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| Intel shows its response to NVIDIA DLSS technology |
The new Arc brand from Intel is its first foray into gaming GPUs, coming in the first quarter of 2022.
During the Architecture Day 2021 event, the company provided some additional details for the upcoming graphics cards. Including a first look at AI super-accelerated sampling, now known as XeSS.
XeSS is expected to compete with NVIDIA's DLSS deep learning super sampling technology and will debut with an Arc GPU architecture (called Alchemist) in early 2022.
Similar to DLSS, XeSS updates the game from a lower resolution to provide a smoother frame rate without significantly affecting image quality.
The company also uses custom Xe cores in future GPUs to power its XeSS technology and uses the Xe Matrix eXtensions engine internally to provide AI-accelerated processing.
Like DLSS, XeSS uses machine learning to reconstruct details from neighboring pixels and past images, and the company promises an almost twofold increase in performance.
On the other hand, AMD's Ultra HD FidelityFX is taking a different path. It uses spatial optimization technology instead of the AI-based reconstruction methods used by Intel and Nvidia.
Additionally, the company promises that XeSS will not be limited to products with only custom Xe Matrix eXtensions engines.
Intel shows its response to NVIDIA DLSS technology
The company plans to roll out XeSS on different devices in the future. Including integrated graphics, there is a version that also supports the DP4a command set.
A short demo shows what XeSS looks like in practice. The company provided a real-time demo using XeSS to render 4K in 4K and 1080p. However, due to low demand, it runs at twice the number of frames per second.
The company also confirmed that Alchemist fully supports DirectX 12 Ultimate. In combination with hardware-based ray tracing, it supports DirectX ray tracing and Vulkan ray tracing.
In addition, the company also announced that Unreal Engine 5 will be running on SoC Alchemist. The company has made it clear that it will not make a SoC Alchemist itself.
As part of its IDM 2.0 strategy, it uses TSMC to make its own Arc products. Use the Alchemist to build with the N6 Enterprise Node.