Intel's XeSS 2.1 Update Invites AMD And NVIDIA GPUs To Its Frame-Gen Party

We're broadly of the opinion that Intel's Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) doesn't really get its due. Most people seem to be unaware that XeSS runs not only on Intel's own graphics processors, but also on any recent AMD and NVIDIA GPU. The key requirement is support for the DP4a compute instruction. That's present on AMD RDNA 2 (RX 6000) and newer GPUs, as well as NVIDIA Ampere (RTX 3000) and newer parts.

When Intel unveiled XeSS 2.0 with the launch of Lunar Lake and the Xe2 architecture, it came along with improvements in the core upscaling technology, but the headline feature was XeSS-FG. You can probably guess that this is a frame generation technology. We've actually tested XeSS-FG and found it to be a perfectly acceptable alternative to DLSS FG if you don't have access to that technology.


However, when we tested it, XeSS-FG was only available on Intel Arc GPUs. Now, thanks to the new XeSS 2.1 SDK, you'll be able to use XeSS-FG in games that implement XeSS 2.1. So far, that means exactly zero games, but it may be possible to mod in XeSS 2.1 support for games that already support XeSS 2.0 through the time-honored method of replacing the DLL. We haven't tried it, so report back if you have.

Like it or not, AI-powered upscaling technology is broadly considered a key facet of gaming graphics performance these days. While we can argue whether technologies like NVIDIA's DLSS, Intel's XeSS, and AMD's FSR4 are being used as 'crutches' by game developers, it's a fact that these upscaling methods are factored into the base hardware requirements of modern games, and that includes frame generation as well.


Ultimately, XeSS presents a better option for most gamers than earlier versions of AMD's FSR, especially considering that the latest version of FSR is locked to AMD's newest hardware (barring messy hacks). If you have an AMD GPU and your game supports XeSS, give it a try. The performance uplift will be smaller than with FSR, but the image quality gains are absolutely worth it in our opinion. Hopefully Intel can convince game developers to integrate XeSS 2.1 quickly.