There are still a couple of weeks until the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, but Microsoft is not waiting to drop the bomb: its goal is to integrate Super Resolution (SR) into the next generation of games, and the way in which it plans to implement it now It has a name and it is a declaration of intentions: the era of DirectSR.
As described by Josué Tucker in the DirectX developer blog, DirectSR is a new API designed in collaboration with graphics card manufacturers that will provide a more fluid and efficient experience adapting to all hardware. What's more, Tucker defines it as the “missing link” that developers were waiting for when addressing the integration of SR in video games.
This API enables multi-vendor Super Resolution through a common set of inputs and outputs, allowing a single code path to enable a variety of solutions, including NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution.
A promising announcement, and we will soon take it at its word. Microsoft's plans in this regard will be shown and explained in more detail on Monday, March 18 and Thursday, March 21. Now, we are already told that DirectSR will be available soon in Agility SDK through a public preview. Among other things, so that developers can test the technology and offer feedback.
This is not the first time that Super Resolution has been talked about and how it will have an impact on the game. Already in mid-February media such as The Verge echoed how Microsoft was paving the way for its arrival for Windows 11 and also the way in which Artificial Intelligence would streamline processes to obtain better results in video games in a more efficient and dynamics on the part of the hardware.
On the other hand, it is worth keeping in mind that DirectSR will not be the only one that Microsoft will bring to the Game Developers Conference. We will see the Work Graphs API that promises that GPUs will be able to autonomously manage their own work; as well as new tools. A new step forward in the face of excellence in video games? It is clear that if better results are obtained through an API that makes our PCs and their components suffer less, we all win.
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