Google Chrome now supports Nvidia’s new technology that increases scaling of video playback in the web browser with impressive results, or at least this feature is already available in the testing phase.
VideoCardz (opens in a new tab) (By Tom’s gear (opens in a new tab)) spotted a pre-release version of the technology, which is called Nvidia RTX Video Super Resolution and is basically the equivalent of DLSS, only for video in the browser. Nvidia showed it at CES 2023 and, for example, shared an Apex Legends clip recorded in 1080p, which was upscaled to 4K; and it actually looked very elegant (see video clip below).
Like DLSS, RTX Video Super Resolution (VSR) uses AI to scale footage and can work its magic on any video from 360p to 1440p.
Is there a catch? In a sense, because as the name suggests, this only applies to RTX graphics cards – and Nvidia only supports the newer RTX 3000 and 4000 models. Those with RTX 2000 family GPUs can’t take advantage – at least not at first (we’ll come back to that).
As mentioned, VSR is currently in testing as an early stable update for Google Chrome, before being fully rolled out in the near future (in Chrome version 110). This feature will also come to Microsoft Edge (also based on the Chromium engine), but will also require a new GeForce driver to work alongside the finished version in the respective browser.
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We’re very interested in seeing this in action, as the results Nvidia has shown look convincing to say the least. Unfortunately, this writer will have to rely on the opinions of others as he only has an RTX 20 series graphics card in his PC.
The good news, however, is that Nvidia has promised to provide support for this technology for RTX 2000 cards in the future, although we don’t have a timeframe (we were told on Twitter (opens in a new tab) that the “RTX 20 [is] will come later”).
For those who use Google Chrome (most people) and even Edge who have an Nvidia RTX GPU, this can be a huge step up in watching movies in the browser, from streaming games to watching Netflix and, well, pretty much anything. It would be very nice to be able to watch a movie on Netflix, for example in Full HD, and upscale it to 4K in the browser, if the results actually run as smoothly as the game footage Nvidia showed at CES.
Keep in mind that the technology may be coming to Chrome soon, but you won’t be able to use it until the next GeForce graphics driver is due to land in late February (assuming there are no issues). When this happens, you also need to enable this feature in the Nvidia Control Panel (it will not be set to run by default).