Intel could be working on its own multi-frame generation tech — XeSS MFG name and logo found in Arc graphics driver files

(Image credit: Intel)

New code unearthed in Intel's Arc graphics driver files could point to the company's plans to launch its own answer to Nvidia's multi-frame generation tech. Multi-frame generation, or MFG for short, debuted in Nvidia's keynote last year as part of its pitch for the RTX 50 series. Ada Lovelace could already do regular frame gen — inserting an AI-generated frame between two real ones — but Blackwell took it one step further — using up to three interpolated frames created from an actually rendered one. So far, neither Intel nor AMD has an answer to this, though that appears to be changing soon, according to the r/IntelArc subreddit.

Scouring through the latest Arc drivers, user u/Organic-Bird-587 stumbled upon a mention of "Multi-Frame Generation (XeSS)" in the files. That was accompanied by an image that could potentially be the new logo for Intel's MFG, suggesting that the chipmaker might be working on its own multi-frame generation tech set to debut soon. Despite Arc facing fresh scrutiny following the recent Nvidia-Intel deal, the company is still believed to be working on Battlemage — its current-gen discrete GPU architecture — and states it remains committed to its Arc graphics project, which could include its fabled B770 card.

Driver Built XeSS Frame Generation Might be on the way. from r/IntelArc

Pairing up the B770 launch with MFG could be a huge win for Intel, netting them an answer to Nvidia's multi-frame tech. AMD currently offers no MFG solution of its own, so this could be the moment to establish a unique selling point for Arc versus AMD graphics cards. Still, it's important to note that this is purely speculative, and finding trinkets of unreleased or unannounced products is commonplace in driver code — until there's confirmation from Intel, take this with a huge grain of salt, although it would make sense given the current landscape.

Nvidia's historic $5 billion investment into Intel last week seemed to put the company's Arc graphics lineup in jeopardy, especially after the announcement that would see Intel create new chips featuring GPU chiplets from Nvidia. Intel later clarified that Arc will remain in development and that RTX GPUs are "complementary" — a stance that lines up with this news, as MFG is purely Nvidia's play at the moment, so offering a competitor to that almost reinforces hope that Arc is still on the battlefront, fighting to carve out its own space in a crowded market.

Intel Arc Battlemage B580 and B570 — (Image credit: Intel)

It's important to keep in mind that multi-frame generation is not a revolutionary concept and has its critics. Notably, Borderlands 4's rocky launch and Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford's insistence that users rely on the tech to make the resource-hungry title playable haven't gone down well with fans.

MFG requires a decent baseline framerate to build upon, and it introduces latency in the process. There's also a third-party solution, called Lossless Scaling, that is rising in popularity, promising up to 20x frame generation. It costs $7 but works with most GPUs. Just like XeSS works with every GPU (supporting Shader Model 6.4) after its recent update, if Intel is really working on XeSS MFG as we speak, it has the potential to democratize frame generation and make it as accessible as tweaking a DLL.

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Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

8 Comments Comment from the forums

logainofhades

Instead of fake frames, maybe they should work more on driver overhead issues, for real frames.
Reply
Notton

I want to see how well Intel implements MFG.

Nvidia's MFG is trash and requires you already have a high base frame rate that only suffers when you turn MFG on. It's basically useless on the low end GPUs that need it most.

Oh, and I'm still waiting for regular 2x Nvidia FG to fix image artifacts.
Reply
rluker5

logainofhades said:
Instead of fake frames, maybe they should work more on driver overhead issues, for real frames.
If you are using a CPU slow enough to suffer from the driver overhead, I E a 2600 or 9600k, you likely wouldn't be able to hold 60 fps in many games with an Nvidia GPU so these fake frames are your only option at this point. Reducing driver overhead is simply not enough for old CPUs with the state of games currently.
I would prefer Intel does what they can and these fake frames kill 2 birds with one stone.
Reply
Gururu

Not too excited for this considering not needing it yet. Might change my tune if something too heavy I really want comes out soon.
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Roland Of Gilead

I don't think MFG or anything else will save Intel's dGPU efforts. I wonder will this work on older Arc cards? If it's just driver level and doesn't use any dedicated hardware, then it may not be any use at all. We shall wait and see I guess.
Reply
edzieba

logainofhades said:
Instead of fake frames, maybe they should work more on driver overhead issues, for real frames.
All frames are fake, the GPU just makes them up as it goes.

The big questions are whether Intel use an interpolation-based scheme (e.g. Nvidia's MFG) or go for an extrapolation-based/forward-prediction/reprojection system as used for VR devices (e.g. Asynchronous Spacewarp), and whether this is a driver-level feature or something that requires engagement from game developers.

Both require access to a motion-vector buffer - ideally this would be generated by the game itself (somewhat more accurate as it uses object data- but that only applies to geometry motion and not texture motion) but that requires the game engine to output the MVec field - as well as a depth-buffer/Z-buffer.
A generated MVec field could also be used on its own generated by picking the MVec field out of the video encoding pipeline that already exists in most GPUs (ASW uses both a generated MVec field and a game provided depth buffer).
The depth buffer is trickier: if the game does not expose it, then you can estimate it from SFM or similar (but that's inaccurate and has performance overhead) or try and recover it from engine calls (also unreliable if the game does something 'clever', and needs to be tweaked per-engine) and is the real barrier to making frame generation a universal driver-level feature rather than something that needs direct engagement from game developers to enable.
Reply
dalek1234

logainofhades said:
Instead of fake frames, maybe they should work more on driver overhead issues, for real frames.
Exactly.
Reply
thestryker

While I'm a fan of FG for what it is, frame smoothing, MFG doesn't particularly make sense to me. Every level of additional generation amplifies the negatives of FG in the first place. The only time MFG makes sense to me is if you could set a frame rate target and the FG maintained that target by dynamically shifting how many frames are generated as needed. I believe lossless scaling has this capability, but to my knowledge no vendor specific has gone this route or even discussed it.
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