Ever since the launch of NVIDIA's DLSS and AMD's FSR, there has been a constant battle to see who can get their technology implemented first in the biggest AAA titles. The early years saw these GPU manufacturers seeking exclusivity, but recently we've seen the move to friendlier support with a number of titles now supporting technology from all three GPU vendors (Intel, AMD, NVIDIA), but there are still more AAA titles that lack your favorite upsampling technologies, and we reached out to both AMD and NVIDIA to find out why that's the case despite both companies claiming to offer open source integration.
NVIDIA DLSS games are more friendly and open to AMD FSR and Intel XeSS support pre/post launch
NVIDIA's DLSS has been adopted at an accelerated pace, and there are more DLSS titles on the market than both FSR and XeSS combined. Not only that, but the latest DLSS 3 technology has surpassed the usage speed of DLSS 2 with more and more titles appearing that use DLSS 2 and DLSS 3 technologies to deliver faster frame rates with similar or better quality than the original image.
Since we last published our DLSS 3 adoption story back in March, there have been 40 more DLSS titles, and DLSS currently offers a library of over 300 titles, while AMD was only able to manage 17 titles during that period , which is less than half of the DLSS list. However, an interesting thing has happened and is something that has been overlooked for some time now.
Why do my favorite AAA titles lack support for NVIDIA DLSS?
So all of this leads to one of the biggest questions most gamers have right now, and that is the DLSS support in some of the biggest recent releases? We've told you how NVIDIA has made it much easier to integrate upscaling technologies into games and has given tools to everyone to make their choice of upscaling technology easier to integrate into any title.
If we take a look at some of the latest NVIDIA and AMD sponsored releases, we will see that almost all NVIDIA sponsored titles had DLSS and FSR support at or soon after launch. Every title except Battlefield 2042 had DLSS/FSR support added. The only reason Battlefield 2024 didn't have FSR 2 support was because the upscaling technology wasn't available at the time of launch.
Looking at the other camp (AMD), out of the 13 or so sponsored AAA titles, only 3 titles got support for DLSS. This is something to worry about as these are major AMD sponsored titles and game developers may have been asked to continue upscaling technology exclusivity to the Radeon camp as there is no reason not to have DLSS or XeSS support in these titles . Even in Intel's camp, the company has been very open about the integration of its own and competitive technology into AAA titles.
The following is a list of bundled AMD and NVIDIA titles and their support for DLSS / FSR:
Release date
Title
Bundle Partner
FSR 1/2 Release
DLSS release
02/05/2023
NVIDIA
02/05/2023
02/05/2023
28.4.2023
AMD
28.4.2023
No
21/04/2023
AMD
21/04/2023
No
28.3.2023
AMD
28.3.2023
28.3.2023
23.3.2023
AMD
23.3.2023
No
24.1.2023
AMD
24.1.2023
24.1.2023
2.12.2022
AMD
2.12.2022
No
1.12.2022
NVIDIA
1.12.2022
1.12.2022
30/11/2022
NVIDIA
30/11/2022
30/11/2022
19.10.2022
AMD
19.10.2022
19.10.2022
23/08/2022
AMD
29/11/2022
No
12/08/2022
NVIDIA
12/08/2022
12/08/2022
25/05/2022
AMD
25/05/2022
No
30/3/2022
NVIDIA
28.9.2022
30/3/2022
24.3.2022
NVIDIA
24.3.2022
24.3.2022
15.11.2021
AMD
No
No
26.10.2021
NVIDIA
11/02/2022
26.10.2021
7.10.2021
AMD
7.10.2021
No
6.10.2021
NVIDIA
No
6.10.2021
07/05/2021
AMD
19.7.2021
No
23.11.2020
AMD
No
No
We reached out to AMD for their comment, and they are once again committed to an open approach that is widely supported by consoles and competing solutions.
To clarify, there are community pages that track the implementation of upscaling technologies, and those pages indicate that there are a number of games that only support DLSS at the moment (see for example link).
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is an open source technology that supports a variety of GPU architectures, including consoles and competitive solutions, and we believe that an open approach that is widely supported across multiple hardware platforms is the best approach that benefits developers and gamers alike. AMD is committed to doing what's best for game developers and gamers, and we give developers the flexibility to implement FSR in whatever games they choose.
AMD spokesperson for Wccftech
We also used the link from AMD to see if what we say above is actually the case. The PCGamingWiki list AMD linked us back to also shows the same pattern we showed above. Besides a few "Early Access" and Indie titles that exclusively feature NVIDIA DLSS, most AAA titles released this year, such as The Outer World's Spacer's Choice Edition, Resident Evil 4, Dead Island 2, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor do not have DLSS -support, but modders have created tools that help inject DLSS into these games. Even in unofficial support, DLSS excels over FSR 2 in the AAA title, Star Wars Jedi Survivor.
So it seems NVIDIA can't do much in this situation since certain sponsorships or agreements can restrict developers and publishers from actively participating and integrating another competitor's technology into their games. But it does send a very clear message to gamers that NVIDIA-sponsored titles are friendlier and more open to competitors than AMD.
The only problem is that gamers in the NVIDIA camp are penalized for not having DLSS support integrated into their favorite games. Considering the number of bad PC ports we've had this year, upscaling technologies can help a lot in boosting performance, but only having FSR and leaving out DLSS or XeSS support only means you're hurting gamers and not NVIDIA or Intel in the process .
We also reached out to NVIDIA for comment on this and they were very straightforward that it is not their policy to block, restrict or discourage developers from implementing technologies from their competitors in their games:
NVIDIA does not and will not block, limit, discourage or prevent developers from implementing competitor technologies in any way. We provide the support and tools for all game developers to easily integrate DLSS if they choose and even created NVIDIA Streamline to make it easier for game developers to add competitive technologies to their games.
Keita Iida, Vice President of Developer Relations, NVIDIA
It's actually great to hear that NVIDIA isn't allowing "exclusivity" to get in the way of developing AAA and standard games. I'm sure no company will give up the ability to have a certain game offering only their exclusive technologies, but NVIDIA and Intel have so far proven to be the most mature and open in this regard.
NVIDIA makes it easy for everyone to integrate super-resolution technologies
NVIDIA, using its open source tools, helps game developers integrate DLSS, but also AMD FSR and Intel XeSS into their titles.
NVIDIA, AMD and Intel are guaranteed to be in the race to offer the most titles with their technical support for DLSS, FSR and XeSS. This means that providers will be willing to go the exclusivity route to enable certain technology on their sponsored titles. Think of it like TressFX (Tomb Raider) or NVIDIA Hairworks (The Witcher 3), both of which improved image quality in a certain way. But it seems NVIDIA has chosen not to go that route in order to lock other vendors and developers out of enabling FSR or XeSS in NVIDIA-sponsored titles.
Instead, NVIDIA has taken a much friendlier approach, allowing game developers and modders to access tools that enable the easy integration of not only DLSS, but also AMD FSR and Intel XeSS into their titles. For this sole purpose, NVIDIA introduced "Streamline" which is an open source cross-IHV solution that facilitates the integration of NVIDIA and other independent hardware vendors' upscaling and super-resolution technologies into applications and games. Streamline supports the following technologies:
NVIDIA is also working with modders and authors of tools that inject DLSS into unofficial titles on future game integration and also Remix titles. There is a huge list of Remix titles in development and there are many gamers asking for an RTX Remix of older titles like the Need For Speed series and more (I can't wait to try Underground 2 and Most Wanted with Remix!) .
It is likely that having upscaling technologies from competitors integrated into games will allow users to see the difference between DLSS, FSR and XeSS. DLSS has so far proven to offer the best image quality with XeSS a close second. Both technologies use AI assistance, while AMD's temporal scaler has not been able to keep up with them. AMD has FSR 3 coming which will follow in NVIDIA's footsteps in offering frame generation interpolation, but NVIDIA once again has the advantage with its Tensor Core powered DLSS 3 and industry leading AI performance which will continue to give it a huge advantage.
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