Several chip vendors have developed graphics upscalers integrated into their hardware or software. Some popular ones include NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), and Intel XeSS (Xe Super Sampling). Today, Arm announced its own upscaling technology called Accuracy Super Resolution (Arm ASR). Arm claims that Arm ASR will be the best-in-class open-source solution for upscaling on smartphones.
In general, there are two different types of upscale: spatial and temporal. Spatial upscalers work frame-by-frame to generate results, which makes them simple to implement and requires relatively less computation. Qualcomm's Game Super Resolution (GSR) is a great example of a spatial upscaler. However, with this game developers cannot opt for upscaling to resolutions much higher than native since it will lead to blurred upscaled images.
Temporal upscalers are more complex to implement, as they combine data from multiple (current and previous) frames using temporal algorithms to generate the end result. Thus, they produce higher quality images than spatial upscalers. The game engine must provide color, depth and motion vector information to the upscaler to make this work.
When Arm decided to develop its own upscaler for smartphones, it went for temporal upscaling and was drawn to AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR2), which is available only for PCs and high-end consoles. Since FSR2 is available under the MIT license, Arm derived ASR from FSR2, allowing developers to make use of the familiar API and configuration options.
Arm ASR delivers great performance, thanks to the combination of highly efficient shader code, which reduced both GPU load and bandwidth requirements. The improved performance also translates into power efficiency, allowing users to enjoy graphics on their smartphones for a longer period of time. Arm collaborated with MediaTek to validate ASR's performance using a Dimensity 9300 handset. You can check out the GPU performance analysis of FSR2 and Arm ASR in the image below.
Arm team wrote the following in the blog post announcing Arm Accuracy Super Resolution.
We are very proud of the results of this work and want to share it with the developer community under an MIT open-source license. This will allow all developers to see the benefits of Arm ASR first-hand and experiment with their own projects
As ASR continues to gain adoption, it has the potential to become a game-changer, pushing the boundaries of mobile gaming and further blurring the line between mobile and console-quality gaming experiences.
Source: Arm
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