What you need to know
- NVIDIA has its proprietary DLSS solution for upscaling on select GPUs.
- AMD, meanwhile, has FidelityFX Super Resolution, its own upscaling tool that's open source and available for any and all to try out, whether they own an AMD or NVIDIA GPU.
- NVIDIA is now catching up with the open-source-ification of its Image Scaling tech, which isn't DLSS but accomplishes similar tasks.
There are a few key differences between NVIDIA DLSS and NVIDIA Image Scaling, both of which help upscale games to keep them pretty while reducing their overall performance demands. The former is available on a per-game basis and requires you to own the best graphics cards NVIDIA offers. The latter, meanwhile, isn't tied to specific games or GPUs. That means, even if you own an AMD GPU, you can benefit from Image Scaling.
At least, now you can. It's officially open source, meaning any and all are welcome to grab it. That puts it on a competitive level with AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), which is similarly available to anyone and helps upscale games so players can retain good resolutions and visuals without the usual performance hit such graphically demanding elements require on PCs.
AMD's and NVIDIA's open-source upscaling solutions aren't identical, so it's not like Green Team's release is irrelevant because it's late to the punch. Both have their own performance and visual benefits depending on the game you apply them to (via PC Gamer).
If you're a developer, you can pick up the NVIDIA Image Scaling SDK so your game can support the tech and make gamers' lives better, regardless of whether they have an AMD, Intel, or NVIDIA GPU. And in the event you want to learn more about the ins and outs of AMD's FSR and NVIDIA's DLSS, Windows central has extensive coverage of both.
