Xbox's Project Helix supports Path Tracing with AMD's new AI-powered FSR Multi Frame Generation

Microsoft is opening the floodgates regarding its next-generation Xbox console, Project Helix. The company has confirmed long-standing rumors that it will play both PC and console games, and will be powered by a custom AMD SoC built to leverage the latest DirectX and AMD FSR technologies.

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"It delivers an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability, integrates intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline, and drives meaningful gains in efficiency, scale, and visual ambition," Jason Ronald, Vice President of Next Generation, Xbox, recently said at GDC 2026. "The result is more realistic, immersive, and dynamic worlds for players."

Although that statement might not include technical details, further comments from Jason Ronald and Jack Huynh, SVP & GM of Computing & Graphics at AMD, have outlined the new 'FSR Diamond' technology that will make real-time path tracing possible on a home console. Technology, which until now has been limited to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 40 and GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs on PC.

Path tracing, or full ray tracing, is a major leap forward for in-game visuals, as it leverages ray-tracing data for all lighting effects to create more believable and immersive digital worlds, enabling game developers to craft stories and engaging interactive experiences. And as a major leap forward, it's only possible on PC thanks to NVIDIA's suite of AI-powered DLSS and RTX technologies.

And when you go through the list of what FSR Diamond delivers, it sounds like Project Helix could deliver an experience equivalent to what you'd get with a GeForce RTX 5080.

Built, tuned, and configured for the custom RDNA 5 and AI architecture inside Project Helix, it includes a 'next-gen' version of FSR's AI-powered upscaling as seen in FSR 4, a brand-new AI-powered Multi Frame Generation solution for enhancing performance and smoothness for high refresh-rate displays and TVs, and a 'next-gen' version of FSR's Ray Regeneration technology for enhancing ray-tracing detail.

In a nutshell, Project Helix is getting its own AMD-powered version of DLSS 4 for real-time path tracing. Now, although AI rendering and frame generation are controversial in some circles, they're necessary for rendering 4K path-traced visuals at 60+ FPS. And when it comes to technology like Ray Regeneration, an AI denoiser, the results are often notably more detailed, sharper, and more impressive than traditional rendering.

There are first-party Xbox Game Studios titles on PC that already support impressive path-tracing modes on GeForce RTX graphics cards, such as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and DOOM: The Dark Ages. With this announcement, it's likely both titles could receive an 'optimized for Project Helix' update to level up console visuals in a major way.