How Far Behind is AMD? DLSS 4.5 vs FSR 4 Tested

[dankbot420]

I've been using AMD 2x frame gen combined with DLSS 4.5 performance mode on my aging 5800X3D/3080TI rig and can easily max out my 4K/120 display at high settings in most games. It looks great to me and that's all that really matters.

 

[Hanzi]

Both look like a** vs native; just drop your resoltion 34%.

I use RSR, AMD Radeon™ Super Resolution (RSR).
Game Kingdom Come Deliverance 1, RX6700XT 12GB high details 1440p -> RSR 2160p.
Kingdom Come Deliverance does not have integrated scaling, I used scaling in the Radeon driver (RSR).
Just turn on RSR, then just lower the resolution in the game.

 

[EvilRebar]

Another hit piece on AMD.
Meanwhile Computerbase.de does a blind test on FSR4 vs DLSS4.5 vs Native with vote option on its audience with downloadable HQ videos. I stay tuned for the results which will be there in short.

Many from the Computerbase audience already are asking for an "I dont see the difference" option.

here it is the Computerbase link :https://www.computerbase.de/artikel...t.95965/seite-7#abschnitt_sidebysidevergleich

This is 2026. No one should still believe that optional online surveys are anything but self-selecting. The people who don't get upscaling or use AMD products with a bad implementation are ranting about it online. The rest of us are just enjoying the feature

 

[EvilRebar]

Title name shows immediate bias. I remember the DlSS2 VS FSR arguments. Now FSR4 is so far ahead of DLSS2 that it's absurd, but apparently no one remembers that. Short term memory loss from brain rot I suppose.

No, but so many people over paid for their nVidia GPUs that they have to justify it somehow so they will say that they can. It reminds me of wine experts but every blind test of wine experts has shown that they have no idea what the **** they're talking about. We have "experts" telling people that there is a noticeable difference in quality and the masses just take their word at face value then argue about it in the comments section.

Your first argument makes zero sense. AMD isn't competing with DLSS2. We're not in 2020. The Intel 2500K stomped it's AMD competition in the past; would that keep you from buying an AMD CPU today?

I noticed a difference dumping my 7900XTX for a 4080S (that cost the same amount, no premium at all). FSR was just not as stable, especially in motion. And AMD is always a step behind - worse that flagship 7900XTX is eternally stuck on old FSR, whereas my 4080S is aging like fine wine.

It's funny how all of these people who cling to one vendor insist that they can't see a difference with features that they literally don't have access to test. I ran my AMD card against my Nvidia laptop to inform my decision.

 

[j4ni1]

This is 2026. No one should still believe that optional online surveys are anything but self-selecting. The people who don't get upscaling or use AMD products with a bad implementation are ranting about it online. The rest of us are just enjoying the feature

The online survey I was refering to is a blind test. Btw I have a 9070 XT and FSR4 image quality on it is very good, so I talk out of first hand experience.

 

[yRaz]

Your first argument makes zero sense. AMD isn't competing with DLSS2. We're not in 2020. The Intel 2500K stomped it's AMD competition in the past; would that keep you from buying an AMD CPU today?

I noticed a difference dumping my 7900XTX for a 4080S (that cost the same amount, no premium at all). FSR was just not as stable, especially in motion. And AMD is always a step behind - worse that flagship 7900XTX is eternally stuck on old FSR, whereas my 4080S is aging like fine wine.

It's funny how all of these people who cling to one vendor insist that they can't see a difference with features that they literally don't have access to test. I ran my AMD card against my Nvidia laptop to inform my decision.

I was talking about how when DLSS2 was the benchmark people referred to it as some panacea of graphics and everyone was thrilled with it. Now that FSR far surpasses that. It's somehow just useless garbage. DLSS might still hold a slight advantage of FSR, but FSR is a really good product now. It's like saying that Lamborghinis are slow because Bugatti exists. Yeah, Lamborghinis are slower than Bugattis, but they are still a great product.

And something else people are forgetting is that GPU upscaling, regardless of brand, is better than just lowering your resolution and letting your monitor do the upscaling.

 

[Blippy7]

You can use Optiscaler. Already works for most games. Played with it a few games , had no problems. (albeit I only used DLSS to FSR4 conversion and no frame gen, with my 9070XT)

You can use Optiscaler. Already works for most games. Played with it a few games , had no problems. (albeit I only used DLSS to FSR4 conversion and no frame gen, with my 9070XT)

You can use Optiscaler. Already works for most games. Played with it a few games , had no problems. (albeit I only used DLSS to FSR4 conversion and no frame gen, with my 9070XT)

I mainly play multiplayer games like BF6 which prevents me from using optiscalar.

 

[PierreJG]

I will be honest this is one piece of tech I never actually use. I do not have a massive GPU, only a RX6600XT and I did run some test in for example. Spider-man and I do play F1 22 with FSR + Raytracing which surprisingly runs good with FSR enabled. Without FSR struggle to keep 50+fps.

Problem with DLSS are that Nvidia are ahead so they can charge for the tech what they want and they tend to be a lot higher priced than AMD here. This is mainly on the resellers though as They know DLSS + Raytracing are selling so they add around 30-50% upmarket. I wanted to get the 3060 on the used market but they wanted to charge me almost 2k more than my 6600XT.

 

[PierreJG]

Quick question: Can anyone here actually see the difference?

Some can but most can't most prob. Maybe in lower Res it will be apparent but some games move at a frame rate where you won't really notice a difference. I do think fast pace FPS games will be more notable though.

 

[Stoly]

Title name shows immediate bias. I remember the DlSS2 VS FSR arguments. Now FSR4 is so far ahead of DLSS2 that it's absurd, but apparently no one remembers that. Short term memory loss from brain rot I suppose.


No, but so many people over paid for their nVidia GPUs that they have to justify it somehow so they will say that they can. It reminds me of wine experts but every blind test of wine experts has shown that they have no idea what the **** they're talking about. We have "experts" telling people that there is a noticeable difference in quality and the masses just take their word at face value then argue about it in the comments section.

Wait, so you are saying the pepsi challenge is irrelevant as no one will notice the difference; yet claim FSR 4 is far better than DLSS2. You do realize DLSS 4 is basically DLSS2?

 

[Stoly]

BTW the reason DLSS can look better than native is just because TAA SUCKS BIG TIME

It's too bad no one is working on better performing/IQ AA. At least you can use DLAA

 

[yRaz]

Wait, so you are saying the pepsi challenge is irrelevant as no one will notice the difference; yet claim FSR 4 is far better than DLSS2. You do realize DLSS 4 is basically DLSS2?

What Pepsi challenge. People are br inging up false equivalent comparisons. Pepsi tastes difference than coke, it's a matter of taste. Old CPUs are slower than new CPUs. It's also good to point out that unless you are running an RTX 20 series, DLSS4 is very much NOT DLSS2.

The differences now between FSR and DLSS are so trivial that it's not worth the effort to argue about, yet here we are. The tech has matured and unless someone running very nit-picky comparisons, you would never know which is better.

But let's not set aside what upscaling tech is for and what it is instead being used for. Upscaling tech is more about lowering latency with your monitor when running at lower resolutions. Now it has become trying to make low resolutions look like higher resolutions, a waste of silicon that you're paying for. And since this waste of silicon exists, it is now being depended on by lazy developers.

 

[Stoly]

I use RSR, AMD Radeon™ Super Resolution (RSR).
Game Kingdom Come Deliverance 1, RX6700XT 12GB high details 1440p -> RSR 2160p.
Kingdom Come Deliverance does not have integrated scaling, I used scaling in the Radeon driver (RSR).
Just turn on RSR, then just lower the resolution in the game.

So you are using upscaling "by hand" good for you.

 

[Stoly]

And something else people are forgetting is that GPU upscaling, regardless of brand, is better than just lowering your resolution and letting your monitor do the upscaling.

Hell no, well, to be fair it would depend on the monitor's scaler, but at least on mine it doesn't look as good as DLSS.

 

[Stoly]

What Pepsi challenge. People are br inging up false equivalent comparisons. Pepsi tastes difference than coke, it's a matter of taste. Old CPUs are slower than new CPUs. It's also good to point out that unless you are running an RTX 20 series, DLSS4 is very much NOT DLSS2.

Yes it is, the upscaling part hasn't really changed since DLSS2, DLSS3 was basically the same + FG and DLSS4 the same + MFG, DLSS4.5 actually changes the upscaling algorithm

The more you know...

 

[yRaz]

Yes it is, the upscaling part hasn't really changed since DLSS2, DLSS3 was basically the same + FG and DLSS4 the same + MFG, DLSS4.5 actually changes the upscaling algorithm

The more you know...

They have been tweaking the algorithms and optimizing the code. They most certainly have been upgrading the older models even it there isn't a night and day difference between when it first came out and what's come out with the latest drivers.

 

[yannus]

"How Far Behind is AMD?" Nice way to discredit right away !
My answer is : AMD is way ahead as they have an open source upscaling tech and open source drivers on Linux, which is a big deal as windows is dying.
Envy-dia (envidia in spanish) is always using the proprietary model, directly harming the consumer on the long run.

 

[Stoly]

They have been tweaking the algorithms and optimizing the code. They most certainly have been upgrading the older models even it there isn't a night and day difference between when it first came out and what's come out with the latest drivers.

Now you are splitting hairs. FSR was also tweaked prior to FSR3 and prior to 4.

 

[Stoly]

"How Far Behind is AMD?" Nice way to discredit right away !
My answer is : AMD is way ahead as they have an open source upscaling tech and open source drivers on Linux, which is a big deal as windows is dying.
Envy-dia (envidia in spanish) is always using the proprietary model, directly harming the consumer on the long run.

Call me back when linux gaming reaches 10%, it's less than 5% now if I'm not mistaken.

I really hope it does, more competition the better, but I've heard linux is going to kill windows for so long, it's like a joke.

But hey, this might be the year of Linux... again...

 

[Rocky4040]

My conclusion is slightly different than the article conclusion because from what I seen and read from this is each tech has its strengths and weaknesses. Each tech is about good enough for most users to use and not have a smeary mess on their screens.

What I also got and agree with is that AMD needs to update their FSR4 at some point to bring the few short comings it now has when compared to DLSS 4.5. But overall, even though Nvidia just updated their version to 4.5 and AMD is still on the first version of FSR 4. Whatever Nvidia has changed under the hood of DLSS has not put it very far ahead of FSR 4 and in some cases FSR 4 is still a better option than DLSS 4.5 and is others' DLSS 4.5 is ever so slightly better. Hence why I said trading blows between the 2 different upscale techs.

What AMD needs to do is make this FSR 4 work on the older cards and it has already been shown that it does work ok on the older cards. my guess is once AMD finally releases a newer version of FSR 4 most likely 4.1 or if AMD copies NVidia's naming FSR 4.5. They will all of a sudden release FSR 4 modded to work on the older cards. We most likely will never see the newest version of FSR AMD releases work on the older cards at launch of the newest version. They will always try and steer everyone to buy the newest and greatest cards they make.

The problem is the current newest cards from AMD are in my opinion actually a step or two behind the 7000 series so why would we buy cards that are not as good. I guess if you put all the value into Ray tracing then maybe, but I personally do not yet and wont for a long time.

Edited:

I just had to add that the title of this article makes it sound like a hit piece directed at AMD and after reading the article it is confirmed that it was. There are points in the article that seem not hit piece, but the conclusion was way off base for what we have seen in the article and from the pictures posted in it.

 

[yannus]

Call me back when linux gaming reaches 10%, it's less than 5% now if I'm not mistaken.

I really hope it does, more competition the better, but I've heard linux is going to kill windows for so long, it's like a joke.

But hey, this might be the year of Linux... again...

Well, don't stop hoping and start hopping. The ocean is made of drops, and 5% is a real big drop. It has never been that much and you know, when people like us switch to Linux, most of their friends and family follow soon.

 

[Stoly]

Well, don't stop hoping and start hopping. The ocean is made of drops, and 5% is a real big drop. It has never been that much and you know, when people like us switch to Linux, most of their friends and family follow soon.

If that was true, Linux would have been the dominant player for decades.

I've switched to linux more times that I can count. Everytime I find a reason not to keep it. To be fair, I'm too deep into the MS infrastructure (teams/outlook/office) and even decades after, there are no reliable alternatives to keep it, and I see no advantage on dual booting, so I just keep windows.

 

[Kikisaki]

Another hit piece on AMD.
Meanwhile Computerbase.de does a blind test on FSR4 vs DLSS4.5 vs Native with vote option on its audience with downloadable HQ videos. I stay tuned for the results which will be there in short.

Many from the Computerbase audience already are asking for an "I dont see the difference" option.

here it is the Computerbase link :https://www.computerbase.de/artikel...t.95965/seite-7#abschnitt_sidebysidevergleich

Most people will choose a sharper picture, so dlss 4.5 will win

 

[j4ni1]

Most people will choose a sharper picture, so dlss 4.5 will win

FSR4 has adjustable sharpening setting. Also when in game I highly doubt that most people can make out much difference between FSR4 DLSS4, and 4.5 in quality setting when in game.