Meta Releases 'Quest Super Resolution' Upscaling Technology, Upscaling for Sharper VR Graphics

MetaMeta has released a "Quest Super Resolution" update for sharper VR graphics.

The technology utilizes Qualcomm's Snapdragon Game Super Resolution (GSR) software technology. GSR is similar to AMD's FSR 1.0, but is specifically optimized for the Adreno mobile GPU in the Qualcomm Snapdragon chip used in the Meta headset, and improves performance with a single pass. To be clear, Quest Super Resolution is not an artificial intelligence system like NVIDIA's DLSS.

Meta is working on this, but it may require future chipsets. Quest Super Resolution will be available in the upcoming v55 Unity Integration SDK. Unity developers will see a new "Sharpen Type" setting in v55, consisting of two options: Normal and Quality.

Quality uses Super Resolution technology, but at a noticeable cost on GPU performance, while Normal uses Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS), a low-overhead algorithm closer to traditional sharpening.

Meta claims that Quality (Super Resolution) "avoids the blurring and stair-stepping artifacts of bilinear sampling, provides smoother edge reconstruction and reduces halo artifacts" compared to Normal sharpening. Meta says that Super Resolution's GPU overhead depends on the content. It has relatively low GPU overhead in applications with simple colors and smooth gradients, and high GPU overhead in applications with highly detailed textures and objects.

Meta also notes that Quest Super Resolution currently has the following limitation: YUV textures and cubemaps are not supported. Enabling Super Resolution will revert to bilinear sampling. Subsampling layouts will be supported starting from V56. Enabling Super Resolution will increase the time warp GPU cost. Whether using Super Resolution is better than using the GPU for increased eye buffer resolution depends on the computational bottleneck of the application. Enabling Super Resolution on content close to the display resolution may cause temporary aliasing or increased flickering.