You may be as stunned as I used to be to be taught that Assassin’s Creed Mirage is among the few video games to make use of AI neural texture compression—the one one, I feel

If you have been pondering, like I’ve, that we’re nonetheless a way off seeing AI being utilized in video games for extra than simply upscaling or body technology, then it is time to suppose once more. That’s as a result of it seems that Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage is one among solely a tiny variety of video games to make use of neural texture compression.

As somebody who could be very a lot a hobbyist on the earth of 3D graphics, spending my spare time messing round in Unreal Engine and ShaderToy, I wish to suppose that I’ve my ear to the bottom about what video games are utilizing the very newest rendering applied sciences. So after I learn a blog by Ubisoft (by way of Access The Animus on X), describing the implementation of neural texture compression in AC Mirage, I used to be genuinely caught out.

Up to now, I wasn’t conscious of any sport utilizing it, and I’m a bit puzzled as to why Ubisoft has solely now determined to speak about this. The firm has accomplished so prior to now, on the 2024 GDC, however that was simply in regards to the tech on the whole and used Mirage as a demo for it. The presentation even has “Internal Tech Demo | Not Shipped | Not Future Update” plastered throughout it. Yes, I’m a bit gradual to catch on.

Anyway, so what’s all this about? In quick, it is about changing using a number of, high-resolution textures with a single, lower-resolution map and a small neural community. The alternative map appears a bit bit like the unique(s) however on the subject of utilizing it, the engine runs the neural community to reconstruct materials properties, similar to how nicely it displays, how tough the floor is, and so forth.

The smaller map and the community take up far much less VRAM and space for storing than the unique large ‘uns, and within the case of AC Mirage, the place Ubisoft selected to use it, the reminiscence financial savings had been as excessive as 30%.

You do not get one thing for nothing on the earth of graphics, although, and on the subject of neural texture compression, all that fancy AI stuff requires a good bit of compute. So a lot in order that Ubisoft solely “applied [it] selectively to a subset of assets, focusing on objects with high instance counts and significant memory pressure.”

Although the weblog does not explicitly point out them, the pictures recommend that Ubisoft is speaking about objects similar to timber, furnishings, and buildings. The sport can have comparatively few variations of them, however a typical scene will nonetheless apply a lot of them round (which is what ‘situations’ refers to right here). They’ll all be utilizing just about the identical textures, so there shall be a relentless VRAM utilization only for these objects.

Enter stage left, neural texture compression to chop down on that reminiscence demand. Given the state of the DRAM and SSD market proper now, you’ll be able to wager your final greenback that an entire heap of sport builders shall be trying intently at what Ubisoft has accomplished to see if it might probably assist out of their video games, too.