Rumors suggest that soon AMD will launch a new driver suite that promises two new features and updates: FidelityFX SR and Radeon Boost, which, although the latter is already enabled in its drivers, would come with improvements to increase performance. . NVIDIA came first, struck before and now it has to compete, but can it compete with its perennial rival and against Microsoft?
One standard or four different? Where is the video game industry heading?
This is really the question we have to ask ourselves, where are the players going and where is the industry going? And it is that with the panorama that is presented to us plus some options that are loose in the industry, we will have to face DLSS vs Fidelity FX SR vs Radeon Boost vs DirectML.
As we mentioned, they all have their own quirks, but at the same time, they all do the same thing: resize the resolution to improve the picture quality. So why is each company developing its proprietary technology and not presenting itself as an open standard or not joining forces under one?
This is a big question that we don’t have an answer to, but surely since it’s not an API as such, but a way of scaling with AI, every business has the ‘intention to implement it in the engines of the main developers with the excuse of exclusivity for their hardware.
NVIDIA DLSS 2.0
We’ve talked at length about DLSS, so we’re going to summarize a bit for these reasons. It’s a technology that uses processors for AI Color tensor from NVIDIA to boost both performance and graphics quality.
All thanks to a deep learning neural network, which focuses on four main improvements over its predecessor: superior image quality, great scaling on all RTX GPUs, a network of neurons for all games and the ability to get customizable options.
In summary, NVIDIA is the one that develops and maintains it, the implementation is done by the game engine, it has selected game support that can activate it, it is Full Frame and is only available for architecture Volta, Turing, Ampere and successive.
AMD Radeon Boost
While not the direct competitor as such, it is true that Radeon Boost overshadows the NVIDIA pool. The problem with AMD is that the mode of implementation is through the pilot Adrenalin of society, where for more problems the games activated for this technology are not so abundant.
Moreover and due to its nature, if we analyze it carefully, we will see that although it is Full Frame, its way of working is totally dynamic, even if so, it is able to support architectures of GCN hasta RDNA and higher.
The problem with comparing it with NVIDIA is that it performs really less well because it is supported by the driver and it is the one that does the job and the dynamic range which in many cases causes it to lose quality. instead of earning it.
Microsoft DirectML
It was the last to arrive as such and it is no less important for that. Unlike the two rivals, it has more “open” characteristics, and its implementation only requires Windows 10, the game or driver having nothing to do with the performance or optimization of said technology.
In addition, and although it is a Full Frame technology, it has the disadvantage that no game supports it, which is curious because the developers would have to make minimal changes to support it. .
In addition, you are curious to know that it will be compatible with all GPUs supporting DX12, without discriminating models or architectures, which is a great advantage and could be postulated as the benchmark in the sector.
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution
He is the last to arrive, so much so that it remains a mystery to this day, but we know several things. In the first place, it will be a technology that will be implemented in every game that supports it, which leaves this type of implementation in the hands of the developers.
It will be the same as DLSS, a Full Frame technology and while we don’t know what arch itectures it will support, it is more than likely to be RDNA onward. But what sets it apart from Radeon Boost? Well, FidelityFX SR does uses deep learning algorithms
There is a lot of controversy here, because since we don’t know how AMD is going to move hardware resources, it speculates that FidelityFX SR could be somehow based on Microsoft DirectML, but still in the software package that carries its name: FidelityFX.
As a result, today we do not know if AMD is following in NVIDIA’s footsteps, if it shares a path with Microsoft, or if it undertakes its own. Everything indicates that this will be the last and that the company will have to assign software engineers so that the developers know how to implement it correctly in their games, because if that does not happen to NVIDIA when DLSS is released, which was rather notorious failure. .
So which is the best?
Well, that’s an unanswered question if you’ve been careful reading. The only reality is DLSS 2.0 and Radeon Boost, but the latter does not use Deep learning and change the resolution only by the driver.
DirectML is very green and Microsoft’s support projects seem to be going slowly but steadily, although at the moment there is nothing on the market of this magnitude. For its part, NVIDIA came in first, struck first with DLSS, and now has mature technology that works and to work on. Developers are increasingly implementing their technology into engines, so right now it’s the business and the technology that works the most.
We will see if FidelityFX SR may shade …
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