Intel XeSS 1.3.1 SDK Now Available: Includes Bug Fixes & Various Stability Improvements

Intel XeSS 1.3.1 SDK Now Available: Includes Bug Fixes & Various Stability Improvements 1

Intel's XeSS 1.3.1 SDK is now available, offering developers a range of bug fixes and stability improvements for the upscaling technology.

Team Blue has been a bit quiet for the past few months regarding disclosing developments and updates surrounding the XeSS technology. The last encounter that we had with Intel's XeSS was when the firm released the XeSS 1.3 SDK, which included massive performance optimizations such as updated XMX & dp4A models, along with new quality presets for XeSS which include Ultra Quality Plus, Ultra Performance, and Native Anti-Aliasing, which showed that Team Blue looks determined towards taking XeSS to new heights.

Following are the changelogs for each version:

# Release 1.3.1

Bug Fixes & Stability Improvements

# Release 1.3.0

Backwards compatible API with XeSS 1.0 & 1.1 & 1.2

New AI models deliver greater detail reconstruction, better anti-aliasing quality, reduced ghosting, and improved temporal stability

New quality presets: Ultra Performance, Ultra Quality Plus, and Native Anti-Aliasing

Increased resolution scaling for existing quality presets, delivering better performance while preserving visual fidelity

# Release 1.2.0

Backwards compatible API with XeSS 1.0 & 1.1

Support for dynamic resolution scaling

Bug fixes, stability improvements and performance optimizations

New combined libxess.dll library to be redistributed with the application

# Release 1.1.0

Backwards compatible API with XeSS 1.0

Updated XeSS models with improved temporal stability

Support for Auto Exposure of input frames

API added to detect if recommended Intel driver version is installed

Removed dependency on dxcompiler.dll and dxil.dll

Bug fixes, stability improvements and performance optimizations

On Intel platforms, the graphics driver version 31.0.101.4148 or newer is required

No new driver requirement for non-Intel hardware

# Release 1.0.1

Bugfixes for 1.0 release

Added Chinese Developer Guide

# Release 1.0

Initial public release

With the latest XeSS SDK 1.3.1, Team Blue hasn't mentioned any changes apart from listing "bug fixes & stability improvements" in their changelog on Github, revealing nothing new. While these changes aren't that extensive compared to previous updates, it looks we might see the addition of new enhancements close to the launch of Lunar Lake CPUs which adopt the next-gen Xe2 graphics architecture and will start the journey of the 2nd Generation Xe core.

Intel also plans to integrate the "Frame Interpolation" technology into its XeSS, allowing it to compete with NVIDIA's DLSS in the particular domain of frame generation. Along with that, Intel's XeSS is starting to witness widespread adoption from game developers and the community in general, given that the upscaling technology is now supported by more than 200 titles.

We expect development surrounding Intel's XeSS scaling tech to be revealed at Intel's upcoming Innovation 2024 event, where we might see the debut of the XeSS's next generation, whether it will be called "XeSS 2" or something else. For now, Intel has done a great job with its XeSS upscling tech which sits close to NVIDIA's DLSS and outshines AMD's FSR in several aspects thanks to its AI-backed framework.