Right now, if you want to take advantage of Windows’ AI scaling capabilities, you’ll need to shell out some cash for it. Companies like Nvidia offer AI upscaling within their graphics cards, and without it you’ll be stuck at resolutions your computer can natively support. However, it looks like Microsoft is changing that. It should soon be possible to scale games natively on Windows 11, without requiring a proprietary GPU.
Twitter user PhantomOcean3 showed off the modern AI upscaler feature in a tweet. If you’re using Windows 11 24H2, currently in Insider Preview, you’ll find this option under Settings > System > Displays > Graphics. Windows calls this feature “automatic super resolution” and says it uses artificial intelligence to “make supported games run more smoothly and with improved details.” While the feature doesn’t appear to be live yet, it does mean that built-in AI scaling is on the way.
The tweet may have been deleted
How – emphasizes Tom Warren from The Verge, this feature is reminiscent of AI upscalers from companies such as AMD (FidelityFX), Intel (XeSS), and especially Nvidia’s DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling). If Windows’ built-in AI scaling function works similarly to how upscalers from Nvidia, AMD and Intel perform, it could eliminate the need to have hardware from one of these companies in your computer to reap the benefits.
What’s so great about AI scaling tools?
The main advantage of native AI scaling is the ability to render games at higher resolutions without the need for more advanced hardware. For example, if you’re running Windows 11 24H2 on your computer, you can employ this feature to upscale a 1440p game to 4K instead of running the game natively in 4K. The latter type will usually be more demanding on the GPU, and if your hardware isn’t powerful enough, you may encounter slowdowns.
However, upscaling from 1440p allows you to see better details without taxing your system. And if Microsoft really wants to compete with upscalers like DLSS, it will implement other benefits as well. DLSS not only scales from 1440p to 4K, but also adds details that are missing when playing games in 4K resolution with DLSS turned off, and increases the frame rate by using artificial intelligence to “guess” what the additional frames should look like. Hopefully the AI scaling module in Windows 11 will provide similar benefits, but at least it’s nice to see Microsoft lowering the bar for entry into the market for this type of technology.
