workflow-templates-broken-zap-2026-06-08/site/knowledge/models/real-esrgan.md

Real-ESRGAN

Real-ESRGAN is a practical image and video super-resolution model that extends ESRGAN with improved training on pure synthetic data for real-world restoration.

Model Variants

RealESRGAN_x4plus

• General-purpose 4× upscaling model for real-world images
• RRDB (Residual-in-Residual Dense Block) architecture
• Handles noise, blur, JPEG compression artifacts

RealESRGAN_x4plus_anime_6B

• Optimized for anime and illustration images
• Smaller 6-block model for faster inference
• Better edge preservation for line art

RealESRGAN_x2plus

• 2× upscaling variant for moderate enlargement
• Lower risk of hallucinated details

realesr-animevideov3

• Lightweight model designed for anime video frames
• Temporal consistency for video processing

Key Features

• Trained entirely on synthetic degradation data (no paired real-world data needed)
• Second-order degradation modeling simulates real-world compression chains
• GFPGAN integration for face enhancement during upscaling
• Tiling support for processing large images with limited VRAM
• FP16 (half precision) inference for faster processing
• NCNN Vulkan portable executables for cross-platform GPU support (Intel/AMD/NVIDIA)
• Supports 2×, 3×, and 4× upscaling with arbitrary output scale via LANCZOS4 resize

Hardware Requirements

• Minimum: 2GB VRAM with tiling enabled
• Recommended: 4GB+ VRAM for comfortable use
• NCNN Vulkan build runs on any GPU with Vulkan support
• CPU inference supported but significantly slower

Common Use Cases

• Upscaling old or low-resolution photographs
• Enhancing compressed web images
• Anime and manga image upscaling
• Video frame super-resolution
• Restoring degraded historical images
• Pre-processing for print from low-resolution sources

Key Parameters

• outscale: Final upsampling scale factor (default: 4)
• tile: Tile size for memory management (0 = no tiling)
• face_enhance: Enable GFPGAN face enhancement (default: false)
• model_name: Select model variant (RealESRGAN_x4plus, anime_6B, etc.)
• denoise_strength: Balance noise removal vs detail preservation (realesr-general-x4v3)