A Twitter user spots an ‘automatic super resolution’ feature in a Windows 11 test build, which promises to offer smoother performance for PC games.
AMD and Nvidia both offer AI-powered “supersampling” technology to boost the frame rates for PC games, and now it looks like Microsoft is working on its own system as a built-in feature for Windows 11.
Twitter user PhantomOcean3 spotted a curious feature in a beta build for Windows 11 that was released last week: If you dig through the Settings and go to Graphics, you’ll find a new function called “Automatic super resolution.”
“Use AI to make supported games play more smoothly with enhanced details,” Microsoft says in describing the feature. That sounds similar to Nvidia’s Deep Learning Supersampling (DLSS), and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution tech, which can also help games play more smoothly by boosting the frames-per-second for eligible titles.
The feature goes on to let the user pick which GPU will power the automatic super resolution while warning that activating it “might cause unexpected results.”
Microsoft hasn’t revealed much else, including how its implementation will work. But other companies, including Intel, have also been using supersampling by lowering the game’s resolution, and then upscaling the images using trained AI algorithms, thereby stretching the GPU’s capabilities. The results can sometimes double the frame rates for eligible games, especially when playing at 1440p or 4K.
There’s also the question of whether another supersampling tech is really needed in today’s market. But in Microsoft’s case, the company also makes DirectX, a major gaming graphics API used across the industry. As a result, the news is sparking speculation that Microsoft wants to bake a supersampling implementation directly into the DirectX API.
For now, it looks like Microsoft has yet to enable the automatic super resolution technology on the Windows 11 test build. In a follow-up tweet, PhantomOcean3 said: “Tried for the fun of it to see what ‘unexpected result’ it would produce. Not much, just the game going into a weird resolution.”