Microsoft has been going over what its incoming DirectSR tech is all about at GDC 2024 just lately – though in line with the grapevine, the catch is we would have a very long time to attend earlier than this nifty piece of the upscaling puzzle is realized.
For individuals who want a fast refresher, we heard about DirectSR again on the finish of February when Microsoft launched the tech because the ‘lacking hyperlink’ and a intelligent answer to offering upscaling to extra PC video games.
Somewhat than an precise upscaling answer itself, DirectSR is about offering a straightforward manner for current upscaling options – DLSS, FSR, and XeSS – for use with much less effort wanted from sport builders to combine these options (individually, after all – so that is about chopping out plenty of implementation work).
VideoCardz flagged that Japanese tech website 4Gamer.web was current at Microsoft’s GDC 2024 developer session (‘DirectX State of the Union’) the place DirectSR was additional explored.
The pliability of the answer was underlined, and the best way by which it doesn’t matter what the {hardware} – GPU, or an NPU on-board a processor – DirectSR will assist to facilitate upscaling extra broadly in PC video games, offering numerous options that’ll be supported instantly by Microsoft throughout all of the aforementioned upscaling applied sciences.
Whereas all that is undoubtedly thrilling, the report from 4Gamer.web makes a revelation that’s on the disappointing aspect for avid gamers – however not likely a shock. Specifically, we may very well be ready a very long time for DirectSR.
As VideoCardz notes, we don’t but have a launch timeframe, and Microsoft has solely simply begun work on DirectSR, so the fruition of the tech is probably going a great way down the road. 4Gamer.web reckons that we must always be capable to see a “demo with video” (if the interpretation from Japanese is right) at GDC subsequent yr.
Evaluation: Lengthy and winding street to upscaling panacea?
If it’s true (apply salt right here) that we’re solely being handled to a video demonstration in a yr’s time, meaning DirectSR will then want to enter preview and testing for a while after that, earlier than the complete launch rolls round, and adoption uptake kicks in. Briefly, this expertise could also be additional out than we hoped.
Till then, upscaling will stay a fragmented endeavor with help needing to be coded in for every totally different answer from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia, by sport builders. A method of summing it up is that DirectSR is a much-wanted shortcut for upscaling adoption, but it surely’s not going to be a brief path to the conclusion of the tech by the sound of issues.
Alternatively, Microsoft could possibly construct on a number of the work Staff Inexperienced has achieved on this respect already (with Nvidia Streamline, an open-source venture in an analogous vein to DirectSR) – and that might present one thing of a head-start.
We will however hope, and not less than Microsoft is now dedicated to treading this route of creating upscaling a extra universally utilized expertise over a higher variety of the greatest PC video games. It’s not like the opposite growth from Microsoft we’ve lined this morning, a way of rushing up ray tracing that’s nonetheless only a idea (a patent – although it’s positively a severely cool concept). DirectSR is coming, for certain – let’s simply hope it doesn’t take too lengthy to reach.