What is Intel XeSS? And how does it work? Explained!

As high-end graphics cards get more expensive each year, sometimes to the point where most people go broke, hanging on to your beloved old GPU seems like a great idea. Your favorite online games might not give you the maximum frames per second, but you’ll get by. I wish there was a way to improve game performance without spending a lot of money. Luckily, Intel supports XeSS (Xe Super Sampling), which can significantly improve FPS and (possibly) image quality.

XeSS (Xe Super Sampling) is an AI-based upscaling technology designed by Intel to deliver a better, smoother, and more consistent gameplay experience. But how does it work and how much performance improvement can you expect? Let’s find out.

How Intel XeSS works

XeSS renders games at a lower resolution and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to upscale images to their native resolution . For example, if you are playing a game at 1440p resolution, XeSS will render every frame at a lower resolution (900p, 720p, 800p depending on the selected quality/mode) and reduce the image quality so that it looks like this: artificially increases. 1440p. Upscaled images look similar to, or in some cases better than, native rendering.

Rendering frames at a lower resolution can significantly improve performance. Because the GPU doesn’t have to push as many physical pixels, it can instead focus its horsepower to increase the number of frames per second . If you’re a low-end gamer, you know that games run faster at lower resolutions (at the expense of image quality). However, by enabling XeSS, you can get more frames for free without sacrificing image quality. It’s a win-win situation, folks.

Intel XeSS compatible GPU list

Unlike Nvidia DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling, Nvidia’s proprietary upscaling technology that only works on RTX series GPUs), Intel XeSS offers wide compatibility. XeSS is open source and runs on any GPU that supports the DP4a instruction set. Below we list GPUs that are Intel XeSS compatible.

Nvidia GPU

• GTX10 series
• GTX16 series
• RTX20 series
• RTX30 series
• RTX40 series

AMD GPU

• RX5000 series
• RX6000 series
• RX7000 series

Intel GPU

• Intel Arc GPU
• Intel Xe-LP integrated GPU (11th generation mobile CPUs and later)

Although XeSS works with all but older graphics cards, its upscaling performance is significantly better on Intel Arc A770 and A750 . High-end Arc GPUs feature XMX (Xe Matrix Extension) cores , similar to the Tensor Cores found in Nvidia GPUs, and work by providing more computing power for AI-accelerated workloads. Thanks to the XMX core, Arc A770 and A750 can achieve better results with XeSS. If you’re a proud owner of a Team Blue GPU (rhymes, right?), you’ll be happy with the performance boost that XeSS provides.

Even without an Intel Arc GPU, performance is significantly improved. However, we recommend trying both Intel XeSS and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (available on a wide range of GPUs regardless of brand) to see which one offers better performance numbers. For more information, check out our AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) coverage.

Intel XeSS compatible games

Support for XeSS has increased significantly in recent months, which is a good sign. However, compared to competitors Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR, the list is quite small. We hope to see more AAA games on the list soon. In the meantime, find a list of games that currently support XeSS here.

How to enable XeSS in supported games

It’s like flipping a switch (literally). If your game supports XeSS, go to Display/Graphics settings and click the “XeSS” toggle to enable it, as shown in the screenshot below. Some games will display a confirmation prompt with a “yes/no” option. Select “Yes” in the pop-up window.

When you turn on XeSS, you will see another option to adjust the upscaling quality. You can set it like this:

• Performance: Significantly increases FPS, but slightly reduces image quality.
• Balance: Reliably improves performance while minimizing image quality degradation
• Quality: Improves image quality and improves performance considerably (but not significantly).
• Ultra-high quality: Close to (and sometimes better than) native image quality, but the FPS increase is less dramatic.

Intel XeSS: In-game performance

When you set XeSS to performance mode, games like Hitman III and Ghostwire: Tokyo perform 2x better , which is great. Even some graphics-intensive games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider saw a 1.4x performance increase from 62 FPS to 87 FPS at maximum settings at 1440p. To say it’s impressive would be an understatement.

However, not everyone wants to compromise on image quality. Let’s be realistic. If graphics quality isn’t an issue, you’ll probably be able to run a 20-year-old game with potato-like character models just fine. Sometimes you want to enjoy the beautiful visuals of your favorite AAA games.

Setting XeSS to Balanced mode will reduce the FPS numbers slightly, but will give you relatively good image quality. Here, Hitman III and Ghostwire: Tokyo performed 1.75x and 1.61x better than native, which is still impressive. Selecting Quality and Ultra Quality modes may result in decreased performance and no frame-per-second improvement.

In conclusion, Intel XeSS is not as powerful as Nvidia’s DLSS and does not support as many games as AMD’s FSR. Therefore, if you are using an RTX 20, 30, or 40 series GPU, we recommend that you continue to use DLSS. If you have an older Nvidia card (GTX 10 series or newer) or AMD card (RX 460 or newer), FSR may offer slightly better performance (and gaming support). However, XeSS is still a new and superior upscaling technology, delivering up to twice the performance on existing graphics cards. We highly recommend using it whenever possible. Being able to get more frames for free is just too good of a deal. Are you already using XeSS in your games? Did this article inspire you to give it a try? Let us know in the comments below.