Sony Unveils QSSR AI Upscaling for Base PS5; Digital Foundry Cites 'Exceptional' Gains in Marvel's Wolverine

Sony described QSSR as a "quick new evolution of PSSR" and said it is built on two key innovations: a streamlined neural network architecture and a hand-tuned implementation that maximizes performance on PS5. Sony said PSSR remains the gold standard on PS5 Pro, while QSSR provides notable improvements to image detail and image stability on PS5. The first titles to use the technology are Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei.

Digital Foundry went hands-on with QSSR and tested both games. The outlet said the potential is "remarkable," adding that low resolution and poor upscaling have affected many titles in this generation but QSSR could make a big difference. In Marvel's Wolverine, Digital Foundry said the quality boost can be "exceptional." It reported substantially improved temporal stability, increased detail level, considerably superior sub-pixel integrity, and much reduced artefacts from elements such as moving foliage. For Ghost of Yōtei, which Digital Foundry said already has gorgeous image quality, the improvements were less dramatic.

In a YouTube analysis, Digital Foundry founder Richard Leadbetter showed comparisons of QSSR enabled and disabled in both games. The analysts tested an uncapped Performance Mode cutscene in Marvel's Wolverine and saw a noticeable visual upgrade with the technology on. Leadbetter noted the frame rate was lower, with a headline hit of about 8 to 10 frames per second versus QSSR off, but said the important figure was the frame-time cost. By his calculation, QSSR costs between 1.5 and 1.8 milliseconds, which he called reasonable for a machine-learning-based upscaler producing such results from a low base resolution on hardware without any form of ML acceleration. He deduced that the higher the output and input resolution, the bigger the frame-rate hit.

Leadbetter said that in 60fps graphics modes using dynamic resolution scaling, players are "basically now getting the best of both worlds," because performance is practically identical with or without QSSR enabled. The QSSR-on side will be lower in resolution to maintain frame rate, he said, but the upscaler quality is so much better that the overall experience is improved. One clip showed a 1fps drop with QSSR on, which was hardly noticeable. Ghost of Yōtei running in Performance Mode uncapped VRR at 120 Hz did show frame dips when QSSR was enabled, but Leadbetter described them as slight and basically imperceptible for the most part. He said this was very different from Wolverine, to the point that he had to recheck that QSSR was actually on because it looked too good to be true.

Like PSSR, QSSR is expected to be patched into more games and used in future PS5 titles. It is unclear whether Rockstar Games plans to use the technology in Grand Theft Auto 6.