Microsoft is introducing a new upscaling feature to its Edge browser called Video Super Resolution – or VSR. This feature is a direct competitor to Nvidia’s RTX Super Resolution and relies on similar machine-learning technology to upscale lower-resolution video to a higher resolution. The feature is currently available to Edge users running the Canary channel insider build of the browser.
Microsoft’s implementation is designed specifically to reduce the amount of internet bandwidth required to stream videos to your PC, and is limited to just 720P videos or lower. Microsoft is using an AI upscaler to do the work, focusing on removing blocky compression artefacts to improve image quality.
VSR’s limitation to sub-HD resolutions (for now?) targets customers with bad internet connectors and older videos recorded before 1080P and 4K became the norm. This could be the first step in creating an upscaler that works with higher resolution videos.
VSR is a complete contrast to Nvidia’s RTX Super Resolution, which does not have any resolution limitations from what we can tell. If you wanted to, you could upscale a 360P YouTube video to 4K. Microsoft’s resolution limitation could be a limitation related to testing purposes, or it could be a limitation of the AI upscaler in general. But either way, Nvidia’s solution does have a lot more flexibility.
If you have access to VSR, all you need to do is enter the command edge://flags/#edge-video-super-resolution, to enable the feature. All video formats should work, with the exception of movies and videos protected with DRM.
Contrary to RTX Super Resolution, VSR does work with both Nvidia and AMD GPUs; with the requirements being an RTX 20 series GPU or newer, or a Radeon RX 5700 series GPU or newer. We suspect more GPUs will be supported down the line, but this will depend on how GPU-intensive Microsoft’s AI upscaler will be to run.
Mobile versions of these GPUs are supported as well, but there is a massive caveat; you need to manually force Microsoft Edge to run on the laptop’s discrete GPU, and plug-in AC power at the same time.