS works.
 
Great DF interview by Alex with the guys from Jetpack Interactive and Sony Santa Monica who ported God of War: Ragnarok to PC!


I've got to say, I've been playing it and the port is just gorgeous and silky smooth. I'm so very impressed. I was worried in the beginning about them changing from a DX11 renderer to DX12 and what that might possibly mean for hitching and stuttering, but reading this interview.. it's quite clear how seriously these guys take these issues. Very happy about it!
 
Great DF interview by Alex with the guys from Jetpack Interactive and Sony Santa Monica who ported God of War: Ragnarok to PC!


I've got to say, I've been playing it and the port is just gorgeous and silky smooth. I'm so very impressed. I was worried in the beginning about them changing from a DX11 renderer to DX12 and what that might possibly mean for hitching and stuttering, but reading this interview.. it's quite clear how seriously these guys take these issues. Very happy about it!

Poor Kyle. Hope that bus they threw him under had good particle effects.
 
Interview with Jetpack Interactive over the Ragnarok PC port.

I love the closer.

Matt DeWald: I also love watching videos of you guys doing tech analysis, because for us it's like "oh, we didn't think about that. Why didn't we do that? Can we do that in a patch?" I'm just really excited to get this out the door and see what the reactions are and see what we can do to make it even better.

It's great that industry professionals recognize the value that DF brings to the table. No matter how toxic the internet gets, never let them think your work isn't valued and appreciated. @oliemack @Dictator
 
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