What is AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution? AMD FSR explained

AMD has worked hard over the past few years, catching up well with its competition. While it has beaten Intel in the CPU area for the time being, it still has to take a few steps before it can recover against Nvidia in the graphics department. It is certainly making headway, however, and the latest milestone in that direction is AMD AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR).

At the recently held Computex 2021 in Taipei, AMD unveiled its brand new GPU technology. It wasn’t new hardware, but a software solution that can compete with Nvidia’s deep learning super sampling. It’s called AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution and it’s a way to take your gaming performance even further. Let’s take a closer look at that.

Also read: What is FreeSync? AMD’s display synchronization technology explained

What is AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution and how does it work?

Put simply, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is a supersampling upscaling technology that promises to boost frame rates in games when enabled. At its core, it is an anti-aliasing technology that takes color samples of the pixels at different instances. These values are averaged and this is done by scanning images at a much higher resolution than the actual images. That means the end result will be a more detailed picture.

We have seen information about AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution for a while. While AMD itself didn’t provide us with a detailed explanation of how FSR works, we received a patent application that surfaced days before the announcement. AMD’s implementation uses both linear and non-linear upscaling networks. This basically means storing as much data as possible to ensure that the upscaled image looks as detailed as possible.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution takes a low resolution image and sends it through the two upscaling networks. It selects different features of the images through each of the two paths. It then merges all of the data into a grid of pixels and expands it to create a higher resolution image that is cleaned up and output.

AMD FSR has four presets that AMD showed in the demo – Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced and Performance. Higher FPS modes come at the expense of quality. This is because AMD FSR renders at the lowest resolution in performance mode and upscales that. Here’s a look at the render resolutions and scaling factors at 4K and 1440p resolutions.

For example, in Godfall, AMD showed a native 4K frame rate of 59 FPS on an AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT. When AMD FSR was run with the Ultra Quality preset, the frame rate jumped to 87 FPS. Reviews have found that the higher FPS modes have a noticeable lack of detail due to the lower input resolution, meaning the source itself is missing details that AMD FSR itself cannot fill up.

Also read: AMD vs Nvidia – Which is the Best Add-in GPU for You?

FidelityFX Super Resolution vs. Nvidia DLSS

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is AMD’s answer to Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling, also known as DLSS. There are some strong differences between the two technologies, even if they seem like equivalents on paper. While both are upscaling technologies that use supersampling, both have fundamentally different approaches to image processing.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is more or less a common spatial upscaling technology that has been around for some time. It takes a new approach, but is basically similar to the one before. On the other hand, the DL, that is, deep learning, in DLSS means that it does a lot of image corrections based on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Nvidia DLSS uses a neural network to reconstruct higher quality images on the go. The result is much better image output than traditional supersampling. AMD FSR cannot achieve the level of detail that machine learning-based models can achieve.

Since Nvidia DLSS is based on machine learning, Nvidia DLSS required game-related training for version 1.0, so adapting the games to use DLSS was a bit slow. On the other hand, the AMD FSR announcement states that “does not rely on history buffers or motion vectors. It also doesn’t require training per game,“, Which makes implementation easier for developers.

The output that AMD FSR delivers looks arguably worse than Nvidia’s first DLSS attempt. DLSS visuals these days are almost the same as native output in terms of quality. With FSR, you are likely getting the higher frame rates AMD has shown. However, as you can see in the demo, and as many people have pointed out, there is some noticeable blurring, which means that AMD FSR doesn’t quite match DLSS.

Also read: What is Nvidia DLSS? Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling explained

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution supported GPUs, games, and availability

This is where things get interesting with AMD FSR. Nvidia DLSS only supports Nvidia’s RTX GPUs. On the other hand, AMD FSR is open source. It supports RDNA2, RDNA and Vega GPUs as well as Nvidia GPUs with Pascal, Ampere and Turing architectures. This includes GPUs from the AMD Radeon RX 6000, RX 5000, RX 500 and RX 400 series and the Nvidia GTX 10 series as well as all RTX GPUs. IGN has also confirmed that the Xbox Series X and S will support AMD FSR as the consoles use RDNA2-based GPUs.

AMD actually demonstrated the technology with Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, showing a 41 percent improvement in Godfall with the Epic preset. Make no mistake though, AMD has made it clear that it will be up to Nvidia to work on the implementation. AMD Radeon CVP & GM Scott Herkelman tweeted about the same.

AMD FSR tweeted Raja Koduri Scott Herkelman

Nvidia hasn’t commented on this yet, but Intel has shown interest in supporting it with its new Xe GPUs. Intel’s head of architecture, graphics and software, Raja Koduri, who was previously an AMD executive, tweeted of Intel’s interest in supporting this open platform.

We saw a similar situation with G-Sync vs. FreeSync, where Nvidia supported FreeSync under its G-Sync Compatible branding. The difference is that AMD FSR is not a complete alternative to Nvidia DLSS. AMD could and should develop a version of FSR that uses machine learning at least on Radeon hardware for better performance if it really wants to keep up with DLSS.

See also: AMD GPU Guide: All AMD GPUs Explained, and the Best AMD GPU for You

What games does AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution support?

As for the games supported, AMD said at the announcement that 10 game studios and engines were on board. Godfall only showed the demo with FSR. The company had also released a poll page asking users which games they would like to see FSR support.

AMD FSR is now up and running, and AMD has announced that more than 40 developers plan to officially support FSR.

Initially, FSR is available in seven games: Anno 1800, Evil Genius 2, Godfall, Kingshunt, 22 Racing Series, Terminator: Resistance and The Riftbreaker. More games will support AMD FSR by the end of 2021. These titles include Far Cry 6, Resident Evil: Village, DoTA 2, and more.