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

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.

What Does XeSS Stand For?

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

What Do Supersamplers and Upscalers Like XeSS Do?

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.

How Do These Technologies Work?

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 higher frame rates), then "supersampling" (also called "upscaling," depending on the technique), rendering the image back up to a point where your eyes can't see the quality difference. "More frames for free" is the colloquial phrase around these technologies these days.

We've tested all three of the existing players—again, check the links above for those deep dives—and found that Nvidia's DLSS consistently produces the best image quality. However, DLSS's game compatibility is limited (more on that in a moment), and it works only with Nvidia GeForce RTX cards.

Intel's XeSS tech is trained more similarly to Nvidia's DLSS than AMD's RSR. This is a good sign for the possible levels of quality we might be able to expect out of XeSS in various PC games when it launches. There's a catch, though, as there often is with these kinds of technologies: the number of games at launch that can use it.

What Games Does XeSS Work With?

All of this excitement around a new supersampler/upscaler entering the arena, is, unfortunately, tempered by one major drawback: the fact that per-game training is required to deploy it.

Like DLSS, XeSS will require every game it works on to be trained ahead of release (at Intel's Arc labs, in the case of XeSS). The training acclimates the technology to game scenes and, roughly speaking, informs how it can cut corners without quality loss. That training aspect, though could be a potentially big hurdle to the near-term uptake of XeSS.

In introducing this XeSS detail to us in a prelaunch briefing, Intel presenters said that while the company was exploring "all forms of neural upscaling" at launch, XeSS will have just 14 compatible games. Here's the full list of launch-ready titles:

In comparison, Nvidia's DLSS is approaching the 180-title mark, while AMD's RSR is compatible with thousands of games—nearly any title based on DirectX 11 or DirectX 12/12+. To pardon the pun, at the start there won't be any excess of XeSS. 

What kind of horizon could we be talking about for Intel here? As a reference: It took more than three years for the library of DLSS-trained games to hit its current number. And many of those DLSS-compatible games have long since passed in and out of the gamer zeitgeist.

What Hardware Will XeSS Run On?

Intel's Arc discrete graphics chips will be the first hardware to support XeSS with the list of supported games. Arc will debut first in a round of laptops (decidedly, not hardcore gaming models) employing the Arc 3 line of mobile Intel Arc GPUs; the first laptops will roll out in April. (Intel has detailed two Arc 3 GPUs.)

Arc 5 and 7 chips for laptops should start to appear in laptops in early summer 2022, and desktop Arc add-in cards will follow later. (Intel has announced no firm time frame on those yet.)

When Will Intel XeSS Launch?

Behind Nvidia, Intel will be the second graphics player to integrate AI-backed render cores into its discrete mobile solutions, something that AMD has yet to achieve itself. This does give the company a lead on one company at launch; however, all versions of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 30 Series mobile chips come with DLSS compatibility—driven by their onboard Tensor cores. Intel says XeSS compatibility will extend to both mobile and discrete graphics solutions, as well as desktop SoCs, at some point in the future.

While we did get a preview of Intel's XeSS during our pre-brief, availability information and launch dates outside of "early summer 2022" are still under wraps. Stay tuned as we test the first batch of titles...whenever Intel's solid launch date for XeSS arrives.

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