With HP’s reveal of Omen AI earlier this month, are AI and machine learning models starting to become more common in video game optimisation?
Game performance (unsurprisingly) is a major consideration for modern gamers. In fact, most modern games allow the player to choose between different settings and modes depending on whether they prefer their game to have a higher performance – such as prioritising frames-per-second (FPS) – or higher graphical fidelity. Sometimes there’s even a middle option that balances the two.
While those on console reap the benefits of having access to hardware that video game developers specifically optimise their games for, it’s not as simple for those on PC, who often have to fine-tune multiple in-game settings to achieve their preferred level of performance.
This is often seen as one of the benefits of PC gaming over consoles, as PC users often have more freedom over how they want to optimise their experience. However, it can also be a cause of frustration, with players seeking out online guides and tips just to get a game working on their machine.
At CES 2025, alongside a new gaming laptop and smart monitor, tech giant HP revealed a software application as part of its Omen gaming product line that intends to tackle this problem.
That piece of software is Omen AI, a new “one-click” AI-driven software designed to manage and streamline gaming performance optimisation for PC gamers.
Omen AI – which is currently in beta – utilises machine learning to provide customised adjustments to a user’s operating system settings, hardware settings and in-game settings to achieve optimal levels of FPS.
According to HP, the software also accounts for each user’s unique software and hardware combinations, as well as adjusting for each specific game. The Omen AI function can also be toggled on and off, and allows the user to return their settings to previous manual configurations.
The Omen AI model works by analysing millions of data points across PC and game settings and then determines the best configuration for a user’s unique set-up. Currently, the software only supports CounterStrike 2, with plans to add more gaming titles such as Fortnite and Cyberpunk 2077 to the list over time.
PC gamers often have a variety of hardware in their gaming rigs, with components such as graphics processing units (GPUs) and central processing units, which often differ in terms of technical ability from one machine to the next. These components, depending on their generation, often become out of date after a few years and, as a result, can struggle to run the latest games without a lot of tinkering in the settings.
Adding to the struggle is hardware shortages, which have plagued gaming consumers in recent years – such as during the global chip shortage at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. In fact, Nvidia warned last November that another GPU shortage may be incoming. But while hardware limitations and shortages persist, AI technology is increasingly being used to benefit gaming performance.
AI optimisation
The use of advanced AI in video games, as with other creative industries, is still highly controversial. A recent report by Midia Research found that while most gamers are neutral when it comes to the use of generative AI in game development – provided the game is actually good – a lot of gamers would avoid a game if generative AI was used to justify reduced developer headcounts during development.
However, as modern games continue to push the boundaries of technical capabilities and the constraints of hardware, the industry has been continually turning to the technology to assist with performance and optimisation. The beta release of Omen AI shows that this trend of using AI for optimisation is not slowing, rather it could be picking up pace.
AI has been utilised by numerous companies to aid in video game optimisation, such as Nvidia with its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) tech, which utilises AI to improve performance and graphical quality. A particular talking point of the DLSS technology is its AI-driven ray tracing function. Ray tracing is a rendering technique that simulates realistic lighting, which can be computationally intensive and result in reduced frame rate. DLSS’ tech is designed to tackle these issues by using AI to generate additional pixels in ray-traced scenes, boosting performance.
DLSS technology also uses AI to output higher resolution images from a lower resolution input, also known as upscaling. Some believe that AI upscaling can supercharge hardware that is already powerful, or make limited hardware more capable.
Similarly, one of the major talking points of the PS5 Pro – which was released last November – was its new AI upscaling tech, the PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution feature. Like DLSS, this tech improves image quality and frame rates for PlayStation games, and it also apparently learns and improves over time. The introduction of this feature was significant, as it was the first time AI upscaling tech has been featured on consoles, and it probably won’t be the last.
A patent filed by Nintendo in 2023, which was only made public recently, suggests that the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 console could be the next in line to feature AI upscaling. The patent provides information on technology that is capable of “converting images of one resolution into another (eg higher) resolution and may be used in real-time applications from images generated by, for example, a video game engine”.
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