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NVIDIA releases a six-tap spatial upscaling alternative to AMD's FSR, enabled at the driver level and compatible with a much wider range of games through the GeForce Experience overlay

NVIDIA's spatial upscaler could offer a DLSS alternative for older NVDIA cards and games that don't support the technique (Image source: NVIDIA)
NVIDIA's spatial upscaler could offer a DLSS alternative for older NVDIA cards and games that don't support the technique (Image source: NVIDIA)
With the release of NVIDIA's latest driver update, spatial upscaling is added into both GeForce Experience and the NVIDIA Control Panel. The six-tap upscaling algorithm looks to be a more direct competitor to FSR than DLSS, and driver-level support makes it possible to enable in any game

NVIDIA's latest driver update introduces DLSS 2.3 in a number of games. But, more interestingly, it seemingly brings in a new, "six-tap" spatial upscaling algorithm that's accessible in all games via the GeForce Experience overlay. 

When AMD released FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) earlier in the year, it was touted as an open-source, more accessible alternative to NVIDIA's AI-based DLSS upscaling. However, closer analysis indicated that FSR wasn't much more than a simple spatial upscaler with a contrast adaptive sharpening pass. FSR's relative simplicity and open source nature, however, made it easier for developers to implement in a wider range of games. Software solutions like Lossless Scaling and Magpie even offered users a third-party approach to add FSR into any game. 

NVIDIA is now offering a similar spatial upscaling solution that's built into GeForce Experience. As of now, it isn't certain exactly how NVIDIA's solution compares to FSR, apart from the fact that they both use spatial techniques. Considering that FSR is full open source, it's not outside the realm of possibility that NVIDIA's upscaling code draws on it, in which case image quality will end up being largely similar.

In the days to come, face-to-face comparisons should tell us more about exactly how NVIDIA's upscaling compares to FSR and, indeed, to DLSS. 

Source(s)

NVIDIA

Spatial Upscaling For All Games

For over two years, NVIDIA has been offering a driver-based spatial upscaler called NVIDIA Image Scaling in the NVIDIA Control Panel, which enables sharpening and upscaling for ALL your games, without the need for game developer integration.  With the new November Game Ready Driver, we’re introducing updates to the scaling and sharpening algorithm, as well as making it more accessible through GeForce Experience.

The new algorithm uses a 6-tap filter with 4 directional scaling and adaptive sharpening filters to boost performance. It sharpens and scales in a single pass, so is very efficient.

The feature is accessible both from the NVIDIA Control Panel and GeForce Experience, and includes a per-game sharpening setting tunable from GeForce Experience’s in-game overlay.

NVIDIA is also releasing the NVIDIA Image Scaling algorithm as an open source SDK that delivers best-in-class spatial scaling and sharpening and works on all GPUs across all platforms. The SDK is publicly available today on GitHub for all developers to integrate into their games.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2021 11 > NVIDIA releases a six-tap spatial upscaling alternative to AMD's FSR, enabled at the driver level and compatible with a much wider range of games through the GeForce Experience overlay
Arjun Krishna Lal, 2021-11-16 (Update: 2021-11-16)