Apple's MetalFX upscaling technology has been put to the test in Resident Evil 4 Remake, revealing both its potential and its limitations. While it delivers significant performance improvements, image quality takes a hit, particularly at 1080p resolution.
YouTube channel MrMacRightPlus tested MetalFX on an M4 Mac mini (16GB RAM, 512GB storage) running the game at 1080p with "Balanced" settings. With MetalFX enabled, the game saw a 44% framerate boost and reduced memory consumption. However, the upscaled image exhibited noticeable artifacts, particularly around character hair, compared to native 1080p rendering.
It's speculated that the lower resolution might not provide enough data for the upscaler to work effectively, and that image quality could improve at higher resolutions like 1440p. Further testing is needed to confirm this.
While Apple is making strides in the gaming space with MetalFX, it still lags behind NVIDIA's DLSS technology, which often produces cleaner upscaled images thanks to dedicated hardware. The hope is that Apple will incorporate similar hardware in future chips to enhance MetalFX's image quality.
