Microsoft plans to establish a standard for AI super-resolution in games and Windows UWP applications.

A new graphics setting called "automatic super resolution" (ASR) has been exposed in a Windows 11 Insider build for the upcoming "24H2" release of Windows. According to Microsoft, ASR uses AI to improve the smoothness and details of supported games and Windows UWP apps. This feature is different from DLSS, FSR, or XeSS and is available on machines with an NPU or AI accelerator compatible with Microsoft's APIs. The upscaler component of ASR utilizes AI to reconstruct details, but its image quality compared to DLSS, FSR, or XeSS is yet to be determined.

In addition to games, ASR is primarily designed to enhance the quality of video captured by webcams for collaboration apps like Teams, Skype, and Camera, all of which are UWP apps. Windows 11 23H2 already uses AI on PCs with NPUs to provide webcam filters, background manipulation, audio noise filtering, and other enhancements. ASR aims to improve the resolutions of webcams, with 720p being the mainstream resolution and some premium notebooks integrating 1080p.