Intel gives us reasons to be excited about XeSS frame rate booster but is it too late?

Date:
Fri, 26 Aug 2022 13:51:10 +0000

Description:
Intels DLSS (and FSR) rival looks impressive, but its difficult to stay optimistic about the chances of Arc GPUs.

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Intel has provided us with a new deep dive into XeSS , its frame rate
boosting technology to rival Nvidia DLSS (and AMD FSR).

The explainer , put together by Intels graphics marketing guru Ryan Shrout (and spotted by VideoCardz ), covers a lot of ground, including games thatll be supported, the incoming performance boosts that can be expected, and
issues around compatibility with GPUs other than Intel Arc graphics cards , too.

Intel XeSS is set for a number of big-name games, including being present in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II at launch, and various benchmarks are
provided using an Arc A770 graphics card, over a raft of titles running at 1440p resolution in performance mode (the setting for the fastest frame rates with XeSS).

Some big boosts are evident in the likes of Ghostwire Tokyo, which at max details and with ray tracing on hits a rather stuttering 25 frames per second (fps), but with XeSS in performance mode, records a much healthier 53 fps (just over twice as fast, in other words). Hitman 3 witnesses a similar doubling in frame rates, from 34 fps without XeSS, to 68 fps with the feature running.

Other increases are more modest, as you might expect. For example, Shadow of the Tomb Raider gets juiced up from 62 fps to 87 fps, but thats still a healthy boost (all of these are with maximum details and ray tracing on, by the way).

Intel XeSS also offers quality and ultra-quality modes which focus on
upscaled image quality, rather than upping frame rates as performance does plus theres a balanced mode which is a compromise between quality and performance. With the balanced setting, Shadow of the Tomb Raider goes from
62 fps to 79 fps, which is still a worthwhile leap, but obviously slower than performance at 87 fps.

Intel also talked about support for GPUs, and outside of its own Arc graphics cards, products from Nvidia and AMD will be able to benefit from XeSS. Any
GPU that supports HLSL Shader Model 6 is fine to speed up games with XeSS, in fact, which means older graphics cards like Nvidias 900 series (from eight years ago now), and thats great to hear. Itll be an obvious boon for those
who have older cards from Team Green who obviously cant benefit from DLSS.

Regarding the games supporting XeSS, as we mentioned, the tech is planned to be in Modern Warfare II from the get-go, and heres the full list of games which are currently down to work with Intels frame rate boosting tech: Call
of Duty: Modern Warfare II Arcadegeddon Ghostwire Tokyo Vampire Bloodhunt Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed Naraka Bladepoint Super People Gotham Knights DioField Chronicle Dolmen Chivalry II Redout II The Settlers Death Stranding: Directors Cut The Rift Breaker Hitman III Chorus Shadow of the Tomb Raider Anvil Vault Breakers (Image credit: Intel / VideoCardz) Analysis: Could Alchemist still have some magic up its sleeve?

These are some impressive results on the face of it, although as ever, we
need to be careful around internal benchmarking not just for Intel, but any company, as these will be cherry-picked tests to make products look their
best in terms of marketing.

Still, XeSS is a temporal upscaling tech just like Nvidia DLSS , and AI is in the mix too, so wed hope for something as effective as Team Greens take on frame rate boosting though hopes are sometimes dashed, or at least not fully realized.

Intel notes that: Were excited for gamers and developers around the world to experience XeSS which will be available by the time A700 series discrete GPUs are available.

And therein lies the rub: when will A700 desktop graphics cards be available, exactly? After all, the Arc A380 GPU has only just gone on sale in the US (though technically, this budget GPU is out of stock at Newegg now, and we suspect that isnt because of outrageously high demand).

If XeSS really is going to be in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II when the
game comes out, that means both the tech and A770 should arrive within two months time, at the close of October at the latest. While thats possible,
with the way Intels Arc Alchemist launch has gone thus far, it really doesnt feel all that likely, if were honest. It could still happen, of course, but its difficult to be optimistic with all the delays and slow rollout of Arc desktop GPUs so far.

In some ways, this PR blast around XeSS feels like a bit of damage control, when elsewhere in the industry and on the grapevine, the talk around Intel
Arc graphics cards has been all about how much of a hole the GPUs have blown in Team Blues coffers . And indeed analysts chattering about whether the company isnt best simply cutting its losses at this point and abandoning the whole project (which must hurt Intel to hear, to say the least).

With that kind of talk dampening expectations all-round with Arc discrete GPUs, its a struggle to see a happier ending to all this. Still, we cant
judge yet, and certainly with XeSS, weve got to admire the open approach
Intel has taken in catering for rival GPUs (much in the same way that AMD did with FSR, but Nvidia definitely didnt with DLSS, which requires an RTX graphics card).

Time will tell, and at least the pricing of the Arc A380 in the US indicates Intels intention to undercut AMD and Nvidia. Lets face it at this point, Intel needs to do all it can to rekindle interest in Arc Alchemist, so maybe well see the higher-end GPUs follow suit, but in a grander price-cutting fashion (something the rumor mill has already hinted at ). We can but hope...



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/intel-gives-us-reasons-to-be-excited-about-xess -frame-rate-booster-but-is-it-too-late/


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