Microsoft will introduce a new feature called Automatic Super Resolution (Auto SR), which relies on artificial intelligence to enhance graphics quality and frame rates in games.
These innovations are expected to compete with popular game enhancement technologies like NVIDIA’s DLSS and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution.
The Auto SR high-resolution feature will be integrated into Windows 11 and will be available on devices utilizing advanced Neural Processing Units (NPUs) in new devices launching under the “Copilot Plus” initiative. This feature is designed to work with current games without the need for manual settings or modifications by game developers.
The DirectX team, working under Microsoft to develop graphics and multimedia technologies, states that Auto SR differs from other technologies like AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, Intel XeSS, and NVIDIA DLSS that are integrated into games; these technologies require changes in how games are displayed, while Microsoft’s feature enhances games as they are.
The Automatic Super Resolution feature utilizes wide-range artificial intelligence models on devices with Neural Processing Units (NPUs) to enhance graphics in games, thus boosting performance smoothness.
Microsoft is working on transferring operations to the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) instead of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to achieve improvements.
However, Microsoft acknowledges that the Auto SR feature may cause some delays when using artificial intelligence to enhance graphics, but it is unclear whether this delay will significantly impact gameplay or which games will show noticeable delays.
The automatic high-resolution enhancement feature will be used to enhance 11 different games in terms of visual quality and frame rates, including: Borderlands 3, Control (DX11), Dark Souls III, God of War, Resident Evil 2 and 3, Sekiro Contracts 2, The Witcher 3, and others.
It is expected that more games will be supported over time, and users can easily enable or disable the Auto SR feature and adjust settings for each game individually. Microsoft claims the ability to activate this feature in untested games.
The first laptops supporting this feature are expected to be released with new Qualcomm Snapdragon processors in the current month, and Microsoft will later offer it in new devices featuring AMD and Intel processors.
