Microsoft is interested in enabling AMD's performance-enhancing FidelityFX SuperResolution technology on its latest Xbox Series X|S consoles. AMD's FidelityFX SuperResolution is a resolution upscaling technology designed to improve performance in games while offering a higher level of quality that's close to high resolutions (e.g., 2560×1440, 3840×2160, etc.).
"At Xbox, we are excited by the potential of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution technology as another great method for developers to increase framerates and resolution," a Microsoft spokesperson told IGN. "We will have more to share on this soon."
The technology offers four modes on the PC: ultra-quality, quality, balanced, and performance. AMD claims that even the ultra-quality mode renders frames in a close-to-native resolution (e.g., 4K) and can improve performance by around 60% in optimized cases. Other modes can increase performance even more, but game developers have to implement the tech into their game engines.
Game consoles have fixed hardware configurations, so improving image quality without a performance drop, or improving performance without image quality degradation, is just what the doctor ordered. That's why it is understandable that Microsoft, whose Xbox Series X|S consoles are powered by AMD's RDNA 2 architecture, is so eager to support it.
It remains to be seen is whether Sony's PlayStation 5, which also uses an RDNA 2-powered GPU, will also support the technology.
Earlier this year, AMD made select capabilities of its FidelityFX package available to Microsoft Xbox Series X|S developers, like FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), Variable Shading, and ray-traced shadow Denoiser technologies. Those features are already supported in numerous PC games, but there's no word about when we can expect to see the first titles that support SuperResolution.
