Windows 11 will add AI upscaling for the ROG Xbox Ally X in early 2026

Recently, Microsoft posted a rather lengthy blog post covering all the advances in PC gaming on Windows devices this year, while providing some information on what's in store for the future. With Windows 11 widely regarded as a bottleneck standing in the way of optimized performance, the good news is that one of the key things it's focusing on is fixing that with improved "background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations," and more.

2

Now, one of the reasons Microsoft is actively looking to improve Windows 11 as a platform for PC gaming with more urgency than we've seen in recent years comes down to the company's push into the portable PC gaming handheld space with the ROG Xbox Ally and the rumors that the next-gen Xbox console is set to be a PC-hybrid device. This is why the Xbox Full Screen Experience is now available for everyone to try out. Xbox is slowly becoming a part of Windows.

And early next year, the company is set to release a new OS-level feature designed to benefit handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally X. It's called Auto SR, and it's an AI-powered upscaling solution that is very different from DLSS or even FSR.

• Read more: ROG Xbox Ally X runs DOOM: The Dark Ages at 1080p 70 FPS with ray-tracing
• Read more: Microsoft is bringing next-gen Xbox console's AI features to the ROG Xbox Ally handheld
• Read more: ASUS explains what the Xbox Ally X's new NPU actually does

Auto SR acts more like a spatial upscaler or post-processing effect, taking a lower-resolution rendered frame and presenting it at a higher resolution with increased detail and clarity. Unlike existing spatial upscalers like AMD's original FSR, AutoSR is AI-driven and will run on the NPU found inside the ROG Xbox Ally X's Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip. Microsoft has already released a version of Auto SR for Copilot+ PCs running Snapdragon hardware, so this will see the technology make its way to x86-based PC gaming handhelds early next year in preview form.

Auto SR makes sense for the ROG Xbox Ally, as it's designed to take a lower-resolution image, like 720p, and upscale it to 1080p, 1440p, or even 4K. Although it doesn't have access to additional information like past-frame data or motion vectors in the same way DLSS does, as an OS-level solution, it can theoretically work with any game.

As seen in its existing Arm-based Copilot+ PCs, Microsoft maintains a whitelist of games where the technology effectively improves image quality. And the results look a lot more impressive than AMD's original FSR, which struggles at lower resolutions, as it is pretty much the only current option for gaming handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally.

Be sure to check out this Digital Foundry video from last year that tested Auto SR on a Copilot+ PC to get a sense of its potential. With no sign that AMD's superior AI-powered FSR 4 is coming to PC gaming handhelds (and it's increasingly likely it may never make the jump), Auto SR could become a must-have bit of AI tech for Windows-based PC gaming handhelds.