AMD Locks Up FSR 4 Advancements to New GPUs, Following Nvidia’s Lead
The world of graphics processing is always evolving, and the latest development from AMD has left many wondering: what’s the deal with FSR 4? In a move that’s reminiscent of Nvidia’s strategy with DLSS, AMD is limiting the advancements of its FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling technology to its newest GPUs, specifically the Radeon RX 90-series cards and the RDNA4 architecture.
What’s FSR 4 All About?
For those who may not be familiar, FSR and DLSS are both upscaling technologies designed to take a lower-resolution image rendered by your graphics card and bump up the resolution, filling in the gaps between the natively rendered pixels to create an image that looks close to natively rendered without making the GPU do all that rendering work. The goal is to provide a nice alternative to living with a blurry, non-native-resolution picture on an LCD or OLED display.
Hardware-Backed Machine Learning Algorithms
The key difference between FSR 4 and its predecessors is the use of hardware-backed machine learning algorithms, which are newly added to RDNA4 and the RX 90-series graphics cards. This mirrors Nvidia’s strategy with DLSS, which has always leveraged the tensor cores found in RTX GPUs to run machine-learning models to achieve superior image quality for upscaled and AI-generated frames. If you don’t have an RDNA4 GPU, you’re stuck with the older version of FSR.
A Shift in Strategy
This move marks a shift in AMD’s strategy, as the company has typically used FSR’s open source and hardware-agnostic nature as a selling point for the technology. However, it’s not entirely unprecedented in the graphics business – Nvidia has gated multiple DLSS features to new GPUs, including Frame Generation for the GeForce RTX 40-series and Multi-Frame Generation for the 50-series.
What Does This Mean for Gamers?
The good news is that adoption of FSR 4 by game developers is still a rising tide that will lift all boats. Any game that adds support for FSR 3.1 will also automatically support FSR 4 and vice versa; current FSR 3.1 games can have FSR 4 enabled in AMD’s driver even if the game doesn’t list it as an option. This may be familiar to some users of Nvidia’s DLSS, which similarly allows users to swap the DLSS .dll file that comes with your game with an updated version to take advantage of the upgrades in newer versions of the technology.
Conclusion
In conclusion, AMD’s decision to limit FSR 4 advancements to its newest GPUs may come as a surprise to some, but it’s not entirely unprecedented in the graphics business. While it may be a departure from AMD’s traditional approach, the benefits of FSR 4 are undeniable, and the fact that game developers are still adopting the technology is a promising sign. For those with older GPUs or non-AMD GPUs, don’t worry – you’ll still be able to fall back on the inferior-but-still-generally-effective version of the technology that AMD has been developing for years now.
Actionable Insights
- If you’re in the market for a new GPU, consider the Radeon RX 90-series cards and the RDNA4 architecture for access to FSR 4.
- If you’re already using FSR 3.1, you can enable FSR 4 in AMD’s driver, even if the game doesn’t list it as an option.
- Keep an eye on game developer support for FSR 4, as it’s likely to become a standard feature in many games.
Summary
AMD’s decision to limit FSR 4 advancements to its newest GPUs may be a departure from its traditional approach, but it’s a move that’s likely to benefit gamers in the long run. With the rising tide of FSR 4 adoption, it’s an exciting time for those looking to upgrade their gaming experience.