Sony's PSSR Builds on FSR Upscaling Technology With an INT8 Twist
Mark Cerny says PS5 Pro’s new PSSR uses INT8 (like the leaked FSR4 for RDNA3/2) Mark Cerny has now given the clearest description yet of how Sony’s
Sony's New PSSR Shares FSR Upscaling Roots, but Uses an INT8 Implementation
In a revealing new discussion, PlayStation architect Mark Cerny has provided the clearest description yet of how Sony's proprietary PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution technology works under the hood. According to Cerny, PSSR leverages an INT8 implementation for its machine learning-based upscaling, a detail that draws immediate parallels to leaked information about AMD's upcoming FSR4 technology designed for RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 architectures. The revelation sheds new light on the technical relationship between Sony's custom solution and AMD's broader upscaling ecosystem.
The INT8 approach refers to the use of 8-bit integer precision for the neural network inference that powers the upscaling algorithm. This is a notable design choice because it prioritizes efficiency and speed over the higher precision offered by formats like FP16 or FP32. For a console environment where consistent performance is paramount, INT8 allows the PS5 Pro's custom GPU to run the machine learning model quickly enough to reconstruct high-quality images in real time without placing an excessive burden on the system's other rendering workloads.
The connection to FSR is not entirely surprising given that the PS5 Pro's GPU is built on a customized version of AMD's RDNA architecture. However, PSSR is not simply a rebranded version of FSR. Sony has developed its own trained neural network models and tailored the implementation specifically for the PS5 Pro's hardware capabilities, including dedicated acceleration units designed to handle the INT8 inference workload. This bespoke approach allows Sony to optimize the technology in ways that a cross-platform solution like FSR cannot, potentially delivering superior results on the specific hardware it was designed for.
The implications of Cerny's comments extend beyond the PS5 Pro itself. The fact that both Sony and AMD appear to be converging on INT8 as the preferred precision level for next-generation upscaling suggests a broader industry trend toward lightweight neural network inference for real-time graphics. As upscaling technology becomes increasingly critical to delivering high-resolution gaming experiences without proportional increases in raw GPU power, the race between PSSR, FSR4, Nvidia's DLSS, and Intel's XeSS continues to intensify, with each company seeking the ideal balance between image quality, performance, and hardware efficiency.