Discussion Intel's Image Upscaling "XESS" tech for ARC GPUs explained. An 'in-depth' preview.

Hi,

Just wanted to share this here. It appears that INTEL has finally given us an in-depth analysis into its upcoming image upscaling XeSS technology for PC games, which will be featured on its brand new Arc A-series GPU lineup.

As some of you might be already aware, XeSS or Xe Super Sampling is a fundamental technology featured within the Arc GPU architecture that leverages from XMX engines featured within it. We have heard a lot about the technology over the past several months, but now it's time to finally see it in some action.

Intel's Ryan Shrout and Tom Peterson have once again come together to give us a taste of what's to come with Arc's XeSS feature suite.

"Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) is Intel’s solution to get the best of both worlds and ultimately make better use of GPU resources. XeSS renders a game at a lower resolution then upscales the image using AI to a higher resolution with quality similar (or better) to a native render. This speedup occurs because games run faster rendered at lower resolutions as the GPU has fewer pixels to push. But low resolutions are a bummer, and we want the best of both worlds. So how does it all come together?"

"Graphics experts within Intel have been researching different approaches over the past few years and it became clear that infusing AI in the upscaling, or super sampling process, was the way to go to build a high performance, high quality solution. With XeSS, a trained model is applied to low-resolution frames and takes input from motion vectors and a frame history to send high resolution images to the display".
via Intel

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As a starting demo, both Ryan and Tom used similar PC setups running an Arc A770 graphics card. Both PCs were running Shadow of The Tomb Raider at 1440p Max settings with ray tracing enabled, and the only difference was that Tom's PC was running XeSS set to Balanced mode while Ryan's PC was running at Native resolution.

With the "Balanced" XeSS preset, Tom's PC saw a boost to over 60-80 FPS whereas Ryan's PC struggled to hit 60 FPS and was mostly running sub-50 FPS. That's a nice gain in performance.

Intel shared that XeSS will have various presets available at launch which offers different quality levels and vary the input resolution. The modes include:
  • XeSS "Ultra Quality" = Best Image Quality
  • XeSS "Quality" = Good Quality With Better Performance
  • XeSS "Balanced" = Decent Visuals and Performance Levels
  • XeSS "Performance" = Best Performance
Currently, Intel is only sharing performance in XeSS "Balanced" and "Performance" modes. As expected, the performance mode delivers up to 2.11x performance gains with raytracing on & balanced mode offering up to a 75% performance boost. According to Tom, Performance mode uses the same AI network to render the image as the Balanced mode, but uses a smaller resolution renderer.

Following is the performance breakdown/FPS.

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Intel XeSS "Balanced Mode" Preset Gaming Performance:

xess-balanced-mode-01-1480x833.png
xess-balanced-mode-01-1480x833.png


Intel XeSS "Performance Mode" Preset Gaming Performance:

xess-performance-mode-02-1480x833.png
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Apart from the above info, Intel has also promised that XeSS SDK will be open to all Game developers, and will be made so that it can be easily integrated within engines with a similar process to implementing TAA.

As a result of this open nature, Intel has teamed up with UL benchmarks, the creators of 3DMark benchmarking software to create a new tool known as the "XeSS Feature Test" which can be used by all GPUs (not just Arc), to see the benefits that XeSS has to offer. It also allow users to compare the visual quality in a side-by-side comparison in the Frame Inspector mode.

The feature test will let users select between the 4 XeSS presets with the following gains:
  • XeSS Performance = +2.5x Over Native
  • XeSS Balanced = + 2.1x Over Native
  • XeSS Quality = +1.8x Over Native
  • XeSS Ultra Quality = +1.5x Over Native
Intel-XeSS-Technology-Arc-GPUs-_-3DMark-XeSS-Feature-Test-Benchmark-_1.png


When it comes to Game support, Intel's XeSS will have over 20 supported titles, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II in which the technology will be available at launch on October 8th.

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Following is the full list of games that will either be patched or will have XeSS support added at launch or later on in the coming months:
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
  • Arcadegeddon
  • Ghostwire Tokyo
  • Vampire Bloodhunt
  • Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed
  • Naraka Bladepoint
  • Super People
  • Gotham Knights
  • DioField Chronicles
  • Dolmen
  • Chivalry II
  • Redout II
  • The Settlers
  • Death Stranding: Director's Cut
  • The Rift Breaker
  • Hitman III
  • CHORVS
  • Shadow of The Tomb Raider
  • Anvil Vault Breakers.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frlXry38tJo&ab_channel=IntelGraphics

Intel has stated that they will share more details such as price, performance, and availability before the products go on sale so expect more information in the coming weeks. The launch of high-end Intel Arc discrete graphics cards is scheduled for next month, if all goes well according to plan. :)
 
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It appears that tech outlet PC Games Hardware has done an extensive and a thorough review of the ARC A380 GPU. The card was tested in almost 50 games, which is quite a huge number for testing any GPU.

As you can see in this chart, most of the games run flawlessly, with some exceptions. Of course, INTEL has a lot of work to do to optimize their GPU drivers, so final performance might differ. Actually, some of the games tested are pretty old as well, and the ARC still manages to offer a decent gaming performance, which is great for a newcomer GPU.

But the main point is will gamers BUY Intel's ARC GPU series at this time of year, when AMD and NVIDIA are both on the verge of releasing their next-gen cards, ADA Lovelace and RX 7000-series ? It would be very tough for Intel to compete though.

Even the previous-gen AMD and NVIDIA cards offer much better performance, and the prices have also dropped down, so I'm not sure why would anyone take a RISK of buying a new GPU architecture. Just my thoughts. ! ;)

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