What is AMD FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution)? What does it do?

Did you encounter the term AMD FSR on the internet or maybe somewhere in your favorite game’s graphics settings? Are you wondering what AMD FSR is? Or maybe you want to enable FSR, but you don’t know how or even if your graphics card is on the AMD FSR-supported GPU list? Do you want to understand the reasons behind this technology and why you might want it? For answers to all these questions, as well as gaming benchmarks showcasing the latest versions of AMD FSR and their benefits, including the brand-new AMD FSR 2.2, read on: What is AMD FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution)? If you’ve played games anywhere during the last couple of years, you definitely heard about AMD’s FSR. An acronym for FidelityFX Super Resolution, it refers to an upscaling technology created by AMD that helps improve the framerate in supported titles. To do that, FSR renders in-game frames at lower resolutions, which is less taxing on the computer’s graphics hardware, and then increases their resolution. While some level of quality can be lost along the way, the advantage is that you can leverage this technology to achieve a higher and more stable framerate in your favorite games. AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution AMD FSR is an open-source solution that developers can implement in any game, and it works regardless of whether you, as a gamer, use an AMD or an NVIDIA graphics card. This has helped AMD’s FSR become a technology rapidly adopted by game creators. Launched in June 2021, the first FSR version was something called a spatial rescaling tech that worked by analyzing frames rendered by games to detect and upsample edges. In addition, it could enhance the image quality by applying contrast-adaptive sharpening to the upscaled frames. How AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution version 1 works However, since its second version (released in May 2022), AMD FSR 2.0 is no longer a spatial upscaling solution but a temporal one. What does that mean? Instead of just enhancing edges in frames, AMD FSR 2.0 and later versions are now also analyzing the frame(s) that were rendered previous to the current one. In doing that, the software can learn about the color depth and movement vectors from past frames and use that information to resample/upscale the next ones. Thus, the end result is a much better image quality of the frames created with FSR 2.0 than with the older FSR 1.0 version. In September 2021, AMD FSR 2.1 came out with enhancements to upscaled image quality. According to the company, this version reduces potential ghosting and brings a better color range. Among the titles compatible with AMD FSR 2.1, I can point out some of my favorites: Cyberpunk 2077, The Callisto Protocol, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next-gen Update. Still, the list is getting longer by the day. More recently, the latest AMD FSR 2.2 released in December 2022 came with further improvements in image quality, mainly by reducing ghosting on fast-moving objects. This is something especially useful in high-speed titles such as car racing games. The first ones to support AMD FSR 2.2 are Forza Horizon 5, Need for Speed Unbound, and F1 2022. AMD FSR presets: What resolutions are used for upscaling? AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling technology allows developers to implement any quality preset, but the company recommends five standard ones. Each one of the standard quality presets has a different scaling factor and render scale. AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution comparison in Godfall These are the ones you’ll likely find in your favorite game’s settings: Ultra Quality: can be available in games that support AMD FSR version 1.0 only; it uses a scale factor of 1.30x and a render scale of 77.0% Quality: can be implemented in games that support any AMD FSR version; it uses a scale factor of 1.50x and a render scale of 66.6% Balanced: can be found in any game that supports any AMD FSR version; it uses a scale factor of 1.70x and a render scale of 58.8% Performance: can be available in games compatible with any AMD FSR version; it uses a scale factor of 2.00x and a render scale of 50.0% Ultra Performance: can be implemented in any game that supports AMD’s FSR version 2.0 or later; it uses a scale factor of 3.00x and a render scale of 33.3% AMD FSR supports various quality and performance presets The actual input resolution by a game using AMD FSR depends on the resolution you choose in its settings and the FSR image quality preset you select. For example, if you configure your favorite game to run at a 1440p resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels and select the Ultra Quality FSR preset, then the input resolution of AMD FSR (the one your computer actually renders frames in) is 1970 x 1108 pixels. That’s 77% of the 2560 x 1440p resolution you’ve set the game to use. What games support AMD FSR? I’ve already mentioned a couple of games that support AMD’s FidelityFX SuperResolution. However, the list is really long. To get an idea, at the time of writing, there are 169 games that are compatible with AMD FSR, out of which: 3 games that support FSR 2.2 29 games that support FSR 2.1 27 games that support FSR 2.0 110 games that support FSR 1.0 Games that support AMD FSR are increasing in number Furthermore, in the near future, there will be more games getting support for AMD FSR: 44 games that will get FSR 2 12 games that will be compatible with FSR 1 Upcoming AMD FSR games You can find the complete list of AMD FSR-compatible games here: AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution. What graphics cards (GPUs) support AMD FSR? Another interesting thing about AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution is that, being open-source, it works not only with the company’s own graphics cards but also with the ones from its competitor, NVIDIA. The latter has a 180-degree opposite stand on the matter, as its DLSS upscaling technology is closed and only works with its own GPUs. AMD deserves huge kudos for the way it handles FSR! And the even better news is that AMD FSR can be used on almost any graphics card released in the last six years or so. The list includes but is not limited to all the following generations of graphics cards from both AMD and NVIDIA: AMD Radeon 7000 Series AMD Radeon 6000 Series AMD Radeon 6000M Series AMD Radeon 5000 Series AMD Radeon 5000M Series AMD Radeon VII Series AMD Radeon RX Vega Series AMD Radeon 600 Series AMD Radeon RX 500 Series AMD Radeon RX 480, 470, 460 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 Series NVIDIA GeForce 16 Series NVIDIA GeForce 10 Series AMD FSR can be used on any modern graphics card (AMD & NVIDIA) How do I enable AMD FSR? Based on your intuition, you’ve probably already guessed how to enable AMD FSR. It’s done directly from your favorite game. And you can only enable AMD FSR in a game if that game supports it. As for where exactly in a game you’ll find the switch for turning on AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution and selecting a quality preset, I can’t pinpoint that exactly. It depends on the game and what its creators choose. However, the options for AMD FSR are usually found somewhere in the game’s video or graphics settings. For example, in F1 2022, you’ll find it in: Home > Game Options > Settings > Graphics Settings > Video Mode > Anti-Aliasing > AMD FSR2[/DC-CODE] The AMD FSR2 setting from F1 2022 As another example, in The Callisto Protocol, you can enable AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution by going to: Options > Graphics > Advanced > Upscaling > AMD FSR2[/DC-CODE] The AMD FSR 2 setting from The Callisto Protocol Now let’s see how much AMD FSR can improve the number of frames per second in a couple of games: How much does AMD FSR increase gaming performance? To get a clearer picture of how many more frames per second (fps) you get by enabling AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution, I decided to test it in a couple of games. I chose four titles with high system requirements and measured the framerates when playing at ultra-high graphics settings with ray tracing effects turned on, in both 1440p and 1080p resolutions. Then, I benchmarked the games using AMD’s FSR on two different presets: Quality and Performance. I chose these two because they cover two important scenarios: one in which the computer (and its GPU especially) is capable of running games well enough, but you want a more stable framerate (AMD FSR Quality), and another one in which the PC isn’t powerful enough to run your favorite games at maxed visual settings, and you need to find a way to increase the framerate (AMD FSR Performance). In the latter case, keep in mind the fact that you could achieve an even higher number of frames per second using the AMD FSR Ultra Performance preset. All tests were run on the same desktop computer, in Windows 11 Pro (version 22H2), using the following hardware components: Motherboard: ASUS Prime X670E-Pro WiFi Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Cooler: ASUS ROG Ryuo III 240 ARGB RAM: Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-6000 32GB Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Storage: Kingston KC3000 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD Power Supply Unit: ASUS ROG Thor 850W Platinum Here are the results of the gaming benchmarks: F1 2022 with AMD FSR 2.2: Performance improvements of up to 85% F1 2022 is one of the best car racing games ever, but as it features high-quality visuals, this Formula 1 title needs a powerful graphics card if you want to enjoy it at maxed settings. The good news is that it’s also the latest game to have received support for the just-launched AMD FSR 2.2. First, I benchmarked it without using AMD FSR 2.2 but with TAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing) and FidelityFX Sharpening enabled, and the framerate I measured on my computer was 110 fps in the 1440p resolution. Turning on AMD FSR 2.2 on the Quality preset increased the framerate to 167 fps (a boost of 51%). Furthermore, switching to AMD FSR 2.2 set on the Performance preset bumped up the framerate to 204 fps, which is an increase in performance of about 85%! F1 2022 tested with AMD FSR 2.2 in 1440p In 1080p, the improvement in the average number of frames per second was also significant. The measurements showed an increase from an average of 166 fps to 215 fps with AMD FSR 2.2 on Quality and up to 229 fps when setting AMD FSR 2.2 on the Performance preset. That’s a 29% average fps increase on the Quality preset and 38% on Performance. F1 2022 tested with AMD FSR 2.2 in 1080p The Callisto Protocol with AMD FSR 2.1: Performance improvements of up to 14% The second game I tested was The Callisto Protocol, a game with even steeper system requirements than the F1 2022. Though it needs very powerful hardware to run at maxed graphics quality, especially if you also enable ray-tracing effects, the good news is that it also supports AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution version 2.1, which can help in improving the framerate you get. When I benchmarked it on the ultra graphics settings with all the ray-tracing effects enabled and set on high quality, I got an average framerate of 78 fps in the 1440p resolution. Turning on AMD FSR 2.1 and setting it on the Quality preset led to a boost of 10% in the number of fps (86). Using the Performance preset for AMD FSR 2.1, I got 89 frames per second, which is an improvement of about 14%. The Callisto Protocol tested with AMD FSR 2.1 in 1440p When playing the game in 1080p resolution, the results in terms of framerate improvements expressed as percentages were less significant. I measured 86 fps without AMD FSR, but turning it on and setting it on Quality led to a 3.5% increase in the number of average frames per second (3 fps more), and about 4.65% on the Performance preset. While the framerate boost is not that high in lower resolutions, it looks like it scales upwards as you increase the resolution, which means that in higher ones, like in 4K, you should see a more meaningful improvement when using AMD FSR. The Callisto Protocol tested with AMD FSR 2.1 in 1080p Cyberpunk 2077 with AMD FSR 2.1: Improvements of up to 134% Cyberpunk 2077 is a gorgeous game that requires powerful graphics cards to run well at maxed visuals. The game looks stunning with ray tracing effects turned on, but the framerate I got on my computer was very low when I tested it in the 1440p resolution: only 35 fps. Enabling AMD FSR 2.1 improved things significantly. Using the AMD FSR Quality preset, I got 59 fps, and when I switched to the Performance preset, I got 82 frames per second. That’s an increase of 68% from not using AMD FSR to using it on Quality, and a 134% increase in fps when enabling the Performance preset! Cyberpunk 2077 tested with AMD FSR 2.1 in 1440p The results were similar in the 1080p resolution. While the PC could render an average of just 56 frames per second without AMD FSR, turning it on led to an increase to 86 fps on Quality (53% more) and 107 fps on the Performance preset (91% more). Cyberpunk 2077 tested with AMD FSR 2.1 in 1080p The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next-Gen Update with AMD FSR 2.1: Improvements of up to 67% Last but not least, I also benchmarked The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. While this game didn’t come with ray tracing, it was stunningly beautiful when it was launched years ago. And now, its new version, called Next-Gen Update, added support for ray tracing effects. However, turning them on takes a huge toll on the computer’s performance. Without using AMD FSR, I measured an average framerate of 40 fps when playing on the 1440p resolution with temporal anti-aliasing upsampling (TAAU). I enabled AMD FSR 2.1 on the Quality preset, and I saw the framerate reach an average of 58 fps, which translates into a 45% increase in performance. And then, switching to the AMD FSR Performance preset led to a further increase in numbers: 67 frames per second or, in percentages, a 67% boost compared to not using AMD FSR. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next-Gen Update tested with AMD FSR 2.1 in 1440p In the 1080p resolution, the average framerate I witnessed without AMD FSR was 56 fps. With AMD FSR enabled on the Quality preset, I had 71 fps, and with AMD FSR on the Performance preset, I got 79 frames per second. That’s an increase of 26% when switching from no AMD FSR to FSR on Quality and a 41% increase on the Performance preset. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next-Gen Update tested with AMD FSR 2.1 in 1080p As I’ve reached the end of the benchmarks section, it’s time for a conclusion. The AMD FSR upscaling tech is certainly doing its job, and it’s doing it very well. In all the games I’ve tested, the improvements in terms of the number of frames per second are meaningful on both the Quality and Performance presets. Furthermore, while testing these games but also while playing others, in time, with AMD FSR turned on and off, I have to say that I, personally, didn’t see any significant drops in image quality on the Quality preset. However, the reduction in quality when using the AMD FSR Performance preset is a bit more noticeable but acceptable, especially in higher resolutions. Are you using the AMD FSR upscaling tech? Without a doubt, AMD FSR is useful, and each new version of it brings new improvements. Furthermore, I am happy with the high number of games supporting it and that the list is constantly getting longer. Before closing this analysis, I’m curious: what’s your opinion about AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution technology? Do you use it, and in which games? Are there any games that you love and aren’t yet compatible with AMD FSR? Let me know in the comments below.