Yesterday, mobile SoC maker Qualcomm announced a spatial upscaling tool called Snapdragon Game Super Resolution (GSR).
According to the San Diego-headquartered company, Snapdragon Game Super Resolution aims to maximize performance and battery life in mobile games. In a comparison image, Qualcomm likened it to AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0, though GSR can render in a single pass compared to FSR 1.0's two-pass operation, making it faster.
Since Snapdragon Game Super Resolution resolves edge sharpening and upscaling in one pass, power consumption is also reduced, and it's possible to combine it with additional post-processing effects such as tone-mapping, further enhancing performance.
The speed of GSR is owed to the upscaler using fewer textures samples and ALU instructions than rival upscalers. The luminance calculation only happens in the green channel since that's the color the human eye is most sensitive to, so GSR samples can use just a single component for each calculation, achieving 100% utilization of the shader processors.
As you would expect, Snapdragon Game Super Resolution runs best on Snapdragon Adreno GPUs thanks to specific optimizations for the Adreno GPU pipeline. However, it should work with 'most' mobile GPUs, Qualcomm said.
The company provided the following comparison benchmark, though it only refers to generic 'competitor upscalers', so it's hard to get a real bead. Anyway, it claims to be twice as fast. Gamers will be able to choose between running games at higher resolution (from 1080p to 4K, for example) than they were previously able to, or keep the same resolution but running at a higher frame rate, or just limiting the frame rate and conserving power to extend their device's battery life.
Qualcomm stated that mobile games supporting Snapdragon Game Super Resolution are expected to launch later this year. The announcement post includes statements from six-game developers about their support for GSR: Activision's Solid State Studio (Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile), Perfect World's Tianzhiyou (Jade Dynasty), Tencent's TiMi (Return to Empire), NetEase's Thunderfire Studio (Justice Mobile), NetEase's 24 Entertainment (Naraka: Bladepoint Mobile), and GIANTS Software (Farming Simulator 23 Mobile).
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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