Skip to main content PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES Search PC Gamer View Profile Movies & TV Gaming Industry PC Gaming Show Newsletter Signup Community Guidelines Affiliate Links Meet the team About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine Subscription Why subscribe? Subscribe to the world's #1 PC gaming mag Try a single issue or save on a subscription Issues delivered straight to your door or device From£35.99Subscribe now Essential Hardware Battlefield 6 PC Gamer quizzes! Recommended reading Graphics Cards OptiScaler has been updated to theoretically support AMD's FSR 4 in all games with upscaling that don't use Vulkan or anti-cheat—which is nice, but why the heck doesn't AMD do this? Graphics Cards RTX 40-series graphics cards can now enable Frame Generation in unsupported games via the drivers: up to a 44% fps improvement in my initial tests Graphics Cards Nvidia's DLSS AI transformer model is now out of beta so we might see more games get patched to make use of it Intel's fancy new AI tool measures image quality in games in real time, so upscaling artifacts and visual nasties have nowhere to hide Graphics Cards AMD just gave us our first glimpse of FSR 4's 'Redstone' update, with a host of machine learning-based improvements New Arrow Lake refresh rumours confirm addition of NPU to bring Microsoft's Copilot+ AI features to desktop machines Graphics Cards Intel's mythical Big Battlemage GPU pops up in the MESA Linux driver making a launch later this year that little bit more likely Graphics Cards The latest version of Intel's XeSS 2 now lets other GPUs run its AI-based frame generation system, throwing RTX 30-series owners a Team Blue-shaped bone Nick Evanson 1 August 2025 Intel's going through a really rough time at the moment, but its GPU team keeps on churning out the goodies. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Future) For what seems like a very long time now, the combination of the words 'Intel', 'news', and 'good' has been rarer than finding a four-leaf clover in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. Well, cover me in honey and call me Susan, because Intel has released XeSS 2.1, and it's tremendous news, as AMD and Nvidia GPU owners can now enjoy a sport of Intel-powered frame generation. Intel's XeSS is a software kit for game developers to use in their projects, to allow gamers to enable upscaling, frame generation, and latency reduction to improve game performance. Up to now, only the upscaler side of things could be run on non-Intel GPUs, and that's because Intel made two versions of it: one that uses the matrix cores in an Alchemist or Battlemage chip, and another that just uses compute shaders. Both give practically the same increase in performance, but the former produces slightly better-looking results. And now with XeSS 2.1, it's the same story with XeSS-FG, aka frame generation. Related Articles OptiScaler has been updated to theoretically support AMD's FSR 4 in all games with upscaling that don't use Vulkan or anti-cheat—which is nice, but why the heck doesn't AMD do this? RTX 40-series graphics cards can now enable Frame Generation in unsupported games via the drivers: up to a 44% fps improvement in my initial tests Nvidia's DLSS AI transformer model is now out of beta so we might see more games get patched to make use of it The minimum GPU requirement to run XeSS-FG is pretty simple: it just needs to support Shader Model 6.4, which means all AMD Radeon RX 6000, 7000, and 9000 series graphics cards, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 30, 40, and 50 series cards. Funnily enough, that's more non-Intel GPUs supporting XeSS-FG than actual Intel GPUs. Anyway, Intel's frame generation algorithm is basically the same as AMD's and Nvidia's—render two consecutive frames and store them in VRAM, rather than display them on the monitor. Then, run a bunch of compute shaders to process the frames and data buffers used to make them, to interpolate what an intermediary frame would look like. These frames are then sequenced in such a way that all you see on the screen is a smooth flow of images, coming in faster than they would without frame generation. (Image credit: Intel) It's worth noting that while the new version of XeSS-FG supports a wide range of GPUs, the actual frame generation mechanism varies across different platforms. Fire it up on an Intel Arc graphics card, and the routine will perform the frame interpolation via a neural network, processed by the GPU's matrix cores. However, do it on an AMD or Nvidia GPU, and you get a compute shader version, similar to FSR frame gen. Ultimately, that won't make much difference to the performance boost you get from using frame generation, but the visual quality of the output might differ. We can't tell right now as we're missing a crucial ingredient to test it: a game with XeSS 2.1 support. Ones that already offer XeSS-FG in their graphics menus can't just magically switch it on for non-Intel GPUs. The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. That's because getting it to work on such graphics cards will require a little bit of tweaking to the code used to implement Intel's frame generation. It doesn't look like a major task, so with luck, we should hopefully see games sporting multi-vendor XeSS-FG in the not-too-distant future. The only problem is that the list of games with XeSS 2 support isn't exactly huge—just 22, according to Intel's webpage. Of course, nothing is stopping any developer from adding XeSS to their game from scratch, but whether they will want to make the effort is another matter entirely. AMD, Intel, and Nvidia's upscalers are closely matched. (Image credit: PS Studios) I hope they do, though, as it's always a good thing to have more vendor options when it comes to tweaking graphics settings in a game. While you're most likely to just use the one that your GPU's vendor has created (i.e. DLSS with Nvidia chips, FSR with AMD ones, XeSS with Intel), sometimes your hand gets forced. GeForce RTX 30 owners, for example, can't use DLSS FG, but thanks to AMD and now Intel, they're not without frame generation options. Well done, Intel. You don't get everything right (err…not much at all of late), but I tip my hat to you for the new version of XeSS. Now I just need to do something about all this honey, as the bees are starting to riot outside. Best graphics card 2025All our current recommendations 👉Check out our full guide👈 1. Best overall: AMD Radeon RX 9070 2. Best value: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB 3. Best budget: Intel Arc B570 4. Best mid-range: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 5. Best high-end: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Nick Evanson Hardware Writer Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in 1981, with the love affair starting on a Sinclair ZX81 in kit form and a book on ZX Basic. He ended up becoming a physics and IT teacher, but by the late 1990s decided it was time to cut his teeth writing for a long defunct UK tech site. He went on to do the same at Madonion, helping to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its gaming and hardware section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com and over 100 long articles on anything and everything. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days? You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. OptiScaler has been updated to theoretically support AMD's FSR 4 in all games with upscaling that don't use Vulkan or anti-cheat—which is nice, but why the heck doesn't AMD do this? RTX 40-series graphics cards can now enable Frame Generation in unsupported games via the drivers: up to a 44% fps improvement in my initial tests Nvidia's DLSS AI transformer model is now out of beta so we might see more games get patched to make use of it Intel's fancy new AI tool measures image quality in games in real time, so upscaling artifacts and visual nasties have nowhere to hide AMD just gave us our first glimpse of FSR 4's 'Redstone' update, with a host of machine learning-based improvements New Arrow Lake refresh rumours confirm addition of NPU to bring Microsoft's Copilot+ AI features to desktop machines Latest in Graphics Cards Nvidia says it's game over come October for GTX 10, 9 and 7-series graphics cards driver support but RTX owners running Windows 10 are getting an extra year of grace AMD's rumoured to be plotting a new ultra high-end gaming GPU, plus a $550 graphics card with RTX 5080 performance, but sadly we probably won't see either until 2027 Wuchang: Fallen Feathers gets another patch to improve performance, though the fixes appear to be nothing more than forcing on upscaling, even when it's supposed to be off AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su says she can see AI 'helping us design the next-generation GPU much faster and more reliably' Keep this to yourself, but a BIOS with a theoretical 2,001 W power limit exists for this absurdly overbuilt Galax RTX 5090 D If you want to know why graphics cards are still so painfully pricey, you might want to take a look at TSMC's record-high profits which are heading for $50 billion this year Latest in News D&D is 'here to earn your trust, not ask for it', starting with making Beyond's maps software free, brushing up the SRD, and sharing 'third-party creations across our official channels' Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag actor says Ubisoft threatened to sue him for blabbing about the remake that everyone and their grandma knows is coming The best superhero TTRPG to ever do it is getting a second edition, with a quickstart launching in 2026 Free adult NSFW content returns to itch.io, as one of the platform's major payment processors expresses hope to 'support adult content in the future' Battlefield 6 system requirements are in, and you probably won't need to upgrade your PC to run it Among Us 3D is adding a new limited-time feature I haven't thought about in 20 years: VIP mode HARDWARE BUYING GUIDES LATEST GAME REVIEWS Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC Best graphics cards in 2025: I've tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today's top cards Best gaming laptop in 2025: I've put the best of this new generation head-to-head and we have a winner Best gaming chair in 2025: I've tested a ton of gaming chairs and these are the seats I'd suggest for any PC gamer Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads Amazon Basics USB condenser microphone review Razer BlackShark V3 Pro review Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound review Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate review Nacon Rig 900 Max HS review PC Gamer is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. 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