Nvidia’s new open source upgrade SDK can benefit AMD gamers as much as its own
Nvidia’s image scaling and sharpening function Nvidia Image Scaling has been updated to improve performance and image quality. Although there are more gamers interested here, even AMD players. This upgrade feature is also being open source and cross-platform, which means that it will soon work perfectly with AMD and Intel GPUs.
Nvidia Image Scaling is a feature that has been integrated into the Nvidia graphics driver for many years. You can enable it through the Nvidia control panel. It provides an alternative to the Nvidia DLSS function for gamers without RTX cards and games that do not provide DLSS support. Although it is not very compatible with DLSS, this built-in solution does not require specific game support, so it can run on any game.
Therefore, the new feature of this update is to improve Nvidia Image Scaling from the control panel and GeForce Experience. The improved algorithm (version 2.0) is also only suitable for beginners, because now you can also choose to use the slider in the menu to control the clarity of the overall image.
In addition, Nvidia also announced a new Nvidia Image Scaling SDK, which Do It requires in-game support from the developer to work, but it also works with AMD and even Intel GPUs.
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“For many game developers, the cross-platform factor becomes more important. They say they like implementing DLSS, but what about those who don’t have it,” said Lars Wienand from Nvidia. “Now we provide a complete DLSS solution and a special extension solution for those who cannot run DLSS.”
This SDK enables Nvidia image sharpening to go directly to the game menu, just like the Nvidia DLSS or AMD FidelityFX super resolution options you would expect to see.
Yes, about the last one. Obviously, there are some obvious similarities between Nvidia’s new open source upgrade SDK and AMD’s open source upgrade SDK. Both are designed to upgrade your game without any fancy Tensor Cores or AI gubbins, and we are not the only ones drawing parallel lines here.
Nvidia told me that it generally expects “image quality very similar to FSR”, and in the case of the game Necromunda Hired Gun, which we are not particularly keen on, it shows its upgrades and even “works in this case.” Be faster.” In other words, there will definitely be many different games.
Nvidia Image Scaling is a single run, which means combining scaling and sharpening into a single shader operation. Nvidia told me that it doesn’t want performance differences on GPUs from different vendors, because most should schedule this pass in a similar way and return similar results.
Let’s not forget that Intel plans to release its own cross-platform upgrade function in XeSS next year, and at the same time release its first Alchemist discrete GPU. All three major GPU designers already have or will have some kind of cross-platform upgrade feature, which may be within a few months.
This is a competition to do our best to provide users with the best experience. Today’s announcement is a victory for both AMD and Nvidia graphics card owners. More game support for the cross-platform upgrade SDK will only result in better frame rates and image quality in the game, and may be on older low-end cards that need it the most.
Although it must be said that there are currently no plans to use the Nvidia Image Scaling SDK for games, in the short term, only Nvidia GPU owners can actually take full advantage of this new and improved algorithm. The SDK is available on GitHub for developers to choose. If they want, Nvidia is developing UE4 plug-ins and other engine branches, which will be launched soon.
To make it easier to compare upgrade features, Nvidia also introduced a new tool called ICAT. It will be released today, and videos and pictures can be cross-examined without editing software. So if you are curious about what all this really means for your favorite game, please give it a try.
However, for Nvidia, DLSS is still supreme, and Nvidia Image Scaling “cannot be compared with DLSS, even if [with DLSS] In performance mode. “With today’s release, “Cyberpunk 2033” also released version 2.3 of DLSS.
Someone told me that DLSS version 2.3 is roughly based on the experimental version of White Collie we tried last month, and should similarly eliminate the bad ghosting that occasionally appeared in the game in the previous DLSS version.