News in Short

• Sony has introduced Quick Spectral Super Resolution, or QSSR, for PS5.
• QSSR brings AI-guided upscaling to the standard PS5.
• It uses a streamlined neural network architecture.
• Sony has also developed a performance-focused implementation for PS5.
• Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei are the first games to support QSSR.

Sony is bringing AI-powered upscaling to the standard PlayStation 5. The company has announced Quick Spectral Super Resolution, or QSSR, as a new performance-focused tier of its image upscaling technology.

QSSR builds on PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), which Sony introduced on the PS5 Pro. PSSR uses AI to analyse game images pixel by pixel and upscale them with greater detail and stability.

However, its computational requirements previously prevented Sony from bringing the technology to the standard PS5.

QSSR aims to address that limitation with a lighter approach designed specifically for the console.

QSSR brings AI-guided upscaling to PS5

Sony says QSSR is built around two key innovations. The first is a streamlined neural network architecture.

The second is a hand-tuned implementation designed to maximise performance on PS5 hardware.

Together, these changes allow the console to use AI-guided upscaling while maintaining the performance requirements of the standard PS5.

Sony says PSSR remains its higher-end solution on PS5 Pro. Meanwhile, QSSR is designed to improve image detail and image stability on PS5.

Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei get QSSR first

Two games are the first to use Sony’s new QSSR library.

Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei are receiving patches that add QSSR as an additional graphics option on PS5.

Insomniac Games, the developer behind Marvel’s Wolverine, says QSSR adds more pixel-level clarity and stability to environments. The studio highlighted locations such as Madripoor and Shinjuku in the game.

Mike Fitzgerald, Head of Technology at Insomniac Games, said the technology provides a taste of the PS5 Pro experience for PS5 players.

Ghost of Yōtei focuses on detail and stability

Sucker Punch Productions is also bringing QSSR to Ghost of Yōtei.

The studio says the technology improves fine details across characters and environments. It also highlights temporal stability as an important benefit.

According to Sucker Punch, this level of image stability was not previously possible on the standard PS5.

The developer also said it had wanted PS5 players to experience some of the image quality improvements associated with PSSR on PS5 Pro.

QSSR could expand to more PS5 games

Sony says QSSR is the result of Project Amethyst, its AI graphics collaboration with AMD.

The company has not provided a complete list of upcoming games that will support the new technology. However, the launch with Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei establishes the first examples of how developers can use the QSSR library.

For PS5 owners, the technology could bring improvements to image clarity and stability without requiring the PS5 Pro.

The actual impact will depend on how individual games implement QSSR and the graphics options offered by their developers.