Real-time quantization should stabilize AI upscaling under load—without compromising image quality or frame rate.
Sony has been working on the next generation of PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) for months. A new patent gives hope that PSSR 2.0 will be a significant advancement.
The patent discovered by Tech4Gamers , describes dynamic real-time quantization designed to prevent FPS drops and reductions in internal resolution during high GPU utilization.
Real-time quantization: How the patented system is supposed to work
Until now, PSSR has had to make significant compromises under high load. Either the internal resolution drops or the frame rate collapses.
This is where the patent with the number “EP4686497.” As a result, PSSR continuously monitors the respective frame rate.
A “quantization manager” selects from these cached models in real time and is controlled by a “frame rate monitor” that runs continuously in the background.
Sony describes this approach in the patent specification as follows:
The accuracy of ANN inference (editor’s note: “ANN” stands for artificial neural network) is reduced by decreasing the precision of the model’s weighting and/or activations. However, this decrease in accuracy is acceptable in order to maintain a stable gaming experience for the user.
Real-time quantization as a unique selling point?
If the patented process is actually incorporated into PSSR, Tech4Gamers believes it would be a real differentiator from established competing solutions. Current upscalers such as Nvidia’s DLSS or AMD’s FSR 4 work with pre-trained models with fixed precision – dynamic adjustment at runtime is not implemented here.
- In practical terms, this means that developers would no longer have to lower the internal resolution of their PlayStation titles to ensure upscaler performance under load.
- Instead, the AI workload would be dynamically reduced – with minimal impact on perceived image quality.
Whether the patent will already be part of the PSSR 2 update hoped for by the end of March cannot be gleaned from the patent specification. Sony itself is not only showing the usual public restraint with such patent leaks, but has also not yet made any concrete statements about a possible release window for PSSR 2.
