Microsoft Seemingly Looking to Develop AI-based Upscaling Tech via DirectML

[Purgatory]

Microsoft Seemingly Looking to Develop AI-based Upscaling Tech via DirectML


https://www.techpowerup.com/284265/...-develop-ai-based-upscaling-tech-via-directml

Microsoft seems to be throwing its hat in the image upscale battle that's currently raging between NVIDIA and AMD. The company has added two new job openings to its careers page: one for a Senior Software Engineer and another for a Principal Software Engineer for Graphics. Those job openings would be quite innocent by themselves; however, once we cut through the chaff, it becomes clear that the Senior Software Engineer is expected to "implement machine learning algorithms in graphics software to delight millions of gamers," while working closely with "partners" to develop software for "future machine learning hardware" - partners here could be first-party titles or even the hardware providers themselves (read, AMD). AMD themselves have touted a DirectML upscaling solution back when they first introduced their FidelityFX program - and FSR clearly isn't it.



It is interesting how Microsoft posted these job openings in June 30th - a few days after AMD's reveal of their FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) solution for all graphics cards - and which Microsoft themselves confirmed would be implemented in the Xbox product stack, where applicable. Of course, that there is one solution available already does not mean companies should rest on their laurels - AMD is surely at work on improving its FSR tech as we speak, and Microsoft has seen the advantages on having a pure ML-powered image upscaling solution thanks to NVIDIA's DLSS. Whether Microsoft's solution with DirectML will improve on DLSS as it exists at time of launch (if ever) is, of course, unknowable at this point.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

This is no surprise at all, but great to see.

MS have been heavily into graphics, image processing, ML/DL for a very long time. The Kinect was incredibly advanced NN Machine Learning (Thanks Zarax) for it's time. The training dataset was millions of images

Will be really interesting to see how this playing field evolves with the giants of ML/DL battling it out. Very cool

Keep in mind this could be an ML/DL approach to ray tracing, physics or anything else in the context of games and graphics. There is a TON if research into accelerating physics simulations by like 1000x using ML trained by very accurate simulators, and the results are absolutely bonkers.

EDIT: Corrected a wrong assumption. Thanks Zarax.

 

[Zarax]

Except the Kinects was not a Neural Network but instead it was powered by a Random Forest...

 

[RBImGuy]

Been in work for years.
I await augmented reality still.

 

[Zarax]

Been in work for years.
I await augmented reality still.

Do you mean something better than hololens?

 

[0h_no_not_again]

Except the Kinects was not a Neural Network but instead it was powered by a Random Forest...

Holy ****, I made the assumption about NN's like 10 years ago based on talk of their crazy big training datasets, and never corrected it. Thanks for pointing that out.

The paper from MS is really interesting: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/BodyPartRecognition.pdf

 

[Zarax]

Holy ****, I made the assumption about NN's like 10 years ago based on talk of their crazy big training datasets, and never corrected it. Thanks for pointing that out.

The paper from MS is really interesting: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/BodyPartRecognition.pdf

Yes, that paper makes me wonder if the tech world jumped on deep learning too fast. Even though there are some experimental alternatives (like the deep forest paper), it appears the biggest companies are not interested, perhaps because capital intensive deep learning helps maintaining competition limited...

 

[Grim5]

So it's DLSS

ok

 

[0h_no_not_again]

Yes, that paper makes me wonder if the tech world jumped on deep learning too fast. Even though there are some experimental alternatives (like the deep forest paper), it appears the biggest companies are not interested, perhaps because capital intensive deep learning helps maintaining competition limited...

100%.

I fell for the same thing assuming the Kinect was a NN and I used k-Nearest-Neighbour in my Thesis...

 

[Zarax]

100%.

I fell for the same thing assuming the Kinect was a NN and I used k-Nearest-Neighbour in my Thesis...

Err, KNN and NN are two very different things though. One is a clustering algorithm, the other a regression/classification one.

 

[0h_no_not_again]

Err, KNN and NN are two very different things though. One is a clustering algorithm, the other a regression/classification one.

That's exactly my point. I could have applied a (C)NN in my Thesis, but I didn't for many many reasons. But I still made the assumption that the Kinect used NN's. The point is, I have a rough idea about the field and I still made poor assumptions. How are business people and the laymen supposed to make better assumptions?

 

[Wrinkly]

I beleive MS have been working on it for some time with input from AMD, Nvidia and I presume Intel.