Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Intel XeSS massively boosts performance, and it might actually launch soon

By

Intel’s Tom Petersen and Ryan Shrout have reunited once again for another round of insights into Intel Arc. This time, they delivered a deep dive into the upcoming Intel XeSS technology, which will be Intel’s response to Nvidia’s DLSS.

The tech has long been expected, but it seems that Intel is planning to launch it soon. More importantly, based on the tests provided by Shrout and Petersen, Intel XeSS might be able to serve up a serious performance boost.

Intel Arc Graphics | Intel XeSS Technology Deep Dive

Intel XeSS is an upscaling feature found in the Arc Alchemist graphics cards that are slowly making their way to the market. It initially renders your game at a lower resolution and then uses machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to boost your performance while still maintaining good image quality. Nvidia and AMD have similar technologies, Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!
Privacy Policy

We’ve been waiting for Intel XeSS for quite some time — it was initially meant to launch on May 20 after first being teased in 2021. Much like the Arc GPUs themselves, Intel XeSS has been slow to arrive, but now, the company is preparing to launch it properly.

In the video, Intel explains that it wants “the best of both worlds” with XeSS — fast rendering and high resolutions all in one package. To achieve this, it plans to utilize AI to boost the super sampling process.

Before we begin, it’s worth noting that Intel XeSS will feature the following four modes:

  • Ultra Quality
  • Quality
  • Balanced
  • Performance

Ultra Quality mode focuses on image quality as opposed to frames per second (fps). Going down the list brings the focus more toward performance than image quality.

To show off the Intel XeSS technology alongside an Arc GPU, both Petersen and Shrout played Shadow of the Tomb Raider. They both used similar computers with the flagship Arc A770 GPU and ran the game with ray tracing enabled, at 1440p, and on max settings. However, Petersen used the Balanced mode while Shrout played on native resolution without supersampling.

Using XeSS delivered a tangible boost in performance; Petersen managed to hit up to 80 fps in Balanced mode while Shrout’s PC struggled to achieve a stable 50 fps. Using Performance mode brings those numbers even further, delivering up to 2.11 times the frame rates of running the game without XeSS.

Intel XeSS performance figures.
Intel

Beyond talking about the technology itself, Petersen and Shrout revealed that over 20 games will support Intel XeSS. The full list includes:

  • Anvil Vault Breakers
  • Arcadegeddon
  • CHORUS
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
  • Chivalry II
  • Death Stranding: Director’s Cut
  • DioField Chronicle
  • Dolmen
  • Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed
  • Ghostwire Tokyo
  • Gotham Knights
  • Hitman III
  • Naraka: Bladepoint
  • Redout 2
  • Shadow of The Tomb Raider
  • Super People
  • The Riftbreaker
  • The Settlers
  • Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodhunt

We’ve also heard from Ubisoft that Skull and Bones will be among the first games to support Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS when it launches on November 8. This gives us a fun little teaser — November 8 just might be the deadline for Intel to introduce XeSS. Intel is also already working with the developers of Instinction, a dinosaur-themed game set to release in 2025.

Intel plans to make XeSS open to all developers to make it easier to integrate within upcoming and existing titles. It has also teamed up with the creators of the popular 3DMark benchmarking tools to make a new tool known as XeSS Feature Test. This tool will be available on all graphics cards, not just Intel Arc, and it will highlight the benefits of XeSS by offering a side-by-side image and performance comparison.

In the meantime, we’re still waiting for the global launch of the Intel Arc flagships. Intel has recently released the Arc A380 in the U.S., so hopefully, it won’t be long now. Intel XeSS also doesn’t have an official release date just yet.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Monica J. White
Monica J. White
Computing Writer
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
Intel’s latest update improves gaming performance by up to 77%
The backs of the Arc A770 and Arc A750 graphics cards.

Intel has just made a slew of exciting announcements regarding to its Arc Alchemist GPUs, which are some of the best graphics cards for a more budget-oriented build. Since the launch of its flagship GPU, the Arc A770,  Intel has been hard at work releasing frequent fixes to optimize the performance. Now, over 30 driver updates later, Intel is talking about the boost in games its GPUs have received. It's also ushering in a brand-new open-source tool.

Upon the launch of Intel's discrete graphics cards, it was clear that while Arc GPUs were solid in DirectX 12 games, they lagged behind in titles that use DirectX 11 and DirectX 9. Now, Intel claims that the latest Arc drivers bring major improvements in that regard. It showed its own benchmarks in various games to prove that things are different now, all based on testing with an Arc A750 GPU.

Read more
Intel’s forgotten Arc GPU might still have some life
Intel Arc A770 graphics card.

Intel's most stealthy GPU appeared in yet another round of leaked benchmarks. The Intel Arc A580 was tested in OpenCL on Geekbench, and its score pits it against AMD's RX 7600. But does that really mean that it'll be on par with one of AMD's best graphics cards in this generation?

Although most of us have heard of the Arc A770 and the Arc A750, and even the entry-level Arc A380, the Arc A580 remains a bit of a myth. Announced well over a year ago, the GPU has been spotted in benchmarks every so often, but Intel hasn't released it to the market just yet. It's hard to say what the reason is behind this delay, as the specs of the card have been known for a long time.

Read more
Intel quietly steps out of the shadows with two new GPUs
Two Intel Arc chips in front of a blue and purple gradient background.

Intel has just released two new mobile graphics cards -- the Arc A570M and the Arc A530M. However, the launch was a little bit of a "don't blink or you'll miss it." The cards appeared on Intel's website, but there was no announcement of any kind.

Over time, we've grown quite fond of Intel's initial batch of desktop GPUs, so we're paying close attention to how the company continues to grow its mobile cards for gaming and other high-performance laptops. This unexpected launch puts Intel ahead of both AMD and Nvidia when it comes to the number of laptop GPUs available, but the actual number of computers that will utilize these cards remains to be seen.

Read more