Mobile Gaming Performance Enhanced: Arm Launches ASR Plugins for Top Game Engines

Arm has made significant strides in enhancing mobile gaming experiences with the introduction of its open-source experience kit. This kit allows game developers to leverage Accuracy Super Resolution (ASR) technology for improved performance across a range of mobile games.

Upcoming ASR Plugins for Unity and Current Offerings for Unreal Engine

In addition to manufacturing processors for mobile devices, Arm has ventured into the realm of gaming technology with its ASR upscaling technology. Launched last year, this innovative solution promises to boost mobile game performance by up to 53%.

During the recent Game Developers Conference (GDC), Arm reaffirmed its commitment to providing developers with the essential tools for seamless integration of ASR into their projects. Currently, the open-source experience kit for Unreal Engine—one of the most widely used gaming engines—has been released, with plans to roll out similar support for Unity, another immensely popular engine in the gaming community.

For those new to this technology, it’s important to note that upscaling techniques must be integrated into the gaming pipeline directly through the game engines. Companies like NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel have established their own toolkits to facilitate the incorporation of upscaling techniques in PC gaming. Given the demand for high performance in contemporary game titles, both on PC and mobile platforms, many developers are striving to enhance their game performance using advanced upscaling methods.

As a benchmark in this competitive landscape, Qualcomm has introduced its own upscaling technology named Snapdragon GSR (Game Super Resolution), which debuted last summer. This technique is based on AMD’s FSR 1. In contrast, Arm’s ASR employs the more advanced FSR 2 technology, which not only greatly improves visual fidelity but also enhances performance. With FSR 2 being a temporal upscaling method, it offers faster, better results and is more energy-efficient, potentially diminishing power consumption by up to 20%.

Previously, the ASR technology was estimated to achieve performance levels up to 53% higher than native resolution. Recent demonstrations have shown ASR reaching an astounding 87% performance uplift at 2X upscaling on the Immortalis-G720 GPU. Additionally, players will have the flexibility to select upscaling settings that best suit their preferences, with options for 1.5x, 1.7x, or 2x scaling, allowing for a balance between visual quality and high-performance gameplay.

Game developers interested in utilizing Arm’s ASR technology can download the experience kit for Unreal Engine from the official Arm website. This comprehensive package includes source code, a plugin, and various tutorial materials to help developers kickstart their integration process.