Sony Announces QSSR AI Upscaling for Standard PS5 Consoles

Sony Interactive Entertainment announced Quick Spectral Super Resolution on October 1, 2026, a new performance tier of AI upscaling built for the standard PlayStation 5. Daniel Craig, principal engineer in graphics research and development at SIE, detailed the technology in a PlayStation Blog post, and the first two games to offer it were patched the same day.

The company described QSSR as a new performance tier of AI upscaling and an evolution of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, the AI-driven upscaler it first shipped on PS5 Pro. According to Craig, QSSR was born from Project Amethyst, SIE’s AI graphics collaboration with AMD, and is built on two innovations: a streamlined neural network architecture and a hand-tuned implementation that maximizes performance on the PS5.

Craig wrote that since PSSR’s launch on PS5 Pro, players and developers have asked whether similar image-quality improvements could be brought to the PS5 console. PSSR analyzes game images pixel by pixel and uses AI to upscale them with more detail and stability than conventional approaches, and its computational demands had made bringing that experience to the PS5 impossible until now, he wrote.

The company said PSSR remains the gold standard on PS5 Pro, while QSSR provides notable improvements to both image detail and image stability on PS5.

Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei Patch in QSSR

The first titles to use the QSSR library are Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei. Both games were patched on October 1, 2026 to offer QSSR as an additional graphics option on PS5.

Mike Fitzgerald, head of technology at Marvel’s Wolverine developer Insomniac Games, commented on the update in the announcement.

“QSSR adds more pixel-level clarity and stability to our environments, bringing out extra detail amidst the busy streets of Madripoor, the dense alleyways of Shinjuku, and many other areas across Logan’s epic journey,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s a perfect companion to the launch of Marvel’s Wolverine, and it brings a great taste of the PS5 Pro experience to our players on PS5.”

Jasmin Patry, lead rendering engineer at Ghost of Yōtei developer Sucker Punch Productions, also addressed the technology’s arrival on the console.

“QSSR excels at resolving the fine details in our characters and environments and does so with a level of temporal stability that hasn’t been possible on the PS5 console until now,” Patry said. “We’ve long wished that all PS5 players could experience the incredible image quality that PSSR brings to PS5 Pro, and QSSR is a positive step towards that goal!”

From PSSR to Project Amethyst

Sony Interactive Entertainment introduced PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution on September 10, 2024, in the post that announced the PS5 Pro. Hideaki Nishino, chief executive of SIE’s Platform Business Group, described it at the time as AI-driven upscaling that uses machine-learning-based technology to deliver sharper image clarity with added detail. PS5 Pro launched on November 7, 2024, at a US manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $699.99.

That announcement also detailed the console’s upgraded GPU, which SIE said has 67% more Compute Units than the PS5 console and 28% faster memory, enabling up to 45% faster rendering for gameplay. The company noted those features apply to select PS5 games enhanced for PS5 Pro when compared with the PS5, and that enhanced features vary by game.

On December 18, 2024, Mark Cerny, lead architect of the PS5 and PS5 Pro, announced in a technical seminar post that SIE had begun a deeper collaboration with AMD focused on machine-learning-based technology for graphics and gameplay. Cerny said the seminar covered the challenges involved in developing the efficient machine-learning hardware needed for PSSR. The October 1, 2026 announcement identified that AI graphics collaboration with AMD as Project Amethyst, the effort from which QSSR was developed.

SIE said QSSR will be offered broadly to all PlayStation developers, and the company said it looks forward to seeing the improvements in many more titles going forward.