Earlier this year, it was revealed that Microsoft was developing an AI upscaler for WINDOWS called Automatic Super-Resolution (ASR). The concept behind this system is that any game can improve performance and improve antialiasing, even if it doesn't support DLSS, FSR, or XeSS. Microsoft has made this feature available, but it is only enabled on new Copilot+AI PCs with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X processors, so few people can use it for now.

Details of this limitation can be found in the newly updated FAQ section of Microsoft's Copilot AI PC page (via Videocardz). There are 2 main reasons why we are currently limiting the new technology to these specific Arm-based PCs.  First, it offers additional promotions for Microsoft's Copilot+AI PC ecosystem, and second, the Snapdragon X range is the only one currently available that meets more than 40 TOPs NPU requirements.

Npu (neural processing unit) is a specialized accelerator for general calculations and data formats related to AI operations. Think of these as generalized versions of Nvidia's Tensor cores. AMD and Intel have it on some chips (Ryzen7 8040U, Core Ultra7 165H, etc.), but have enough performance (TOPS (tera operations per second)) to meet the standard NPU ratings set by MICROSOFT.

The concept behind ASR is a good one. Many of the modern games have built-in support for AMD, Intel, or Nvidia upscalers, but most older ones do not, and Microsoft systems with budget-level laptops work around this problem by having an upscaler that can be applied to any game.

Well, it's an idea. The reality is somewhat different, as the number of games ASR actually works is currently limited to just 12. I think this is because these are the only games that work well on the Arm version of Windows and have also passed ASR's internal tests.

You can see the full list of games supported by this independent database, that Microsoft has contributed to—just an upscaler

When AMD and Intel bring to market Cpus that meet 40 or more TOPS requirements, automatic super resolution will probably be available on all Windows platforms. It will be expanded in the form. But what happens to everyone else if I have a PC that doesn't have an NPU? It is unlikely that Microsoft will change the requirements for Copilot+, and even though it has enough AI performance to meet the required level, Gpus are classified as Npu and unfortunately, DLSS and XeSS all require code to be implemented directly in the game, so Intel and Nvidia do not have a generic one-click AI upscaler . Only AMD offers something like ASR through its Radeon Super Resolution feature. This requires a Radeon RX5000 series or higher graphics card on the PC, but a laptop with one of AMD's more recent APUs, such as the aforementioned 8040U range, should work fine.1 

Automatic super Resolution may have been the first really useful addition to Windows for a long time, but its arrival, as things currently stand, makes it [14