AMD's upcoming FSR 4.1 update promises clearer detail and less motion blur. We tested the new upscaler against FSR 4 and Nvidia's DLSS 4.5 to see how much image quality has improved.
Testing AMD FSR 4.1: Sharper Images, But DLSS Still Leads
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I have to remember to stop playing a game that supports both so I can look around, maybe put a magnification device to the screen to see the difference.
Should be fun.
Should be fun.
yRaz
Posts: 9,258 +16,308
I think FSR 4.1 looks the worst. 4.0 is a little "soft", but I wouldn't notice that in regular gameplay. If you put FSR 4.0 and DLSS4.5 next to each other and didn't tell me which one I was using I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Actually, that might make an interesting survey. Do a survey where people have to choose which picture is FSR and which is DLSS and see what the results are. Do several pictures of screen shots and do a few gameplay videos, see if people can ACTUALLY tell the difference. Only reason you can see anything is that we're freezing frames and zooming in on them. I think we're at the point were all the upscaling tech is fine. I didn't notice any ghosting or jittering on any of them that plagued early upscaling. And while I think FSR 4.0 looks a little soft, something about FSR 4.1 just seems "off." I can't put my finger on it, but it just seems weird to me.
And, frankly, I think we should give more resistance to upscaling as a solution to bad development. Upscaling makes people just comfortable enough to not complain about vibe-coding developers and instead argue about what's better in comments section. I think the fighting about which tech is better takes the focus away from the real problem in the industry, games with massive budgets that are still buggy, unoptimized messes.
Upscaling should a "nice to have" feature, not a solution to a problem. Even more so with Framegen.
on a slightly different note, I've noticed where first 2-3 levels of a game have the best graphics and interesting storyline, but the next 75% of the game feels empty with a hollow story. If you made it more than half way through the Indiana Jones game, I give you credit. Tomb Raider was lame after the first few levels. Cyber punk was lame unless you did a lot of reading, but I'm fine with stuff like that. I just wish it was more obvious that there were tons of hidden and environmental stories to discover on my first play through. I think this trend comes from people watching gameplay of the first few levels before making a purchase decision.
And, frankly, I think we should give more resistance to upscaling as a solution to bad development. Upscaling makes people just comfortable enough to not complain about vibe-coding developers and instead argue about what's better in comments section. I think the fighting about which tech is better takes the focus away from the real problem in the industry, games with massive budgets that are still buggy, unoptimized messes.
Upscaling should a "nice to have" feature, not a solution to a problem. Even more so with Framegen.
on a slightly different note, I've noticed where first 2-3 levels of a game have the best graphics and interesting storyline, but the next 75% of the game feels empty with a hollow story. If you made it more than half way through the Indiana Jones game, I give you credit. Tomb Raider was lame after the first few levels. Cyber punk was lame unless you did a lot of reading, but I'm fine with stuff like that. I just wish it was more obvious that there were tons of hidden and environmental stories to discover on my first play through. I think this trend comes from people watching gameplay of the first few levels before making a purchase decision.
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yRaz
Posts: 9,258 +16,308
Yeah, they should really do a survey where people have to pick between Native, DLSS and FSR and see what the results are. We're at the point where if someone didn't tell me I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I know lots of people are big supporters of FSR or DLSS because they have to justify their purchase of over-priced hardware, but upscaling tech doesn't exist because it's good for the consumer. Manufacturers, Both AMD and Nvidia, are trying to sell us LESS for MORE. Upscaling helps soften the pushback from consumers against these companies from ripping us off. And while, for what I play, 8GB of VRAM would be fine, for many people it is not. If we had 60 class cards with 8GB of VRAM for under $300, it'd be fine. There are no bad products, only bad prices. The problem is people are paying a "premium" price for what is basically a lowend product. Instead of AMD and Nvidia competing with each other, and they very much can on price, they decided to just keep the profit margins and give us software solutions to a hardware problem.
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Lew Zealand
Posts: 2,948 +4,026
I have a 5070 and 9060 XT and compared DLSS 4.0 and FSR 4.0 (not 4.5 vs. 4.1) in a few games using the following methodology:
Playing them.
Both techs work well and while you're playing a game (and not pixel peeping), they're close enough. The biggest thing that stands out to me, ie: calls attention to itself when playing when it shouldn't be, is disocclusion artifacts. DLSS 4.0 has more of that than FSR 4.0 but yeah that's really only a problem if you're playing 3rd person games which I happen to be doing a lot of right now. Overall DLSS 4 might be a bit cleaner aside from disocclusion which is maybe why the disocclusion artifacts call attention to themselves more, but it's not a big deal. FSR 4 seems to balance all the artifacts to a similar degree to where nothing really calls attention to itself even as the over quality could be slightly lower.
They're both good and I use both.
Playing them.
Both techs work well and while you're playing a game (and not pixel peeping), they're close enough. The biggest thing that stands out to me, ie: calls attention to itself when playing when it shouldn't be, is disocclusion artifacts. DLSS 4.0 has more of that than FSR 4.0 but yeah that's really only a problem if you're playing 3rd person games which I happen to be doing a lot of right now. Overall DLSS 4 might be a bit cleaner aside from disocclusion which is maybe why the disocclusion artifacts call attention to themselves more, but it's not a big deal. FSR 4 seems to balance all the artifacts to a similar degree to where nothing really calls attention to itself even as the over quality could be slightly lower.
They're both good and I use both.
Anton Longshot
Posts: 468 +777
As others have said and/or implied; in-game I don't/won't notice the difference.
So I don't care.
For the same reason I'm in no hurry to upgrade graphics hardware. Personally I'm of the opinion GPU makers are just talking people's money out of their pockets by promoting the different eye candies as must-haves.
So, I don't really want a new GPU.
I'd like to upgrade RAM to 128GB because in the current situation it looks like my box needs to last... and I'm sorry I didn't buy RAM when I could actually afford that.
So I don't care.
For the same reason I'm in no hurry to upgrade graphics hardware. Personally I'm of the opinion GPU makers are just talking people's money out of their pockets by promoting the different eye candies as must-haves.
So, I don't really want a new GPU.
I'd like to upgrade RAM to 128GB because in the current situation it looks like my box needs to last... and I'm sorry I didn't buy RAM when I could actually afford that.
Theinsanegamer
Posts: 8,715 +17,760
Starfals
Posts: 334 +302
Woohoo, so FSR is finally very close or similar to DLSS. Great news for the 5% users... err... 5% in total... probably like 1-2% only can use it. Its only for the new cards right? Lemme fix it then
Great news for the 1-2% of gamers! Woohoo! Let's see how many % AMD gets in 2027... the trend just seems to go lower and lower. I personally don't see anything wrong with AMD cards, especially with the new FSR 4. Prices are also much better in comparison to Ngreedia. Still don't sell tho. Even I got an Nvidia card, but thats cus im a hardcore Shadowplay fanboy. I just use it too much. If I didnt make videos, AMD all the way. Why is that not the case for the majority of gamers? Who knows, and soon who cares. AMD won't be around for much longer, at least the GPU department. If they do stick around, it will be like an Intel thing. Less than 1%, which also means 0 in my book.
Sad? Yea. I guess they might continue even with 0% PC user base... cus of consoles... but if they didn't have that going for them = GG.
Great news for the 1-2% of gamers! Woohoo! Let's see how many % AMD gets in 2027... the trend just seems to go lower and lower. I personally don't see anything wrong with AMD cards, especially with the new FSR 4. Prices are also much better in comparison to Ngreedia. Still don't sell tho. Even I got an Nvidia card, but thats cus im a hardcore Shadowplay fanboy. I just use it too much. If I didnt make videos, AMD all the way. Why is that not the case for the majority of gamers? Who knows, and soon who cares. AMD won't be around for much longer, at least the GPU department. If they do stick around, it will be like an Intel thing. Less than 1%, which also means 0 in my book.
Sad? Yea. I guess they might continue even with 0% PC user base... cus of consoles... but if they didn't have that going for them = GG.
Sadly most gamers are already doing that: arguing about whose upscaling "solution" is better.
Once it's started, we can't stop it until an outside force intervenes. Just like how all games were destined to become full on insane-woke until the Koreans released a very unapologetic Stellar Blade and the Chinese released Wukong.
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daffy duck
Posts: 1,106 +1,013
Then fact Techspot has to zoom in 400% to make differences obvious tells you all you need to know. Who the hell still worries about this crap. I own AMD so I couldn't give a toss about Nvidia tech which is proprietary. I'm never switching sides over tiny differences in IQ. It would be a cold day in hell before I supported Nvidia.
I've go t more to worry about than wondering if my games look better with AMD or Nvida, like how much is a tank of gas going to cost me this week(close to a stick of DDR5 I guess)
WhiteLeaff
Posts: 1,050 +2,034
This isn't the final version tbh.
WhiteLeaff
Posts: 1,050 +2,034
AMD still holds roughly a quarter of the GPU market. Research shows volume shipments for AIBs per quarter, not an overall market share.
Billybobjoey
Posts: 276 +429
FSR will likely always trail DLSS, it's just the nature of nvidia having a decent head start. I have an Nvidia rig and an AMD rig in different parts of the house, so I use both, and FSR 4.0 finally got FSR to the place where I can set it and forget it without noticing any obvious artifacts while playing. I'll take whatever improvements they've got.
Melkor Unlimited
Posts: 360 +333
German web Computerbase did that few week ago.
Not only static images as most game reviews do, but videos too and put them on their web site (without Youtube re-compresion artifacts).
Upscaler from DLLSS pack won because it has less artifact noticeable in movement.
It would be shame to not win after 8 years of development.
Welcome to world of rapid development.
Intention was good (to help lower performance cards to cope) but ...
The road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions.
Simple solution: Do not pay for anything before official release and reading some reviews.
Melkor Unlimited
Posts: 360 +333
There is nothing better than personal experience.
And personal decision about what does fill ones personal preferences better.
Enjoy your rigs.
Melkor Unlimited
Posts: 360 +333
I have bad news for you:
Even if it eventually comes into Windows, the result will NOT be as good as presented on RDNA4 based cards.
And it will be, obviously, slower.
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Maybe you are right. Especially if review goes into details. With that in mind, even bad review can tell that something is interesting, because people...
Better gear up with some microscope, you have to be absolutely sure about results.
Melkor Unlimited
Posts: 360 +333
Interesting discusion.
But .. somehow .. obsolete now.
PS: I am curious how would Avatar look like with pink face rendered by DLSS 5.0 Neural rendering.
But .. somehow .. obsolete now.
PS: I am curious how would Avatar look like with pink face rendered by DLSS 5.0 Neural rendering.
DLSS 4 looks very good to me. Preset K and Quality preset at 1440p. Better than native for sure, thanks to the built in AA and sharpening. Image looks really good, also in movement, no smearing at all. I still prefer DLAA but the performance gain from DLSS is prefered in some titles.
DLSS 4 removed TAA blur completely. Textures stay sharp and crist during movement.
However I still enable DLAA if I want top tier visual quality. Best AA solution by far. But people claiming Native is still the way to go, must use old GPUs... Which funny enough, can't run new and demanding games at native anyway.
DLSS 4 removed TAA blur completely. Textures stay sharp and crist during movement.
However I still enable DLAA if I want top tier visual quality. Best AA solution by far. But people claiming Native is still the way to go, must use old GPUs... Which funny enough, can't run new and demanding games at native anyway.
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Absolutely not, around 10% including iGPUs according to Steam.
If you isolate RDNA, things look pretty bad compared to Nvidia RTX.
NVIDIA Grabs 94% AIB GPU Market Share, AMD Falls to 5%
According to a new report from Jon Peddie Research, NVIDIA has once again increased its market share in the AIB GPU sector, reaching 94% in Q4 2025. This marks a 1.6% rise from the previous quarter and sets a new all-time high in recent reports. Meanwhile, AMD's market share has been declining...
The problem is that AMD don't care much for dedicated gaming GPUs as it eats away at their TSMC output which is better used for CPUs and APUs.
As long as TSMC is massively overbooked and overpriced, AMD won't spend much time on cheap gaming GPUs with little profit. They earn alot more on CPUs, enterprise AI GPUs and custom APUs (consoles mostly)
With the RAM prices exploding, they will probably spend even less time on gaming GPUs, as most people only consider buying an AMD GPU if its dirt cheap.
After all, Radeon 9000 was low to mid-end stuff. AMD officially left high-end after Radeon 7900 series.
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Absolutely not, around 10% including iGPUs according to Steam.
If you isolate RDNA, things look pretty bad compared to Nvidia RTX.
NVIDIA Grabs 94% AIB GPU Market Share, AMD Falls to 5%
According to a new report from Jon Peddie Research, NVIDIA has once again increased its market share in the AIB GPU sector, reaching 94% in Q4 2025. This marks a 1.6% rise from the previous quarter and sets a new all-time high in recent reports. Meanwhile, AMD's market share has been declining...www.techpowerup.com
The problem is that AMD don't care much for dedicated gaming GPUs as it eats away at their TSMC output which is better used for CPUs and APUs.
As long as TSMC is massively overbooked and overpriced, AMD won't spend much time on cheap gaming GPUs with little profit. They earn alot more on CPUs, enterprise AI GPUs and custom APUs (consoles mostly)
With the RAM prices exploding, they will probably spend even less time on gaming GPUs, as most people only consider buying an AMD GPU if its dirt cheap.
After all, Radeon 9000 was low to mid-end stuff. AMD officially left high-end after Radeon 7900 series.
I just had a look on Steam, as of today AMD is showing 18.55% on steam for March 2026, including iGPU's.
Nvidia had an anomalous blip at the expense of AMD and Intel the previous month, since corrected it seems.
Viewing the period Oct '25 - March '26, AMD at around 18% is correct, and is in-line with historical trends. It's actually showing a gradual increase for AMD from 16.% in 2024, and 17.5% in 2025.
Thats true. Steam never was too reliable but more AMD CPUs with iGPU will add to their GPU segment. Check Steams top 50 GPUs, several AMD GPUs listed which looks to be an iGPU.
I know a few people that uses a Ryzen chip, with no dGPU. They can play older games on Steam, or lesser demanding ones at low settings, but their GPU obviously lists and counts towards AMDs GPU marketshare share while just being an iGPU.
AMD is doing so well in the CPU space but their GPUs could be much much better. I hope RDNA5 / UDNA will be AMDs step back into high-end and deliver way better competition.
Nvidia never had less focus on gaming segment yet dominate. AMD should be aggressive about grabbing back marketshare. The big problem for AMD is, making GPUs takes away from their CPU output. Same TSMC nodes.
AMD pays TSMC for capacity but they will use that capacity to make the most money possible and gaming GPUs traditionally did not make AMD much money, compared to CPUs and APUs - Just take a look at their financial reports.
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