


Microsoft\'s Upscaler Is the Only Reason Gamers Will Care About a CoPilot+ PC
Microsoft’s answer DLSS and FSR is here. Automatic Super Resolution is a Windows-integrated upscaling method that, at least according to an early demo, works rather well. Microsoft has already launched Auto SR, so let me explain how it works and how you can use it.
Auto SR Is Here, and It Looks Promising
Microsoft Auto SR is finally here and, while the initial demo doesn’t include any video of the tech in action, I’ve got to say that Auto SR does look pretty darn solid, while also bringing pretty respectable performance gains.
If you look at the two Borderlands 3 screenshots below—the game Microsoft used to showcase Auto SR—you can see that the Auto SR image on the right, which is upscaled from 720p to 1440p, looks cleaner than the native 1440p image on the left.

The 1440p Auto SR screenshot features sharper textures, with most of the intricate details preserved after upscaling the original 720p image, along with almost double the frame rate. The image resolve is sharper compared to native 1440p, but you can see some issues if you look closely.
For starters, the patches of grass look a bit pixelated, but they still look arguably better than on the native 1440p image. While most textures look sharper on the upscaled image, some detailed textures, like the tree canopy, look a tad muddier compared to the native image.

You'll notice fewer details found on complex textures in the second screenshot. Just look at those vines hanging from the building in the distance. See how they lack some detail on the Auro SR screenshot compared to the native image.

That said, even with those caveats, Auto SR looks quite promising. I’d like to see a video of Auto SR in action, but even in the provided screenshots, Microsoft’s OS-integrated AI upscaler gives FSR and XeSS a run for their money. It’s the first CoPilot+ PC feature that could be genuinely useful to gamers.
Auto SR Looks Better Than Driver-Level Upscalers
Automatic Super Resolution is OS-integrated and it provides better results than driver-level upscalers. The reason for this is that NVIDIA Image Scaling and AMD Radeon Super Resolution are just simple image upscalers that don’t utilize machine-learning algorithms.
Auto SR, on the other hand, is based on an AI model trained on a bunch of gaming content, making the tech similar to DLSS and Intel’s XeSS when used on Intel Arc graphics cards. But unlike DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, Auto SR is integrated into Windows itself and doesn’t require game developers to enable special options for it to work best.
Options like adjusting negative level-of-detail (LOD) bias so that the texture quality matches the upscaled resolution and not the base resolution the image is upscaled from, and enabling pixel jittering on certain objects, so they don’t look overly pixelated when upscaled to a higher resolution. These two features may help explain the software textures and pixelated grass on the two Borderlands 3 screenshots shown above.
Also, since Auto SR isn’t baked into games, you can expect lower details of the HUD and other graphics user interface (GUI) elements. With DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, the game is upscaled first, and GUI elements are added later, allowing them to be rendered at native resolution. But Auto SR renders GUI elements at a lower resolution and then upscales them, resulting in worse-looking HUD and other GUI elements—maps, icons, menus, and so on.
While Auto SR can’t match DLSS when it comes to image quality, Microsoft’s AI upscaler is still great news for gamers looking for a quality image upscaler they can use in games that don’t support DLSS, FSR, or XeSS.
It Just Works (In Supported Games)
One of the best things about Auto SR is that it just works. After you enable the option in Windows settings, Auto SR automatically turns on in supported games, in full-screen and windowed borderless modes, and then seamlessly turns off and switches your native resolution back once you exit the game. On the other hand, driver-based upscalers require a manual set-up process for each game, on top of not looking as good as Auto SR.
Currently, Auto SR only works with 11 games, but that list should get populated with more games with time. To check out the full list of supported games, visit the WorksOnWoA.com website, select the Auto SR filter, and then tick the “Yes, out-of-box” and “Yes, opt-in” boxes to see the complete list of Auto SR titles.
From what I can tell, Microsoft plans to make most DX11 and DX12 games Auto SR-compatible. On the other hand, DX9 and older games and those that use Vulkan and OpenGL graphics runtimes are not and won’t be compatible with Auto SR.
Another good thing about Auto SR is that it only adds a single frame of latency to an upscaled game on average. Such a tiny input latency hit is possible because Auto SR runs off a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) instead of using your GPU or CPU, thus not using any resources that might be spent on rendering the game.
Auto SR Is Only Available on CoPilot+ PCs
Requiring an NPU to work is Auto SR’s biggest caveat. The NPU-reliance means that Auto SR is only available on CoPilot+ PCs. At the moment, this only includes laptops equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips. This should change once we get CoPilot+ PCs powered by next-gen laptop CPUs from Intel (Lunar Lake) and AMD (Ryzen AI 300 CPUs), both of which include potent NPUs.
On the flip side, the upcoming Zen 5 desktop CPUs from AMD won’t be able to use Auto SR since they don’t pack NPUs. This is bad news for PC builders planning to build an all-AMD PC powered by an AMD CPU and GPU because, at least to me, Auto SR looks like a better upscaling solution than AMD FSR.
Microsoft’s Automatic Super Resolution could become the go-to upscaling choice for DX11 and DX12 games that don’t support DLSS, FSR, or XeSS. The AI-based upscaler looks pretty solid in action, and I hope Microsoft will stay true to its promise and continue making more games compatible with Auto SR in the future.
The above is the detailed content of Microsoft\'s Upscaler Is the Only Reason Gamers Will Care About a CoPilot+ PC. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

Related ##### Before Dropbox and OneDrive, We Had Windows Briefcase Windows Briefcase: A Pioneer in File Synchronization. Posts 1 Choosing a navigation app? Bing Maps offers the closest experience to the discontinued Windows Maps. Google Maps and

The "breviation package" feature introduced by Windows 95 makes file synchronization possible. At that time, this function was unique in the field of file synchronization. However, with the rise of cloud services such as OneDrive, Microsoft has gradually phased out the "branded briefcase" feature since Windows 8. You might be surprised that file synchronization is not a new technology, in fact, Microsoft has provided this feature with a virtual folder called "Briefcase" as early as Windows 95. A brief history of Windows "Briefcase" As the name suggests, the "brookie" feature was released with Windows 95 released in 1995, which is still considered by many to be one of the best operating systems. It has user friends

Razer Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition Review: Comfort and Performance Razer's first vertical mouse, the Pro Click V2 vertical version, is known for its ergonomic design. The tilt angle of 71.7 degrees, like a handshake, effectively reduces wrist pressure. In terms of technical specifications, the vertical version and the standard version of Pro Click V2 have many similarities. Both are equipped with Razer's advanced Focus Pro optical sensor, with a maximum sensitivity of 30,000 DPI, a maximum speed of 550 inches per second and a maximum acceleration of 40G. All mechanical buttons can withstand 60 million clicks, ensuring durability. In terms of battery life, the vertical version is up to 6 months

Western Digital's 40TB HDDs: A Stepping Stone to 100TB Western Digital (WD) is gearing up to launch 40TB hard disk drives (HDDs), but their ambitions extend far beyond that. This move is a crucial step in WD's roadmap to achieve its ambitious goal:

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL): Your Gateway to the Linux World While Windows enjoys widespread consumer popularity for its user-friendliness, Linux dominates the professional sphere. Whether you're a curious beginner or seeking seamless Windows-

How to Clean and Repair a Broken Keyboard I always have some tools ready before starting to repair any computer parts: Precision screwdriver set Cotton swab Isopropanol Magnetic bowl In addition, you need gentle dishwashing liquid, toothpicks, compressed air and keycap puller. Easy to pull out the key caps. After preparing the materials, you must first determine the degree of damage to the keyboard. Be sure to check for damage to the cable first. Just stained with soda and dust? Or are mechanical parts damaged? Or is there a circuit problem? The easiest first step to diagnose a problem is to open Notepad (or other plain text editor) and press each key on the keyboard to make sure they all appear correctly in Notepad. Note any keys that don't work, are difficult to press, or are stuck. Be sure to check all Cs on your keyboard

Intel's Free Arrow Lake Overclocking Boost: Faster Gaming for Core Ultra CPUs Your Intel Core Ultra 200-series processor might already be a powerhouse, but Intel's latest free update delivers a significant performance boost for gamers. The "Int

Windows 11 Taskbar's New "End Task" Button: A Game Changer for App Closing Closing stubborn or frozen apps on Windows has always been a hassle. The simple "Close" button often fails to completely shut down background processes.


Hot AI Tools

Undresser.AI Undress
AI-powered app for creating realistic nude photos

AI Clothes Remover
Online AI tool for removing clothes from photos.

Undress AI Tool
Undress images for free

Clothoff.io
AI clothes remover

Video Face Swap
Swap faces in any video effortlessly with our completely free AI face swap tool!

Hot Article

Hot Tools

MinGW - Minimalist GNU for Windows
This project is in the process of being migrated to osdn.net/projects/mingw, you can continue to follow us there. MinGW: A native Windows port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), freely distributable import libraries and header files for building native Windows applications; includes extensions to the MSVC runtime to support C99 functionality. All MinGW software can run on 64-bit Windows platforms.

Zend Studio 13.0.1
Powerful PHP integrated development environment

EditPlus Chinese cracked version
Small size, syntax highlighting, does not support code prompt function

mPDF
mPDF is a PHP library that can generate PDF files from UTF-8 encoded HTML. The original author, Ian Back, wrote mPDF to output PDF files "on the fly" from his website and handle different languages. It is slower than original scripts like HTML2FPDF and produces larger files when using Unicode fonts, but supports CSS styles etc. and has a lot of enhancements. Supports almost all languages, including RTL (Arabic and Hebrew) and CJK (Chinese, Japanese and Korean). Supports nested block-level elements (such as P, DIV),

WebStorm Mac version
Useful JavaScript development tools
