Intel Unleashes XeSS Frame Generation for Meteor Lake iGPUs with New SDK
The release of XeSS SDK 2.1.1 by Intel is a major update that enables the use of its XeSS Frame Generation feature on Meteor Lake iGPUs. This allows Meteor Lake-powered devices to perform frame generation, which could not be achieved earlier due to hardware-related differences.
A Limitation to Hardware
The main reason why XeSS Frame Generation did not begin as an option on Meteor Lake was because of its architecture. Unlike the discrete Arc GPUs or the newer Xe2-based iGPUs in Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake, Meteor Lake chips lack dedicated XMX tensor engines. The XMX tensor engines that they do have are DPAS AI units, often referred to as "XMX-Lite." The XMX-Lite equips less power and is tuned to lighter machine learning tasks. Hence, this hardware constraint stopped the feature from being rolled out in the first place.
How the SDK Has Made It Possible
The XeSS SDK 2.1.1 introduces specific optimizations intended to allow the avoidance of the less capable DPAS units to carry out Frame Generation. These changes include:
- Neural weights of lower accuracy.
- A smaller, leaner variant of the Frame Generation model.
- DPAS-optimized kernel paths to better leverage the existing hardware.
Extended Support Beyond Meteor Lake
One major development noted in updates to the developer guide has been Intel's apparent abandonment of the XMX hardware requirement for XeSS Frame Generation. This would imply that the feature should now work with a far wider variety of GPUs, including cards that are not from Intel, provided they support Shader Model 6.4.
What It Means for Meteor Lake Users
Users of laptops and handhelds based on Meteor Lake will now see higher frame rates and smoother gameplay. Although the performance is not expected to match the optimizations afforded by GPUs containing the full tensor hardware, it provides a vital boost for systems struggling to deliver decent FPS on demanding games.
For this feature to kick in, two things must occur: the game developers must patch their games using the new SDK, and the users will have to install upcoming Intel iGPU drivers that come with the supportive requirements.
