QSSR hands-on: AI upscaling on the base PS5 looks promising

Nothing like a true surprise to shake things up on a slow week: Sony announced – seemingly out of nowhere, as there was no rumor relevant to this previously making the rounds on the Web – its own advanced upscaling solution for the base PS5 on a casual Thursday, somehow inviting both interest and disinterest from gaming- or tech-focused media outlets. Called QSSR, it’s what the company calls an “AI upscaling” algorithm designed for the standard PS5, not the Pro model… although one has to look closer (literally as well as figuratively) in order to understand how or why this is noteworthy news for more than 80 million consumers globally.

QSSR sounds almost exactly like the standout feature of the PS5 Pro, PSSR: the upscaling algorithm that takes advantage of that system’s extra machine learning capabilities in order to deliver superior in-game visuals compared to the base PS5. But how is the new algorithm working on the standard PS5, which sports no such hardware? Plus, what do QSSR-enabled graphics look like in the only two games currently supporting this new software feature, Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei?

Here’s what’s really happening with QSSR, what consumers should (and shouldn’t) expect of it and why this tech – coming so late in the PS5’s lifecycle – may be more important than it looks at first glance.

What QSSR actually is and what it’s out to accomplish long-term

QSSR stands for Quick Spectral Super Resolution – so almost, but not quite, like PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution – and, according to Sony, it introduces “a new performance tier of AI upscaling”. It is important to note that, since the aging hardware of the standard PS5 does not include an AI-specific subsystem, this particular kind of upscaling is not actually “AI-powered” in the sense we use that term for nowadays.

This is why Sony itself is calling QSSR “AI-guided upscaling”, meaning that (a) the algorithm itself was trained on “a streamlined neural network architecture” – like traditional AI models, but aligned to what the PS5 can actually handle – and that (b) it was fine-tuned for “maximized performance” on the base PS5’s particular CPU/GPU combination. The very fact that QSSR exists at all is a technical achievement – we are talking about hardware designed in 2018 here – and proof of the possibilities that exist due to the close collaboration between Sony and AMD called Project Amethyst. “Where there is a will, there is a way” after all!

Since technology is not, well, magic, Sony itself acknowledges that QSSR and PSSR, as used on the PS5 Pro, are not really comparable – admitting as much in an interview with Digital Foundry that’s focused on this new feature. QSSR is a kind of pre-trained algorithm that uses GPU compute to simulate, more or less, AI-native functionality, while PSSR is a true AI-powered upscaling algorithm in the sense that specialized machine-learning hardware present in the PS5 Pro is doing the necessary calculations in real time.

The end goal of both, though, is similar: to analyze the visual information offered by a PS5 game at a lower resolution and “guess” enough extra information to add, so that the same game can look sharper at a higher resolution (instead of looking softer or blurrier as it normally would through basic upscaling). Neither algorithm will make any PS5 game feel smoother in motion by e.g. adding additional frames. If anything, the use of both algorithms comes at a “cost”, as “creating” more detail to hit higher resolutions without losing definition is additional work for the PS5/PS5 Pro, resulting in reduced frame rates.

Sony – along with seemingly everyone else these days – feels that this is a worthy compromise to make, as properly upscaled games do tend to look much better on modern 4K TVs (even when taking a hit in frame rate) than lower-resolution ones (even if those move a bit smoother). The intelligently added detail can make a huge difference in games where graphics need to be more convincing than fast-moving. Capable upscaling algorithms can also help a lot with image stability, considerably reducing visual artifacts and other 3D graphics issues that “break immersion” for players.

Hands on impressions: what QSSR offers right now

Eager to find out how Sony’s new upscaling algorithm for the most successful console currently available actually performs, yours truly fired up his daughter’s base PS5 (it’s the original 2020 model still going strong), installed both Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei (Game Sharing is handy in such cases) and played both titles over the weekend. His conclusions? Well, there’s good news, bad news and TBD news – the last ones being the most likely to prove how important QSSR will actually be for the PS5 in the future.

Getting the bad news out of the way first: people who expect either game to look spectacularly better on the base PS5 because of QSSR will probably walk away disappointed. As several people doing the same testing have already demonstrated on the Web, yes, graphics upscaled through this new algorithm can look sharper at times, there’s more definition in certain kinds of details – like intricate textures or grass or tree leaves – but the overall look of both titles remains pretty much the same.

What QSSR seems to be doing better – at least right now – is lend the displayed image of both games more stability: it is taking care of certain common visual artifacts, reducing shimmering, making far away objects look less blurry, things like that. It’s not immediately obvious (in the sense that the player’s mind perceives these imperfections as something that shouldn’t have been there in the first place) but deactivating QSSR in the same play session and then reactivating it does bring them to anyone’s attention sooner or later.

This, of course, makes sense: both of these games are first-party productions, so they were well-optimized for the standard PS5 to begin with. It takes the machine-learning hardware inside the PS5 Pro to make a readily noticeable difference in image quality and clarity when playing either Ghost of Yotei or Marvel’s Wolverine. But QSSR sounding so much like PSSR likely comes with certain expectations in the minds of many PlayStation gamers. It might be best, then, to point out that just as QSSR and PSSR are not the same thing, it would be unreasonable to expect them to deliver the same results. They don’t.

QSSR matters for the future of the PS5 for three different reasons

Having said that, the good news and the TBD news may be of more interest for the future of the PS5 and the future of PlayStation in general. The good news is that QSSR 1.0 is a solid first version of a tech that will surely evolve over time. The Point Online readers may remember that PSSR, as introduced back in November 2024, was not all that impressive at launch either – both in terms of image quality improvements and developer support.

Since then, though, not only has it been seriously improved, not only has it delivered some amazing results, but more high-profile PS5 games than ever (not just first-party ones) put it to good use at launch. It is to Sony’s best interest to pursue achieving the same things with QSSR.

If anything, Sony should invest more into making QSSR an effective tool for developers than it did in the case of PSSR: regardless of when the company decides to release the PlayStation6, it will probably cost more than what most gamers are generally willing to spend at first, so the PS5-to-PS6 cross-generation period will be even longer than the PS4-to-PS5 one.

By making QSSR so good that it becomes the default upscaling solution for the PS5, Sony will allow gamers to enjoy demanding forthcoming titles in decent image quality for quite some time. Frames-per-second performance is another matter entirely, but future AAA games will at least look OK on the base PS5, which is key to keeping an active user base satisfied until it’s time to upgrade.

Then there’s the heavily rumored PS6 portable system to think about, the one currently known as Project Canis. It’s not yet clear whether the hardware of that system will have machine-learning capabilities or not, but given its size and power requirements it likely won’t. It’s not unreasonable to think, then, that there’s a version of QSSR in the works for that system – if not in testing form already – allowing PS5 or even PS6 games to be properly upscaled from lower resolutions (720p/900p) to higher ones (1080p/1440p).

No matter what the resolution of that system’s screen – even regardless of the system itself being dockable or not – an official, system-native, high-quality upscaler is an extremely useful tool for a handheld gaming console, especially one belonging to a family of several different devices sharing the same hardware DNA.

One does not have to look far into the future, though, to find reasons why QSSR could prove important for the PS5 consumer base. See, there will be a wide array of graphics-intensive, visually impressive AAA games coming to Sony’s system over the next few months – from Phantom Blade Zero, Grand Theft Auto VI and Rayman Legends Retold in 2026 to Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, God of War: Laufey, Metro 2039 and Fable in Q1 2027 – that will look as good as anyone can ask of a 6-year-old console thanks to this new feature.

It’s just great to know that all these games, either at launch or soon after, will be able to take advantage of QSSR – tech that did not even exist when the PS5 first appeared – to deliver quality graphics at mainstream-priced, not enthusiast-priced, devices. Never a bad thing that, yes?