Feature tests are special tests designed to highlight specific techniques, functions or capabilities.
The Intel XeSS feature test is designed to help you test and compare the performance and image quality of XeSS.
| Feature test | 3DMark Intel XeSS feature test |
| Platforms | Windows |
| Target hardware | Modern GPUs that support DirectX Raytracing and Intel XeSS. |
| Graphics API | DirectX 12 with DirectX Raytracing |
To run the Intel XeSS feature test, you must have a GPU that supports Intel XeSS and Microsoft DirectX Raytracing Tier 1.1. XeSS compatible GPUs include Intel Arc GPUs, as well as AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce GPUs with Shader Model 6.4 support. You also need Windows 11 or Windows 10 64-bit, version 20H2 or newer.
What is Intel Xe Super Sampling?
XeSS (Xe Super Sampling) is an Intel graphics technology that uses AI-enhanced upscaling to improve performance while maintaining high image fidelity. XeSS renders at a lower resolution internally to boost performance and then uses AI upscaling to provide an accurate output at the target display resolution.
You can read more about XeSS on Intel's website.
Aliasing
Aliasing—a distracting jagged line on the edge of an object in a scene—is a common artifact in real-time computer graphics.
Increasing the resolution of the entire image is not always practical so a common way to remove the jagged lines is to increase the number of samples on the line which helps to smooth it. Many techniques have been developed which intelligently blend the colors of the jagged edges with the colors of nearby pixels but most of these can lead to a loss of fine detail.
Temporal Anti-Aliasing
The 3DMark Intel XeSS feature test uses Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) for the run without Intel XeSS. TAA is a popular anti-aliasing technique used in many games today and solves the aliasing problem by accumulating multiple samples temporally. Instead of adding more samples to a single frame, it adds a small jitter to a rendered frame and combines the current samples with matching samples from previous frames. This directly leads to an increased sampling rate. Unfortunately, TAA suffers from flickering and ghosting artifacts. These artifacts are more visible in dynamic scenes.