Tuesday, August 20th 2019

NVIDIA Beats Intel to Integer Scaling, but not on all Cards

NVIDIA, with its GeForce 436.02 Gamescom-special drivers. among several new features and performance updates, introduced integer scaling, a resolution upscaling algorithm that scales up extremely low-resolution visuals to a more eye-pleasing blocky pixellated lines by multiplying pixels in a "nearest-neighbor" pattern without changing their color, as opposed to bilinear upscaling, that blurs the image by attempting to add details where none exist, by altering colors of multiplied pixels.

Intel originally announced an integer upscaler this June that will be exclusive to the company's new Gen11 graphics architecture, since older generations of its iGPUs "lack the hardware requirements" to pull it off. Intel's driver updates that add integer-scaling are set to arrive toward the end of this month, and even when they do, only a tiny fraction of Intel hardware actually benefit from the feature (notebooks and tablets that use "Ice Lake" processors).
NVIDIA's integer upscaling feature has been added only to its "Turing" architecture GPUs (both RTX 20-series and GTX 16-series), but not on older generations. NVIDIA explains that this is thanks to a "hardware-accelerated programmable scaling filter" that was introduced with "Turing." Why this is a big deal? The gaming community has a newfound love for retro games from the 80's thru 90's, with the growing popularity of emulators and old games being played through DOSBox. Many small indie game studios are responding to this craze with hundreds of new titles taking a neo-retro pixellated aesthetic (eg: "Fez").

When scaled up to today's high-resolution displays, many of these games look washed out thanks to bilinear upscaling by Windows. This calls for something like integer upscaling. We're just surprised that NVIDIA and Intel aren't implementing integer upscaling on unsupported GPUs by leveraging programmable shaders. Shader-based upscaling technologies aren't new. The home-theater community is vastly invested in the development of MadVR, a custom-video renderer that packs several shader-based upscaling algorithms that only need Direct3D 9.0c-compliant programmable shaders.

Update 12:57 UTC: The NVIDIA 436.02 drivers have been released now and are available for download.
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54 Comments on NVIDIA Beats Intel to Integer Scaling, but not on all Cards

#1
juiseman
I like the fuzzy looking one better personally. If you squint your eyes; it looks even better.
Posted on Reply
#2
Enterprise24
I still remember when Manuel@Nvidia said that they don't have plan to do this.
This must be because Intel and AMD plan to support interger scaling.
Posted on Reply
#3
Fluffmeister
Nicking selling points from Intel and AMD with the drop of a single driver..... ouch.
Posted on Reply
#4
xkm1948
No BS just action, i like this. Intel promised to deliver this already. I have not seen any mention of AMD going to support integer scaling
Posted on Reply
#5
las
Great.
Posted on Reply
#6
Chomiq
So they HW locked this to Turing. Good one.
Posted on Reply
#7
Aldain
It only took 10 years of begging..and to be locked to turing.. and we are celebrating this why exactly??
Posted on Reply
#8
TheDeeGee
ChomiqSo they HW locked this to Turing. Good one.
Leather Jackets are expensive.

On the other hand, maybe it was a good idea to skip the 20XX series.

Cuz with Turing you get RTX and Iteger Scaling for the price of one.
Posted on Reply
#9
xkm1948
AldainIt only took 10 years of begging..and to be locked to turing.. and we are celebrating this why exactly??
Eh comparing to getting nothing? How about celebrate for progression? OR if you are so good, why not code yourself for the support?

So much entitlement.
Posted on Reply
#10
XL-R8R
juisemanI like the fuzzy looking one better personally. If you squint your eyes; it looks even better.
I hope this is a troll and not you genuinely being blind? :roll:
Posted on Reply
#11
trom89
xkm1948I have not seen any mention of AMD going to support integer scaling
Isnt this the similar tech as "Radeon Image Sharpening" ?!

Great new's dont get me wrong but one more time I feel like Nvidia has been sandbagging this and many other features unless the competition offers them. And one more time locking it for Turing, still trying to rise those low RTX sales...
Is it illegal ?! no but makes them kind of douches. :rolleyes:
Posted on Reply
#12
las
AldainIt only took 10 years of begging..and to be locked to turing.. and we are celebrating this why exactly??
Because Nvidia was 1st
Posted on Reply
#13
Apocalypsee
ChomiqSo they HW locked this to Turing. Good one.
I bet this will probably be available to older cards just like Fast Sync and RTRT on later driver revisions. Gotta put some smile to Turing owner first. I see no reason why this isn't possible on older cards when a software solution like Lossless Scaling is available for quite some time now and work pretty well too.
store.steampowered.com/app/993090/Lossless_Scaling/
Posted on Reply
#14
xkm1948
trom89Isnt this the similar tech as "Radeon Image Sharpening" ?!

Great new's dont get me wrong but one more time I feel like Nvidia has been sandbagging this and many other features unless the competition offers them. And one more time locking it for Turing, still trying to rise those low RTX sales...
Is it illegal ?! no but makes them kind of douches. :rolleyes:
Nope. Not even a million miles close. This is faaaar away from that shader filter gimmick on Radeon cards.

tanalin.com/en/articles/lossless-scaling/
Posted on Reply
#16
xkm1948
ShurikNThat thing that you call gimmick, works better than DLSS.
It is integer scaling we are talking about here. So let's get back to topic since trom89 derailed us


So when is AMD bringing on the integer scaling support?
Posted on Reply
#17
Fluffmeister
trom89Isnt this the similar tech as "Radeon Image Sharpening" ?!

Great new's dont get me wrong but one more time I feel like Nvidia has been sandbagging this and many other features unless the competition offers them. And one more time locking it for Turing, still trying to rise those low RTX sales...
Is it illegal ?! no but makes them kind of douches. :rolleyes:
Doesn't RIS require a Navi card to work?
Posted on Reply
#19
Prince Valiant
FluffmeisterNicking selling points from Intel and AMD with the drop of a single driver..... ouch.
They needed something with DLSS being useless and dead and RTX barely getting used a year later.
Posted on Reply
#20
trom89
xkm1948Does that make AMD kind of douch? By the red fans' standard I guess yes.
Yes, it does. Slowing the release of new tech for leverage and/or monies is always douchy in my view.
And no, there is no red or green team, tech improvement is always great for the consumer.
Posted on Reply
#21
jabbadap
ChomiqSo they HW locked this to Turing. Good one.
Might be something to do with Turing's ability to do concurrent int&fp math... I would not be surprised that Volta cards could support this as well.
Posted on Reply
#22
Steevo
lasBecause Nvidia was 1st
ATI was first with tessellation, doesn't mean they did it right or best. Then again Nvidia fucked tessellation up in games just to fuck competition.

Niche application from niche hardware. Intel still dominates the video adapter space by population.
Posted on Reply
#23
juiseman
XL-R8RI hope this is a troll and not you genuinely being blind? :roll:
Possibly both.
Posted on Reply
#24
dicktracy
Bout dam time! Now people won't hesitate to buy higher resolution displays than their GPU can handle. Bring out 'em 8k displays!
Posted on Reply
#25
R-T-B
xkm1948OR if you are so good, why not code yourself for the support?
Sure, let me just fork nouveau, and have documented apis to raise the boost clocks...

oh right, that's literally an nvidia "trade secret" making what you just stated nearly impossible. Sounds fun.
jabbadapMight be something to do with Turing's ability to do concurrent int&fp math... I would not be surprised that Volta cards could support this as well.
Integer scaling is not hard. For god's sake man, the cpu could do it.
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