Sony has made a notable upgrade by extending its AI-powered upscaling technology, Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR), to the standard PS5. Previously exclusive to the PS5 Pro, this feature now allows base console owners to enhance their gaming experience with improved image detail and stability.
QSSR is a streamlined version of PlayStation’s Spectral Super Resolution technology, which has been available since the PS5 Pro launched. By utilizing AI, it upscales game images to make them sharper and more stable, even on the less-powerful base PS5. This adaptation was made possible through a collaboration with AMD, specifically under Project Amethyst, which enabled a performance-tuned implementation tailored to the capabilities of the standard console.
Today marks the rollout of QSSR with patches for the first two titles: Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei. Insomniac Games mentions that this technology enhances the clarity and detail of environments in Wolverine, while Sucker Punch notes that it improves fine details and temporal stability in Ghost of Yōtei.
This feature isn’t just limited; QSSR will be available to all PlayStation developers, paving the way for more games to incorporate AI-assisted upscaling. While QSSR won’t reach the performance levels of PSSR on the PS5 Pro, it provides developers with a valuable tool to balance resolution and image quality on the standard PS5, ensuring a better gaming experience across a broader range of titles.
Early tests from Digital Foundry suggest that QSSR has more modest performance targets on the base PS5 due to the absence of dedicated machine-learning hardware found in the Pro model. Developers may need to adjust internal and output resolutions because of these limitations, avoiding the 4K output that PSSR typically provides.
Daniel Craig, a principal graphics R&D engineer at Sony, explained that integrating QSSR into games that already support PSSR is relatively straightforward. In many cases, it requires just a few days of tuning, enabling developers to quickly enhance their titles with this technology.
