What Is XeSS? Understanding Intel's Game-Boosting Supersampling Technology

pcmag.com:

Today, Intel announced a number of new products and technologies in and related to its Arc line of discrete mobile graphics. While you can read about the full suite of announcements at the preceding link, in this piece we'll discuss Intel's foray into the world of AI-assisted image upscaling, known as "Intel XeSS."

And what a fray that foray is, these days! Intel's new technology enters a fast-moving graphics market that sees rival graphics players Nvidia and AMD wrangling with the same technologies to squeeze the most from many of their existing graphics solutions. In a time when GPUs are scarce and expensive, this kind of efficiency-making technology matters more and more. Here's a quick-hit look at the new tech, which we haven't had a chance to try just yet.

XeSS is shorthand for "Xe Supersampling." (The "Xe" is Intel's umbrella name for its late-model graphics solutions.)

Intel's XeSS will work to do the same thing as Nvidia's Deep-Learning Supersampling (DLSS, now in version 2.3) and AMD's dynamic tech duo of FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and Radeon Super Resolution (RSR). The idea is to give you higher frame rates in your favorite games on the same hardware, using AI-assisted training and algorithms to handle the task.

At those three links we have much deeper dives into how those specific technologies work their trade. There are specific nuances and differences that distinguish them, along with guidelines about what hardware and games they will work with. It's a tangled field. Some of the technologies work on lots of games with very specific GPUs, and vice versa.

This kind of frame-rate efficiency is achieved by lowering the render resolution of the game (which decreases the load on the GPU, allowing for