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Checkerboard rendering

Checkerboard rendering is a 3D computer graphics technique designed to approximate high-resolution output, such as 4K, by rendering approximately half the pixels in an alternating checkerboard pattern across the frame and reconstructing the missing pixels through spatial and temporal anti-aliasing methods.^[1] This approach leverages data from previous frames, including object ID buffers that track geometry boundaries, to propagate colors and details, enabling efficient upscaling without the full computational load of native rendering.^[1] Originally developed to optimize performance on hardware-limited systems, it produces images with crisp edges, enhanced texture detail, and reduced aliasing artifacts that closely resemble full-resolution renders.^[2] The technique gained prominence with the launch of the PlayStation 4 Pro in 2016, where Sony integrated hardware support for checkerboard rendering to deliver enhanced visuals on 4K displays without requiring developers to fully render at 2160p resolution.^[1] According to Sony's lead system architect Mark Cerny, the method uses a 1920x2160 render buffer—effectively half of 4K—combined with custom hardware that writes an ID buffer alongside the Z-buffer at the same resolution, facilitating accurate reconstruction even during camera or object motion.^[2] Early adopters included titles like Horizon Zero Dawn and Watch Dogs 2, which employed checkerboarding to achieve dynamic resolutions up to near-4K while maintaining stable frame rates.^[1] Microsoft similarly supported the approach on the Xbox One X, extending its use across console gaming ecosystems. In practice, checkerboard rendering requires deep integration into a game's rendering pipeline, particularly with post-processing effects like temporal anti-aliasing and dynamic resolution scaling, as demonstrated in EA's Frostbite engine for games such as Battlefield 1 and Mass Effect: Andromeda.^[3] Key features include object ID tracking for disocclusion handling, alpha unrolling for transparency, and gradient adjustments to minimize visual artifacts, though it doubles the pixel shader workload compared to standard rendering.^[3] More recent implementations, such as Intel's Checkerboard Rendering (CBR) for integrated graphics from 2018, emphasize its adaptability to real-time upsampling on lower-end hardware using quarter-resolution rendering with temporal reconstruction, motion vectors, and anti-aliasing.^[4] Despite its efficiency, checkerboard rendering can introduce minor temporal instabilities, such as shimmering in fine details during motion, but these are often mitigated through advanced reconstruction algorithms that outperform traditional upscaling methods like bilinear interpolation.^[1] It remains a foundational upscaling strategy in modern game development as of 2025, with continued use on platforms like the PlayStation 5 (e.g., in titles such as the 2024 beta of Monster Hunter Wilds) and influencing subsequent technologies like NVIDIA's DLSS, AMD's FSR, and Sony's PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR).^[4]^[5]^[6]

Introduction

Definition

Checkerboard rendering is a 3D computer graphics technique that renders pixels in a non-overlapping checkerboard pattern, covering approximately 50% of the target resolution's pixel centers, while the remaining pixels are generated through interpolation to achieve an effective higher resolution output.^[7] This method allows graphics processing units to compute full-resolution geometry and depth information for all pixels but shade only the selected subset, reducing computational load without significantly compromising visual fidelity.^[7] As a form of selective supersampling, checkerboard rendering samples geometry and shading at full target resolution but applies shading computations solely to alternate pixels arranged in a grid-like pattern, such as every other pixel along diagonals.^[8] This approach leverages spatial and temporal reconstruction to fill in unshaded pixels, effectively simulating supersampling anti-aliasing benefits at a fraction of the cost of traditional full-resolution rendering. The technique is particularly suited for real-time applications where hardware constraints limit native high-resolution performance.^[7] A representative example involves rendering a scene at an internal resolution of 3200×1800 (often denoted as 1800p) in a checkerboard pattern to produce a 4K (3840×2160) output, where only half the pixels are fully shaded per frame, and the rest are interpolated using neighboring data and depth buffers.^[9] This pattern ensures even coverage across the image, minimizing artifacts like aliasing while approximating the detail of native 4K rendering.^[7]

Purpose and Benefits Overview

Checkerboard rendering primarily serves to deliver high-resolution output, such as 4K, on graphics hardware that lacks the power for native full-resolution rendering, thereby alleviating computational demands while preserving acceptable image quality.^[1] This technique emerged as a solution for consoles like the PlayStation 4 Pro, where it allows demanding games to target ultra-high-definition displays without overwhelming the GPU.^[3] By rendering only a subset of pixels in a staggered pattern, it effectively halves the pixel shading workload compared to native rendering, enabling smoother performance in complex scenes.^[4] Among its key benefits, checkerboard rendering strikes a balance between performance gains and visual fidelity by optimizing GPU utilization for partial frame generation, which supports stable frame rates even in resource-intensive environments.^[4] It provides efficiency on integrated or mid-range graphics hardware, offering speed-ups of approximately 1.14x to 1.4x in shading-heavy workloads, while integrating seamlessly with existing anti-aliasing pipelines to minimize artifacts.^[4] This approach has been adopted in production engines like Frostbite for titles such as Battlefield 1, demonstrating its scalability across various game scenarios without requiring extensive hardware upgrades.^[3] Conceptually, the technique achieves supersampling-like anti-aliasing effects—enhancing edge smoothness and detail—without the full overhead of rendering every pixel, as the checkerboard pixel pattern facilitates efficient reconstruction to a complete high-resolution frame.^[1] This trade-off prioritizes broader accessibility to high-fidelity graphics, particularly on consumer-grade systems, by leveraging temporal data and post-processing to fill gaps with minimal quality degradation.^[4]

History

Early Concepts

The origins of checkerboard rendering concepts trace back to advancements in signal processing and sampling theory during the 1980s and 1990s, where researchers applied the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem to computer graphics for efficient image reconstruction on non-uniform sampling grids. The theorem posits that a continuous signal can be perfectly reconstructed from its samples if the sampling rate exceeds twice the highest frequency component, preventing aliasing artifacts; in graphics, this principle was adapted to handle discrete pixel grids by exploring non-uniform distributions that avoid the need for dense, uniform oversampling while minimizing visible distortions. Early work emphasized how non-uniform grids could redistribute high-frequency energy into less perceptible noise, laying the groundwork for sparse sampling strategies that prioritize computational efficiency over exhaustive coverage.^[10] Academic discussions in the late 1980s introduced practical nonuniform sampling techniques for anti-aliasing, focusing on generating patterns at low densities to produce antialiased images without excessive computational cost. For instance, point-diffusion algorithms were proposed to create Poisson-disk distributions, which satisfy blue-noise properties by concentrating power in mid-to-high frequencies and reducing low-frequency aliasing clumps, outperforming jittered uniform grids in perceptual quality. These methods extended frequency domain analysis to image reconstruction, demonstrating that strategic sampling patterns could emulate higher-resolution outputs by scattering aliasing into high-frequency noise that reconstruction filters could suppress effectively. Such approaches predated real-time applications but highlighted the potential for grid-based variations to optimize sampling for complex scenes.^[11] By the early 1990s, these ideas evolved to incorporate multidimensional parameters in ray tracing, further refining sparse sampling for anti-aliasing in distribution effects like motion blur and depth of field. Researchers extended two-dimensional nonuniform sampling to higher dimensions, using spectrally optimal patterns to ensure aliasing manifests as random, high-frequency noise rather than structured artifacts, aligning with Nyquist principles by avoiding bandlimiting challenges in uniform setups. Concepts of rotated or stratified grid sampling emerged in these contexts as ways to enhance frequency coverage without proportional increases in sample count, enabling efficient representation of high-frequency details in pre-rendered imagery. This theoretical foundation influenced later adaptations for dynamic rendering, though initial focus remained on offline graphics research.

Commercial Adoption

Checkerboard rendering gained significant commercial traction with the launch of the PlayStation 4 Pro in November 2016, where Sony promoted the technique as a hardware-accelerated method to achieve enhanced 4K visuals in games without full native rendering.^[12] This was particularly evident in titles like Horizon Zero Dawn, developed using the Decima engine by Guerrilla Games, which utilized 2160p checkerboard rendering to deliver high-fidelity open-world visuals on 4K displays.^[13] Microsoft followed suit with the Xbox One X release in November 2017, incorporating support for checkerboard rendering to enable 4K output in a range of enhanced titles.^[14] Games such as Final Fantasy XV employed the technique, rendering at native 1800p and upscaling via checkerboard to 4K for improved performance and image quality.^[15] Other examples included Assassin's Creed Origins, demonstrating the method's integration across third-party ports.^[16] Subsequent developments expanded checkerboard rendering beyond consoles. In August 2018, Intel published a whitepaper detailing its implementation for real-time upscaling on integrated graphics, highlighting the technique's potential for lower-power devices following its console success.^[4] On the PC side, adoption remained limited, with engines like Unreal Engine 4 enabling experimental support through plugins and custom implementations, though native higher resolutions were preferred due to variable hardware capabilities. A key milestone came at SIGGRAPH 2017, where Guerrilla Games presented details on Decima's checkerboard approach, influencing broader industry interest.^[17] By 2020, with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S launches, checkerboard rendering saw growing use for dynamic resolution scaling in performance modes, allowing developers to balance 4K output with stable frame rates in demanding titles like Shadow of the Tomb Raider.^[18] This evolution built on earlier theoretical concepts from academic work, adapting them for next-generation hardware efficiency.^[12] Following the ninth-generation console launches, checkerboard rendering continued to be employed in updates and new titles. In 2021, Shadow of the Tomb Raider received a patch for PlayStation 5 enabling 4K checkerboard rendering at 60 FPS in high-resolution mode.^[19] As of 2024, it remained in use on PlayStation 5 Pro for select games, including the Resident Evil series at 4K/60 FPS via checkerboard, and Horizon Forbidden West in performance mode at approximately 1800p checkerboard, often alongside emerging upscaling methods like PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR).^[20]^[21]

Technical Fundamentals

Rendering Pattern

Checkerboard rendering employs a spatial arrangement where pixels are rendered in a diagonal checkerboard grid across the target resolution, such that rendered pixels—analogous to the black squares on a chessboard—alternate with non-rendered pixels that will later be interpolated, collectively covering exactly 50% of the grid for the initial pass.^[7] This pattern ensures that no two horizontally or vertically adjacent pixels are both rendered in the same frame, promoting a balanced distribution of computational load while maintaining high-fidelity sampling.^[4] In terms of sampling, full geometry processing, including depth and primitive coverage, is performed at the target resolution (e.g., 4K or 3840×2160), but shading, lighting, and texturing computations are restricted to the rendered pixels only, halving the shading workload compared to full-resolution rendering.^[7] The pattern's design facilitates an even distribution of high-frequency samples throughout the image, avoiding clustered undersampling that could degrade detail in specific regions. For instance, in a 4K target, samples are selected at pixel positions where the row index i and column index j satisfy (i + j) \mod 2 = 0, creating the alternating offsets that define the grid.^[7] This mathematical basis, rooted in modular arithmetic, guarantees a quasi-random yet deterministic placement that captures fine details effectively across the frame.^[4] The choice of pattern—standard diagonal checkerboard versus rotated variants—significantly influences artifact susceptibility, particularly around edges. The standard checkerboard, which aligns with axis-oriented offsets, preserves horizontal and vertical edge details at near-native resolution by ensuring samples straddle these boundaries, outperforming uniform subsampling that might blur or alias such features due to consistent offsets.^[7] In contrast, rotated patterns (e.g., at 45 degrees) can better handle diagonal edges but may introduce more aliasing on axis-aligned ones if not carefully tuned; however, the standard approach is preferred in many implementations for its compatibility with hardware-accelerated interpolation and reduced edge crawling artifacts under motion.^[4] Subsequent interpolation fills the gaps to reconstruct the full image.

Interpolation Process

In checkerboard rendering, the interpolation process reconstructs unrendered pixels by estimating their values from the sparse set of rendered samples, typically using spatial or temporal methods to fill in the gaps while preserving image quality. The core approach relies on bilinear interpolation, where each missing pixel is computed as a weighted average of its four nearest rendered neighbors, which are positioned diagonally due to the alternating sampling pattern. This method is efficient and widely adopted in real-time applications, as it leverages hardware-accelerated texture sampling to blend the samples based on sub-pixel offsets.^[3]^[17] The bilinear interpolation formula for a target pixel at position (x, y) with fractional offsets a = x - \lfloor x \rfloor and b = y - \lfloor y \rfloor is given by:

P(x,y) = (1-a)(1-b) \cdot P_{00} + a(1-b) \cdot P_{10} + (1-a)b \cdot P_{01} + ab \cdot P_{11}

where P_{00}, P_{10}, P_{01}, and P_{11} represent the diagonally adjacent rendered pixels. To mitigate blurring and enhance edge preservation, this spatial interpolation is often combined with edge-aware filtering techniques, such as FXAA applied prior to resolution, which detects and sharpens high-contrast boundaries while smoothing low-contrast areas. Bicubic interpolation serves as an advanced spatial variant, extending bilinear by incorporating additional neighboring samples for smoother gradients and reduced aliasing, though it increases computational cost.^[17]^[4] Temporal interpolation addresses limitations of purely spatial methods by incorporating data from previous frames, using motion vectors to reproject and blend historical samples into the current unrendered positions, thereby reducing flickering and improving stability over time. This involves comparing depth values from prior and current frames—e.g., rejecting history if

|\text{prev_depth} - \text{current_depth_avg}| \geq \text{tolerance}

—and blending accepted samples (often at a 50/50 ratio) to resolve up to four samples per pixel after two frames. For higher-quality spatial reconstruction, Lanczos filtering can be employed as an alternative to bilinear, using a sinc-based kernel with a support radius (typically 2–3) to better preserve high-frequency details, though it is less common in real-time scenarios due to its higher latency.^[4]^[17] These interpolation techniques excel at handling low-frequency content, such as broad gradients and uniform areas, by effectively averaging samples without introducing noticeable artifacts, but they can cause blurring on fine details like thin lines or textures unless paired with anti-aliasing methods like temporal AA. In practice, the combination of spatial bilinear interpolation with temporal reprojection achieves near-native resolution quality, with minor softening as a trade-off for performance.^[17]^[3]

Implementation

Hardware Considerations

Checkerboard rendering imposes specific demands on graphics processing units (GPUs), primarily requiring hardware support for dynamic resolution rendering and efficient pixel discard mechanisms, such as viewport scaling or scissor tests to render only a subset of pixels in a patterned fashion.^[22] Mid-range GPUs, exemplified by the AMD Polaris-based architecture in the PlayStation 4 Pro with its 36 compute units and 4.2 teraflops of compute performance, can achieve approximately 50% reduction in pixel shading load when targeting resolutions like 1440p checkerboard upscaled to 4K, making it feasible without excessive developer overhead.^[23] This approach leverages fixed-function hardware features, including dedicated ID buffers for pattern reconstruction, to minimize computational cost.^[23] In terms of memory and bandwidth, checkerboard rendering reduces video RAM (VRAM) usage by shading only half the pixels of the target resolution, thereby lowering texture and framebuffer storage needs compared to native rendering.^[22] This is particularly beneficial in bandwidth-constrained environments like consoles, where the PlayStation 4 Pro's 8 GB GDDR5 memory operates at 218 GB/s— a 24% increase over the base model—allowing more efficient data flow for high-resolution outputs without proportional increases in memory pressure.^[23] Platform-specific optimizations highlight its suitability for fixed hardware in consoles, such as the PlayStation 4 Pro's custom GPU enhancements that enable seamless 1440p checkerboard targeting for near-4K visuals at stable frame rates.^[22] On PC platforms, however, implementation faces challenges due to hardware variability and inconsistent driver support across vendors, requiring custom solutions that may not scale uniformly.^[24] For scalability, the technique supports adjustable pattern densities, such as rendering at 25% of full resolution for even greater load reduction, which proves effective on weaker integrated graphics processors like Intel's, delivering speed-ups of 1.14x to 1.4x in pixel-bound scenarios through quarter-resolution render targets.^[4] This flexibility allows adaptation to diverse hardware without fundamental redesigns.^[4]

Software Techniques

Developers integrate checkerboard rendering into game engines by configuring render targets at half or quarter resolution and applying alternating offsets to create the sparse pixel pattern across frames. In DirectX 12, this involves jittering the viewport by one full-resolution pixel between frames to shift the rendered areas, ensuring efficient use of the buffer.^[4] Custom viewports and scissor tests in APIs like DirectX 11/12 or Vulkan further enable masking of non-rendered regions, allowing precise control over the checkerboard layout without additional hardware dependencies.^[4] The rendering pipeline proceeds in multiple passes: the first renders the scene geometry and shading to the checkerboard pixels in a low-resolution buffer, often with 2x MSAA for edge quality. A subsequent reconstruction pass employs a dedicated interpolation shader, typically in HLSL, to fill missing pixels by blending data from the current frame and the previous frame's buffer, guided by motion vectors and depth comparisons to resolve occlusions.^[25] Post-processing effects, such as bloom, are applied exclusively to the reconstructed full-resolution image to avoid inconsistencies; in the Frostbite engine, this necessitates adjustments to the post-processing chain, including efficient depth resolves and integration with temporal anti-aliasing.^[3] Game engines offer specific tools and libraries to streamline implementation. Unreal Engine supports dynamic resolution scaling through console variables like r.ScreenPercentage, which developers adapt for checkerboard patterns on supported platforms.^[26] In Unity, custom shaders handle pattern generation and texture merging, using render textures at half height to alternate between even and odd frames before interpolation. Debugging these setups involves visualization tools that overlay rendered versus interpolated pixels, helping identify artifacts like ghosting; the DynamicCheckerboardRendering sample provides in-engine toggles to display occluded or missing pixels for targeted fixes.^[25]

Applications

In Console Gaming

Checkerboard rendering emerged as a cornerstone technique in console gaming with the launch of the PlayStation 4 Pro in November 2016, which introduced hardware-accelerated support for the method to upscale lower-resolution renders to 4K output, enabling compatibility with emerging 4K televisions without requiring full native rendering.^[2] The Xbox One X followed in November 2017, adopting checkerboard rendering as one of several upscaling options, though it was used less frequently than on the PS4 Pro due to the console's greater computational power for native 4K in select titles.^[14] By 2018, over 50 PS4 Pro-enhanced titles had implemented the technique, including high-profile releases such as God of War and Marvel's Spider-Man, which leveraged it to deliver sharp visuals on 4K displays while maintaining performance targets.^[27] A notable example is Horizon Zero Dawn, released in 2017, which utilized dynamic checkerboard rendering to ensure open-world stability on the PS4 Pro, dynamically adjusting the render resolution to preserve a consistent 30 frames per second at an effective 4K output.^[13] This implementation was integrated into Guerrilla Games' Decima engine, allowing for custom per-pixel data processing that minimized artifacts and supported complex environmental details without frame rate drops.^[28] The technique's use has evolved on next-generation consoles, with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S supporting checkerboard rendering to enable hybrid resolution approaches in select titles, balancing visual fidelity and efficiency. The PlayStation 5 Pro, launched in November 2024, introduces PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) for advanced upscaling, though checkerboard rendering persists in select base PS5 modes and titles as of 2025. These systems also enhance backward compatibility for PS4 Pro and Xbox One X games, applying automatic boosts to stabilize dynamic resolutions and improve interpolation for smoother 4K playback.^[29] By facilitating effective 4K visuals at reduced computational cost, checkerboard rendering empowers console developers to prioritize high-resolution assets and effects in action-intensive scenes, avoiding the frame rate penalties associated with native 4K rendering on hardware with fixed resources.^[23]

In PC and Other Platforms

Checkerboard rendering on personal computers is typically implemented as an optional feature in select games, often through in-game settings or engine-specific options, allowing players to balance performance and resolution on varied hardware. For instance, in F1 2019, the game includes a TAA Checkerboard mode that renders approximately half the pixels in a checkerboard pattern each frame, reconstructing the full image to improve frame rates while approximating higher resolutions.^[30] This approach contrasts with console implementations by relying on developer integration rather than standardized hardware support. Intel pioneered a dedicated checkerboard rendering (CBR) technique in 2018 specifically for low-end integrated graphics processing units, such as those in Intel UHD Graphics, to enable real-time upscaling on budget systems. The method generates full-resolution output with reduced shading computations, making it suitable for entry-level PCs where native high-resolution rendering is infeasible.^[4] Similarly, NVIDIA introduced experimental checkerboard support in GeForce drivers starting in late 2019, primarily for multi-GPU Scalable Link Interface (SLI) configurations, to enhance performance in compatible titles without requiring extensive game modifications.^[24] Adoption on PC remains limited due to inconsistencies in graphics driver support across vendors like NVIDIA and AMD, which often require custom extensions or profiles for activation. High-end PCs favor scalable native resolution rendering, reducing the need for such techniques amid alternatives like DLSS or FSR.

Advantages and Limitations

Performance Gains

Checkerboard rendering achieves significant compute reductions by shading approximately half the pixels per frame through an alternating pattern, effectively halving the shading workload compared to native resolution rendering.^[7] This leads to 30-50% savings in GPU utilization, depending on the rendering pipeline and scene complexity.^[7] For instance, on the PlayStation 4 Pro, games like Battlefield 1 render at an effective 1800p checkerboard resolution (yielding 4K output) with a total frame time of 15.99 ms, compared to 21.07 ms for native 1800p, representing a 24% reduction primarily from savings in G-buffer generation (1.14 ms saved) and shadow mapping (1.50 ms saved).^[7] Similarly, Mass Effect: Andromeda sees a 36% frame time reduction to 23.42 ms from 36.82 ms at native 1800p, with major gains in lighting computations (6.18 ms saved).^[7] These efficiencies translate to substantial frame rate benefits, allowing games to maintain higher target frame rates at elevated resolutions. In pixel shader-bound workloads, checkerboard rendering can reduce frame times by up to 30%, enabling 60 FPS performance in titles that would otherwise be limited to 30 FPS at native resolutions.^[4] Benchmarks demonstrate this, such as 1440p checkerboard rendering to 4K yielding approximately 1.8x speedup over native 4K due to the halved pixel shading.^[7] On the PS4 Pro, this approach supports 4K-like output at 2.88 million effective pixels (half of 1800p's approximately 5.76 million), facilitating stable 60 FPS in performance-oriented modes for games like those using the Frostbite engine.^[7] Resource efficiency is another key advantage, with reduced computational demands on consoles.^[4] This scalability benefits battery-powered devices, such as laptops with integrated graphics, where average speedups of 1.14x to 1.2x (up to 1.4x in shading-dominant scenes) minimize energy use while supporting higher resolutions.^[4] In deferred rendering pipelines, checkerboard rendering improves fill rate efficiency by minimizing overdraw, as fewer pixels are processed in geometry and lighting passes. For example, in Frostbite-based titles, this results in targeted savings like 15% in ambient shadowed occlusion and 12% in clustered shading over full-resolution equivalents, enhancing overall GPU throughput without proportional increases in bandwidth demands.^[7] The interpolation step contributes minimally to overhead, typically under 2 ms, preserving the net efficiency gains.^[7]

Visual Artifacts and Drawbacks

Checkerboard rendering, while enabling higher apparent resolutions, introduces several visual artifacts primarily stemming from its alternating pixel sampling and temporal interpolation process. Temporal instability manifests as shimmering on moving edges, where interpolation mismatches between frames cause flickering or crawling artifacts, particularly noticeable in dynamic scenes with high contrast. Moiré patterns can also emerge in fine textures when the checkerboard pattern aligns poorly with repetitive details, exacerbating instability in fast-paced environments like racing games.^[31] The technique does not achieve true native resolution, with a loss of high-frequency details in interpolated areas, reducing overall sharpness and fidelity, especially in static or low-motion shots where the compromises become more apparent, as seen in implementations rendering at intermediate resolutions like 3360x1890 before upscaling. Additional drawbacks include increased aliasing on diagonal edges without supplementary anti-aliasing, leading to fuzzy fringing on elements like hair in Uncharted 4 or alpha effects in Infamous First Light. These issues are highly dependent on scene complexity, with artifacts worsening in high-motion scenarios due to occlusion-related ghosting, where reprojected pixels from prior frames introduce erroneous shading.^[4] To mitigate these artifacts, checkerboard rendering requires careful tuning, often combined with temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) to stabilize output and reduce instability from subtle camera movements or edge crawling on primitives.^[4] Such integration helps preserve detail but demands deep post-processing adjustments to avoid amplifying problems like severe sharpening filters in motion-heavy titles such as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

Comparisons to Alternatives

Versus Native Resolution Rendering

Checkerboard rendering significantly reduces computational demands compared to native high-resolution rendering. Rendering at native 4K requires processing four times the pixels of 1080p, whereas checkerboard rendering typically shades approximately half the pixels of native 4K—equivalent to about twice the 1080p workload—by alternating pixel samples across frames.^[7] This makes checkerboard viable on mid-tier hardware like the PS4 Pro, where native 4K would exceed performance budgets, enabling higher frame rates or additional graphical effects.^[7] In terms of image quality, native resolution provides perfect per-pixel sampling without approximation, but at a 2-4x performance penalty relative to 1080p baselines.^[32] Checkerboard rendering approximates the full resolution through temporal interpolation, resulting in minor detail loss such as subtle artifacts in fine textures or motion, though it inherently offers superior anti-aliasing due to its staggered sampling pattern.^[32] Analyses show checkerboard images are sharper than simple upscaling from equivalent lower resolutions but fall short of native fidelity, with occasional flickering or pixelation in dynamic scenes.^[32] Native rendering suits high-end systems, such as the PS5 achieving 4K at 60 fps in titles like Stray, where ample GPU power supports full pixel computation without compromises.^[33] In contrast, checkerboard rendering was employed on the PS4 Pro for resolution boosts in base modes of games like Battlefield 1 and Mass Effect: Andromeda, targeting 4K output on hardware incapable of native equivalents.^[7] Overall, checkerboard rendering trades a modest reduction in visual fidelity—often manifesting as slightly softened details—for roughly 50% computational efficiency over native 4K, as evidenced by halved shading costs and performance gains of 24-36% in tested titles.^[7] This balance allowed broader access to high-resolution visuals on limited hardware during the PS4 Pro era.^[7]

Versus AI-Based Upscaling

Checkerboard rendering employs a fixed geometric sampling pattern, where the scene is rendered at approximately half the target resolution in a staggered, alternating pixel grid, followed by deterministic interpolation to reconstruct the full image. This approach relies on spatial and temporal extrapolation, such as expanding 2x2 pixel blocks into 4x4 structures using edge-directed filters and leveraging data from previous frames, including motion vectors, for reconstruction and disocclusion handling.^[22]^[4] In contrast, AI-based upscaling techniques like NVIDIA's DLSS 2.0 utilize convolutional neural networks trained on high-resolution reference images to predict and generate missing pixel details from lower-resolution inputs, incorporating temporal information from multiple frames for enhanced reconstruction.^[34]^[32] In terms of quality and performance, AI methods generally outperform checkerboard rendering in detail preservation and artifact reduction; for instance, DLSS can upscale from 1440p to 4K with sharper textures and fewer shimmering artifacts in dynamic scenes, achieving visual fidelity closer to native resolution while delivering 1.5-2x frame rate gains on compatible hardware.^[32] However, DLSS requires extensive training datasets of game-specific or generic high-quality frames and dedicated tensor cores for real-time inference, introducing computational overhead and potential variability across games.^[34]^[35] Checkerboard rendering, being fully deterministic and free of machine learning dependencies, avoids such requirements and runs efficiently on standard GPU shaders, though it may exhibit more noticeable aliasing or grid-like artifacts in high-contrast areas.^[4]^[22] Checkerboard rendering first appeared in 2016 with the PlayStation 4 Pro, enabling near-4K output on mid-range hardware without specialized accelerators.^[36] DLSS debuted in 2018 alongside NVIDIA's RTX 20-series GPUs, restricting its use to hardware with tensor cores, while equivalents like AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) offer broader compatibility but lack DLSS's AI-driven precision in early versions.^[37] This hardware-agnostic nature makes checkerboard suitable for legacy systems or integrated graphics, whereas AI upscaling demands modern, vendor-specific GPUs.^[4] Checkerboard rendering fits scenarios requiring straightforward resolution boosts on resource-constrained consoles or older PCs, providing reliable performance without per-title optimization.^[36] AI-based methods like DLSS excel in demanding applications, such as ray-traced games, where their temporal accumulation yields superior stability and detail recovery, often at higher effective resolutions than checkerboard equivalents.^[32]^[34]

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Unreal Engine Console Variables Reference
List of console variables available for Unreal Engine. Console Variables Reference On this page Animation AB Test Accesibility Actor AI Async Render Thread
[23]
Every game with PS4 Pro support: resolution, FPS, HDR ...
Aug 17, 2022 · Detroit: Become Human - 2160p checkerboard rendering at 30 FPS, improved volumetric lighting, HDR. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - 4K resolution ...
[24]
Horizon Zero Dawn PS4 Pro Uses Custom Checkerboard ...
Aug 3, 2017 · Guerrilla Games' principal tech engineer Giliam de Carpentier reveals how they approached checkerboard rendering on the PS4 Pro.
[25]
PlayStation 5 backwards compatibility tested - and it's fantastic
Nov 6, 2020 · It ran unlocked on PS4 Pro, and it utilised checkerboard rendering to hit 1800p, up against Series X delivering the same pixel count using ...
[26]
F1 2019 Review - Graphics - Overclockers Club
Jun 27, 2019 · By the way, there is the option to use TAA Checkerboard, which can improve performance by using rendering half of the scene each frame, using ...Missing: PC | Show results with:PC
[27]
PS4 Pro's Checkerboard 4K Rendering Will Never Look As Good As ...
Nov 4, 2016 · PS4 Pro's Checkerboard 4K Rendering Will Never Look As Good As Native 4K, Requires More Work. VooFoo Studios discusses the benefits and ...
[28]
Death Stranding PC: how next-gen AI upscaling beats native 4K
Jul 28, 2020 · Base resolution is 1920x2160 in a checkerboard configuration, with 'missing pixels' interpolated from the previous frame. Importantly, Decima ...
[29]
Battlefield V Adds DLSS, Boosting Performance By Up To 40%, and ...
Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) is an NVIDIA RTX technology that uses the power of deep learning and AI to improve game performance while maintaining visual ...
[30]
Nvidia's DLSS upscaling really does need those AI-accelerating ...
Sep 13, 2023 · Well, now we seemingly have an answer, of sorts. And it turns out DLSS really does need those Tensor cores. Latest Videos From PC Gamer.
[31]
Sony's PS4 Pro provides a mid-generation graphics bump to PS4 ...
Sep 7, 2016 · While there will be some native 4K games on the PS Pro, many will use an advanced 4×4 checkerboard upscaling process, allowing developers to ...
[32]
NVIDIA Accelerates Neural Graphics PC Gaming Revolution at GDC ...
Mar 16, 2023 · Since its launch in 2018, NVIDIA DLSS has driven a neural graphics revolution in PC gaming. Neural graphics intertwines AI and graphics to ...