Sony announced this Thursday (the 1st) a new artificial intelligence upscaling technology for the standard PlayStation 5, bringing to the console part of the image enhancement features that until now were concentrated in the PS5 Pro. Called Quick Spectral Super Resolution, or QSSR, the solution debuts in Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei.
QSSR was developed from the Project Amethyst, a collaboration between Sony and AMD focused on graphics technologies based on machine learning. According to the company, the new library uses a simplified neural architecture and an implementation tuned specifically to extract performance from the PS5 hardware.
The technology analyzes the image produced by the game and reconstructs details to deliver a higher output resolution and greater visual stability. The approach is similar to that of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, or PSSR, but adapted to the processing limitations of the standard model.
Sony says that PSSR remains its most advanced solution, available on the PS5 Pro. QSSR was developed as a less computationally demanding alternative to allow conventional PS5 consoles to also use AI-based upscaling.
Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei get QSSR first
Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei are the first compatible games. Both receive updates this Thursday that add QSSR as an additional graphics option, without necessarily replacing the existing modes.
Insomniac Games says the technology improves pixel-level clarity and the stability of environments in Wolverine. Sucker Punch also points to gains in the rendering of character and environment details in Ghost of Yōtei, especially in image stability during motion.
The standard PS5 hardware, however, does not have the same dedicated machine learning capability present in the PS5 Pro. In initial tests cited by The Verge, this means that QSSR works within different targets than those used by PSSR on the more powerful model, with greater flexibility in output resolution and in the graphics modes adopted by developers.
Sony says that QSSR will be made widely available to PlayStation developers, opening the way for other games to adopt the technology. The company did not provide an additional list of titles or a timeline for new implementations.
