Microsoft seems to have hidden its subsequent AI-powered enhancement inside a take a look at construct of Windows 11: Automatic Super Resolution, which could possibly be Microsoft’s reply to image-enhancement applied sciences like Nvidia’s DLSS. It appears simply as doubtless, nonetheless, to be an overarching management, just like the Dynamic Lighting function.

Twitter person @PhantomofEarth was among the many first to report the brand new function this week, hidden away in Windows 11 Build 26052. That construct proper now seems in each the Canary and Dev Channels of Microsoft’s Windows 11 Insider channels, and comes with the caveat that Microsoft could by no means launch this particular function to most of the people. Given its give attention to AI, although, it seems doubtless.

Automatic Super Resolution is as hidden as hidden could be, although. The Twitter customers that found it used particular instruments that dive deep into the Windows code and activate new options. Some of those options are intentionally left off in order that Microsoft can carry out A/B testing to see how customers react. I used the identical software to flip on Automatic Super Resolution.

Once enabled, Automatic Super Resolution, or Auto SR, seems throughout the Windows 11 Settings menu (System > Display > Graphics), proper above the AutoHDR setting that Microsoft launched in 2021. Microsoft features a placeholder hyperlink to let you know “More about Auto SR,” however it simply hyperlinks to Microsoft’s DirectX developer weblog. It additionally features a toggle to show the function on and off.

Mark Hachman / IDG

That’s not all, although. You may scroll down the identical web page to an inventory of video games that you’ve put in in your PC, and switch Auto SR on or off for every particular recreation. Interestingly, what you can’t do is toggle on Auto SR and Auto HDR on the similar time. Whether these two features intervene with each other or not, I don’t know. Auto SR additionally permits for 2 different choices: to show it on, and to show it on and go away it on the similar decision.

So what does it do? Unfortunately, not a lot, in my restricted testing.

Mark Hachman / IDG

The time period “Auto Super Resolution” seems to indicate that the expertise would work one thing like AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution or Nvidia’s DLSS. Both render frames in a lower-resolution, then upscale them to a higher-resolution to (ideally) provide the higher-frame price of a lower-res output however the picture high quality of upper decision. FSR 2.0 and DLSS 2.0 each enhance on this fundamental premise, although there are quality control to stability efficiency and picture high quality even additional.

I downloaded Build 26052 (within the Dev Channel) onto a Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2, with an Intel Core i7-13700H, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, and an Intel Gen 3 Movidius 3700VC NPU inside. That ought to have coated my bases with a number one CPU, GPU, and NPU.

I attempted two video games: the unique Cities: Skylines and Baldur’s Gate 3. To be truthful, neither features a particular benchmark mode, however they’re additionally configurable so as to take a look at a selected scene at size to evaluate it for picture high quality and body price. I seen a scene with Auto SR off, exited the sport, turned it on, and restarted.

I’ve to say that I observed no variations between the 2. BG3 confirmed essentially the most variability in body price; I left the show on the default 2400×1600, set Settings to High, and checked to ensure all the picture enhancement applied sciences had been turned off. Set to off, body charges different between 56fps to 66fps; whereas Auto SR was on, they different between 50fps and 71fps. The picture high quality appeared the identical, although with the Auto SR on the picture was captured at dimmer lighting.

Automatic Super Resolution additionally lets you run the function with out being tied to a particular decision. In this case, nonetheless, a recreation like Cities: Skylines simply zoomed into 1 / 4 of the display screen within the higher left. Since Cities locations its menu choices within the heart of the display screen and its UI on the backside, the sport was mainly unplayable and unconfigurable.

The query, after all, is what Auto Super Resolution is supposed to do. We requested Microsoft to deal with this query on Monday, and firm representatives hadn’t responded by press time on Tuesday.

Is Auto SR simply one other Dynamic Lighting?

It appears very doable that Auto Super Resolution may be Microsoft’s try and inject Windows into the hierarchy of apps and settings that management video games. The closest analogy is Dynamic Lighting, the management setting inside Windows 11. Gaming PCs and peripherals ship with their very own apps to manage per-key RGB, however they are often difficult, battle with each other, and generally simply not work. By inserting these controls within the easy-to-find (?) Windows Settings, Microsoft argues that you just’ll have a neater time making sense of all of it.

That sounds nice, however peripheral and laptop computer makers need to agree. I just lately examined an MSI gaming pocket book. While the pocket book’s SteelSeries GG software program management managed the laptop computer’s gentle bar simply high quality, Dynamic Lighting didn’t do a factor. Could we see the identical form of battle inside Auto SR? It appears doubtless.

I examined each video games whereas utilizing Steam, nonetheless. I believe it’s doable that we might see Auto SR as an unique to video games performed by way of the Windows Xbox app for PC, the place Microsoft would have extra management. Weirdly, one app I’d downloaded by way of Xbox Game Pass, Cities: Skylines 2, wasn’t even listed as an possibility for Auto SR.

The backside line, although, is that builders are getting smarter about how video games are rendered to maximise their accessible efficiency — AI or not. We’ll wait and see whether or not Automatic Super Resolution makes its method into Windows 11 24H2, set to debut this fall.