AMD is rolling out FidelityFX Super Resolution to rival Nvidia's DLSS

AMD began rolling out its new FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), which will work similarly to Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). FSR will aim to upscale games from a lower resolution to improved performance without significantly impacting image quality.

The feature is rolling out to seven games and will be expanding to 12 more titles soon. The seven titles include Anno 1800, Evil Genius 2, Godfall, Kingshunt, 22 Racing Series, Terminator: Resistance, and The Riftbreaker. However, a future update to FSR will include titles like Far Cry 6, DOTA 2, Resident Evil Village, Myst, Baldur's Gate 3, and Farming Simulator 22.

Other developers and studios like EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, Warner Bros Games, Valve, Nixxes, and Crystal Dynamics are also on board. AMD claims that over 40 game developers have pledged to support FSR.

Scott Herkelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Graphics Business Unit at AMD said, “Our goal with FidelityFX Super Resolution was to develop an advanced, world-class upscaling solution based on industry standards that can quickly and easily be implemented by game developers, and is designed for how gamers really play games. FSR is the industry’s ideal upscaler – it does not require any specialized, proprietary hardware and is supported across a broad spectrum of platforms and ecosystems for all gamers to experience and enjoy.”

AMD’s FSR also offers four quality presets including Ultra Quality, Quality, Balanced, and Performance. Each of these modes targets different input resolutions. What this means is that if the output resolution is 3840*2160 pixels, then FSR would render it in 2954*1662 pixels on the Ultra Quality preset. AMD claims that in Ultra Quality mode, FSR image quality is almost indistinguishable from the target native resolution. AMD has also said it will continue to update and improve its algorithms.

Unlike Nvidia’s DLSS, AMD’s FSR is an open-source technology that will allow developers to more freely implement it within their games or game engine. FSR can also be enabled on Intel and Nvidia hardware. This should also benefit PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles that use AMD's RDNA2 GPU architecture. The new FSR feature will significantly help those on mid-range GPUs looking to target higher resolution without fully compromising on frame rates.