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Microsoft IT Technology

Microsoft Working On Its Own DLSS-like Upscaler for Windows 11 (theverge.com) 42

Microsoft appears to be readying its own DLSS-like AI upscaling feature for PC games. From a report: X user PhantomOcean3 discovered the feature inside the latest test versions of Windows 11 over the weekend, with Microsoft describing its automatic super resolution as a way to "use AI to make supported games play more smoothly with enhanced details." That sounds a lot like Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology, which uses AI to upscale games and improve frame rates and image quality. AMD and Intel also offer their own variants, with FSR and XeSS both growing in popularity in recent PC game releases.
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Microsoft Working On Its Own DLSS-like Upscaler for Windows 11

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  • "which uses AI to upscale games and improve frame rates and image quality."

    Yeah. AI, such a very hot buzzword right now. Never mind that it results in people having random numbers of sausage fingers. Picasso would be outraged at the theft of his techniques.

    • Yeah. AI, such a very hot buzzword right now. Never mind that it results in people having random numbers of sausage fingers. Picasso would be outraged at the theft of his techniques.

      The finger thing is already a lot better--it certainly WAS the case that teeth, limbs, and fingers were dead give aways. It's already gotten much harder to identify and catch.

    • Upscaling works fairly well, you don't usually let it change the image enough to add fingers. It still hallucinates detail of course, but if you describe the image well enough then it usually looks good.

    • DLSS has been around for awhile. It was designed to work with the tensor cores on 2000-series cards from NV. FSR and XeSS attempt something similar while being relatively hardware-agnostic (DLSS only works on NV cards, even though it's quite different from DLSS 1.0 nowadays).

      In any case, AI upscalars have been around for some time and they work. It's not just a buzzword.

    • I thought nVidia stopped using AI to upscale after DLSS v1 and switched to using motion vectors, which is why that modder was able to add DLSS so easily to Starfield when it first came out.

  • by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @04:34PM (#64235100)

    FSR and XeSS are at least partially open source. It would be easier for MS to work on improving one or the other (or both).

    • I'd prefer competition instead of "easy". Last time Microsoft took the "easy" way the world went from 3 Windows browser engines down to 2 even further entrenching an incumbent.

      Competition is a good thing.

      • Three different upscalars is enough. XeSS is pretty good, too, and it works on just about everything. While I don't normally like anything Intel does, I have to admit that FSR3 still sucks image-quality-wise compared to DLSS or XeSS. It would probably be best for the industry to standardize around XeSS (DLSS is still proprietary NV crap).

        MS isn't interested in "competition". They're going to integrate their own solution and, in all likelihood, attempt to wipe out DLSS;XeSS; and FSR. Or they'll embrace

        • Three different upscalars is enough.

          No it's not. We don't have 3 different upscalers to chose from either. We have 1.5. The choice is FSR, or the XeSS (which by your assertion of its quality can only mean it's the only one you've used given it is utterly trash compared to the other two, especially since FSR3 came out). You don't even have the choice of NVIDIA as implementation requires developers to get in bed with them.

          There is value in a GPU vendor platform agnostic upscaler. And even if there weren't, who are you to decide whether 3 is eno

          • Most of the concerned DiY market uses NV cards, so they have the choice of all three. And potentially anyone could fork FSR or XeSS is they really wanted to, or they could just contribute to FSR/XeSS directly.

            FSR is still a legitimate choice if people are willing to put up with the reduction in image quality. I'm not, but a lot of people are, and they do use it. It's just not as good as XeSS. You can't treat it as half an upscalar when it fails to meet some arbitrary quality threshold.

            Otherwise, if that

    • by BigZee ( 769371 )
      I really don't want this to be a part of Windows. I game quiet happily on Linux using steam and proton (when needed) and the last thing I want is for the wine/proton people to have something else to port. From my perspective FSR and RSR are just what I want.
  • ...is now AI! *sigh*
  • by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Monday February 12, 2024 @07:03PM (#64235382) Journal

    Isn't this exactly what DirectX has always been for? Having a common API layer to leverage proprietary hardware implementations of video and audio rendering, with an emphasis on performance and de-emphasis on performance-crushing unneeded precision and accuracy since it's a video game and not an architectural rendering?

    But let me guess, people are going to get all bitchy because it's Microsoft doing it, just like with every other major advancement DirectX has brought the community in not having to bother with Nvidia or AMD (or even 3dfx back in the day) specific fuckery to get something to run properly?

  • Literally zero people are craving a upscaler for windows games. They target a niche that's already being filled and put their own project that may or not be better. This feels like what Microsoft has been doing recently and the end result will probably be more evil designs meant to lock you into products or put ads on them.
    • I'd like it.

    • Literally zero people are craving a upscaler for windows games.

      I am. Now you know one person. So is everyone with a screen larger than 1080p. Many modern games are limited by fill rate. Thanks to LCDs being LCD, dropping the resolution on your 4k or 1440p monitor to 1080p results in something that looks like arse and not the nice kind of arse. Upscalers have been one of the best developments in gaming, and that's before you consider the games hitting the market now which do not give you the choice of resolution. Yes I'm serious, that's the trajectory of game developmen

  • First off, DLSS is sorcery. I'm pretty sure Nvidia puts gnomes or elves into their hardware - it's the only sensible explanation.

    That said, how the heck will this be implemented? Games generally need to know if there is going to be upsampling so they know what resolution to actually render at. If I run a game in 1440, will a game render at 1440 and be upsampled by (checking my nvidia settings...) 78% to 1920 a-la DSR? Does Windows step in and force the game to render at a lower resolution then upscal

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