Job listings for the gaming sector gives hints for fans about what’s coming. Recently, Microsoft teased the return of the Fable franchise from developer Playground Games, and now might have just revealed Microsoft’s answer to AI-based graphical upscaling like Nvidia’s DLSS but it’s for Xbox Series X. 

AI-based graphical upscaling is a new way for that, rather than relying solely on a graphics card to output what we see on screen, the power of AI is used to lighten the load. So basically, it means that games can reach even higher resolutions by using AI upscaling and without sacrificing any performance. 

To do this clearly, Xbox plans to leverage “machine learning to make traditional rendering algorithms more efficient and to provide better alternatives”. When it comes to how this works, it’s still unknown  but it’ll likely look similar to Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FidelityFX technology. Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S also have support for AMD’s FidelityFX technology. However this technology could be new and unique to Xbox hardware unlike AMD’s FidelityFX.

Job listings for these positions are:

• Senior Software Engineer (for those with 5+ years of related experience)
• Principal Software Engineer for Graphics (for those with 10+ years of related experience) 

Most often, people will think of DLSS when it comes to AI upscaling, that’s the most popular amongst others. DLSS stands for Deep Learning Super Sampling and is a feature found in Nvidia RTX graphics cards. How this works is that the GPU starts producing a lower quality image that’s faster to render and then AI adds pixels to upscale the image to your desired quality. This way you can keep your framerate and have images at better quality.

This is a great technology, but what does it mean for you and your games? Well this method works really well when paired with another technology that’s also become more common recently: Ray Tracing. 

Ray tracing is an incredibly beautiful technology, but sometimes even the best GPUs can struggle to hit just 4K at 30FPS. Thanks to DLSS and similar technologies, players can upscale a lower resolution image to great effect. You can see DLSS in action with this video:

We’ll have to wait to see exactly what form Microsoft’s AI upscaling takes when this new technology launches on Xbox Series X.