Intel’s XeSS 2 SDK is now available to all developers

Intel releases its XeSS 2 SDK and Unreal Engine 5 plugin

Today, Intel released its XeSS 2 SDK to developers, allowing them to integrate XeSS into their games. With the release of XeSS 2, XeSS moves beyond AI upscaling (Super Resolution), expanding into latency mitigation and frame generation. This SDK is now available on GitHub.

Alongside their XeSS 2 SDK, Intel has released a new XeSS Plugin for Unreal Engine 5. This allows Intel XeSS Super Resolution (XeSS-SR), XeSS Frame Generation (XeSS-FG), and XeSS Low Latency (XeSS-LL) to be easily added to Unreal Engine 5 projects.

Like prior versions of XeSS Super Resolution, two forms of Intel’s AI upscaler are available, there is an Intel-optimised version that runs on Intel ARC and Iris Xe AI accelerators and a version that can run on all Shader Model 6.4 and newer CPUs with DP4A support. XeSS Frame Generation and Xe Low Latency are only available on Intel ARC GPUs with Xe Matrix Extensions for AI acceleration. The only exception to this is the Intel ARC graphics on Meteor Lake CPUs, which supports XeLL but doesn’t support XeSS Frame Generation.

(XeSS 2 and its impact on Frametimes)

With XeSS 2, Intel has a feature set that can match Nvidia DLSS and Nvidia Reflex. However, Intel lags behind when it comes to game support. Additionally, Intel lacks an “upscaler upgrade/override” option, like AMD’s FSR 3.1 SDK upgrade option (which can enable FSR 4) or the Nvidia app’s DLSS Override feature.

If Intel wants to strengthen XeSS and its future discrete GPU prospects, it needs more to support XeSS 2. Furthermore, they also need an upgrade path to allow these games to benefit from future XeSS upgrades.

You can join the discussion on Intel releasing its XeSS 2.0 SDK on the OC3D Forums.