Anybody who’s anybody in gaming graphics has a high-tech upscaling solution. So, it’s no surprise that Qualcomm has announced Snapdragon Game Super Resolution 2, its answer to the likes of Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR.
As the “2” in the moniker suggests, Snapdragon Game Super Resolution 2 is not Qualcomm’s first upscaler. However, it is arguably Qualcomm’s first advanced upscaler. Very much like AMD’s first iteration of FSR was a low-quality and pretty basic spatial upscaler which was then replaced by temporal upscaling for FSR 2, the big news with Qualcomm’s second-gen scaler is the move from spatial to temporal upscaling.
Another aspect of Snapdragon Game Super Resolution 2 that’s similar to AMD FSR is the complete absence of AI. At least, Qualcomm has not called out any AI elements or capabilities with its new upscaling platform. AMD did use AI to develop some of the features in the latest version of FSR 3. But for now, AMD FSR is not an AI upscaler like Nvidia’s DLSS, though that could change when FSR 4 arrives.
Anyway, Qualcomm says Snapdragon Game Super Resolution 2 can, “can transform 1080p games into stunning 4K visuals.” Qualcomm also claims that SGSR 2 can more than double performance.
It also provides the option of maintaining performance while extending battery life. All told, it offers a very similar set of benefits to the likes of DLSS and FSR in terms of the specifically upscaling elements of those platforms, as opposed to add-ons like frame generation or ray reconstruction.
Exactly how good SGSR 2 will be compared to the more established competition is hard to say, though Qualcomm will have achieved something very special if it achieves performance and image quality parity with Nvidia DLSS from the get-go, especially without AI smarts involved.
Qualcomm isn’t absolutely explicit about hardware support for SGSR 2. But we think it’s supported across various Snapdragon chips. So that means both smartphones and Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X chips for PCs.
That new Arm SoC has at least some support for AMD’s FSR scaler. But, arguably, a decent upscaler will be essential if Qualcomm is to compete with Nvidia and AMD in the PC gaming market. Moreover, if AMD FSR 4 does move to an AI platform, it may well require AMD graphics hardware, sidelining the likes of Qualcomm.
As for software support, there’s a Snapdragon Game Super Resolution 2 Unreal Engine Plugin for each latest major engine version, and there’s support for both the Vulkan and OpenGLES APIs. But Qualcomm hasn’t actually mentioned any specific game support. There’s probably plenty of work to come in getting this new upscaler into a truly competitive position. But you gotta start somewhere, right?
Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD.
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Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.
