Testing AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR): Image Analysis and Preliminary Performance

[Puiu]

This website is so disgustingly biased. Techspot hurled negative article after negative article at DLSS when it launched, because among other reasons it didn’t have many supported games for example (how dare devs not make games for techs that don’t exist yet). They concluded DLSS to be a fail three months into its life and then proceeded to ignore DLSS 2.0 when it released and I believe this may be the first mention of it.

Oh and to all the fanboys praising AMD for making FSR work on Nvidia. If they didn’t then devs wouldn’t bother putting it in their games as AMD have a pitiful GPU market share due to the fact that most people choose to buy Nvidia solutions.

That's BS. Every reputable tech review reached the very same conclusion as Techspot did. DLSS deserved all of the hate it got at launch, it was a broken mess that was supposed to be a key feature that made the extremely high prices of the RTX cards "worth it". You do not review a product on an "if it gets updates" premise, you review it on how it works today, leaving the crystal ball behind.

DLSS 2.0 launched a year later to a very limited number of games and it wasn't even backwards compatible with previous implementations. Only now in 2021 we are seeing DLSS finally getting support in multiple games.

TL;DR next time you rant, know the facts. don't come with the "just buy it" meme here.

FYI DLSS 2.0 got really high praises here even by AMD fans.

 

[ClintL]

In the end it's free FPS with minimal decline in visual fidelity on ultra quality modes. Can't be mad at that.

It isn't free fps if you have to lose any sort of visual quality.

 

[maroon1]

Based on digital foundary comparison, even ultra quality mode was no match for native 4K when zoomed in. The quality/texure downgrade is clear. Also, when moving camera the downgrade become even more noticeable

Only reason why 4K FSR ultra quality does not look bad without zoom or looking careful is because resolution is already too high. the higher resolution the harder to tell difference

When you using 1080p with FSR, even ultra quality look bad and not match for DLSS or native

 

[Puiu]

Based on digital foundary comparison, even ultra quality mode was no match for native 4K when zoomed in. The quality/texure downgrade is clear. Also, when moving camera the downgrade become even more noticeable

Only reason why 4K FSR ultra quality does not look bad without zoom or looking careful is because resolution is already too high. the higher resolution the harder to tell difference

When you using 1080p with FSR, even ultra quality look bad and not match for DLSS or native

"when zoomed in" is the key phrasing. as long as it isn't noticeable during normal gameplay then it is ok. nobody expected it to be perfect or on par with DLSS 2.0, just to be a good alternative.

 

[Nobina]

It isn't free fps if you have to lose any sort of visual quality.

I said it's a minimal decline in visual quality. It says in the video review at 1440p and especially 4K ultra quality FSR looks close to native and you still gain a lot of FPS. Read.

 

[Irata]

Ditto: igpu and apu results could be quite promising: I'd make 1080p viable not just for "esports" and "indies" as with the current paradigm but reasonable visuals and reasonable 1080p performance for even "AAA" games too.

It should also be interesting to see how that ends up affecting lower end chips because I think the performance hit from this algorithm should come from somewhere so if it's not putting any extra stress on the compute cores like DLSS then it might be using raw CPU cycles to do it.

If we just test with even a 6/12 CPU then we wouldn't see it but we could potentially see some more utilization at what I think might be the modest integrated low end cpu offerings at 4/4 and graphics or 4/8 and graphics chips.

If the hit comes to the regular raster workload however well then this probably won't work very well on integrated graphics.

Gamers‘ Nexus tested frs on the 5700G and the results were actually promising.

So, the takeaway here is to buy an Nvidia card so you can enjoy both fsr and dlss. Got it

For a very short sighted and not particularly bright person that would indeed be the take away.

It isn't free fps if you have to lose any sort of visual quality.

Depends.

Let‘s say you have the choice between getting 50 fps @ 1440p low vs. 60 fps @ 1440p high using FSR Ultra and the latter looks better than the former, it is free fps.

 

[Stingy McDuck]

To those who have tested it, how does FSR Ultra compares to "80% resolution with CAS"? How about FSR Ultra vs native 1080p, seeing how it´s almost the same resolution (but not the same performance)?

 

[meric]

I find this tech amazing because one would initially assume that prerendering a lower res image + upscaling it to look like a higher res image requires more computation then just rendering the original. But it actually is much faster. Now, if this tech could be used by older gen cards (amd's r9 or nv's 9xx) it would be even more amazing

 

[Lew Zealand]

This website is so disgustingly biased. Techspot hurled negative article after negative article at DLSS when it launched, because among other reasons it didn’t have many supported games for example (how dare devs not make games for techs that don’t exist yet). They concluded DLSS to be a fail three months into its life and then proceeded to ignore DLSS 2.0 when it released and I believe this may be the first mention of it.

Oh and to all the fanboys praising AMD for making FSR work on Nvidia. If they didn’t then devs wouldn’t bother putting it in their games as AMD have a pitiful GPU market share due to the fact that most people choose to buy Nvidia solutions.

Instead of embarrassing yourself anymore, please read the TS article that you either missed or ignored:

https://www.techspot.com/article/1992-nvidia-dlss-2020/

 

[hahahanoobs]

People are saying this is a better overall solution to DLSS.

-Just like DLSS, FSR works on a per game basis, so the implication old cards now have new life or AMD is doing more for Nvidia cards than Nvidia is laughable at best.

-Nvidia is at DLSS 2.2 now. Not 2.0.

-AMD will have to work with each dev and vastly improve Quality presets. This is AMD we're talking about, so expect FSR to fade away sooner than later.

-AMD actually asked if gamers wanted their Radeon Image Sharpening software to work with DX11 games before doing it. That's insane.

I am sooooo confused as to why there is so much faith in a company that has a history of not wanting to take the time and control of things like Freesync and Mantle, and inferior tech like AMD Chill and FRTC.

A company that renames L3 to Game Cache, Hyper Transport to Infinity Fabric and whatever Infinity Cache is to make them sound more exciting I guess.

Mantle went to Khronos and Freesync went to monitor manufacturers. TressFX is Crystal Dynamics. Remember that one? The Hairworks killer! Still used in Tomb Raider only?

Nothing tells me AMD is in this for the long haul. Wake me in 6 months.

 

[ClintL]

Gamers‘ Nexus tested frs on the 5700G and the results were actually promising.


For a very short sighted and not particularly bright person that would indeed be the take away.


Depends.

Let‘s say you have the choice between getting 50 fps @ 1440p low vs. 60 fps @ 1440p high using FSR Ultra and the latter looks better than the former, it is free fps.

If you lose even slight visual quality over the original res that the game is set to it is still a loss,which means it isn't free and it isn't even 1440p then,in fact the res can be as pathetic as 720p but atleast your settings say 1440,so everything is good.

 

[Dimitriid]

Gamers‘ Nexus tested frs on the 5700G and the results were actually promising.

Just watched that. They only tested GPU penalty cost initially probably because they have no reason to doubt any of the games would need CPU cycles because its a really strong 8/16 chip after all.

And to be fair AMD hasn't even announced anything below the 5600g and I think that if they announce a future refresh to the Ryzen 3 with "g" it will probably be at least 6/6 or 4/8

However I am curious if it has any effect on the older chips like the 3200G which is a 4/4 and one of the cheapest way to get a super entry level "e-sports" rig right now.

I'm sure those test with 4/4 and 4/8 CPUs with integrated graphics will come soon enough there's a decent community of low-spec gamers out there that probably have these same questions too.

 

[kapital98]

Even though the situation looks rather bland in terms of game support for FSR, the fact that Microsoft and Sony desperately need this on their consoles to kind of, sort of deliver on their promises of 4k visuals or (Well they said "and" but we know that's not happening) high refresh rates.

This means that eventually, new console titles that launch with FSR should have a relatively straight forward port to PC with FSR included.

Exactly! There are already "Performance" modes in almost all PS5 games (Demon's Souls, Miles Morales, FFVII Remake Port, etc).

Developers have already hit a wall on not easily being able to deliver 4k/60fps. The idea of them doing 4k/120fps is just not a reality without serious changes to game engines or other software based work arounds.

It's something like FidelityFX that is about the only thing in the short term that will allow Xbox/Snoy games to get 4k/60fps (and, maybe, 120fps). Not to mention if other marketed aspects are used (like ray tracing).

 

[defaultluser]

What exactly is stopping this from being forced on in the AMD control panel (like the NVIDIA FXAA button)?

Its just another post-render pass.

 

[pit1209]

This website is so disgustingly biased. Techspot hurled negative article after negative article at DLSS when it launched, because among other reasons it didn’t have many supported games for example (how dare devs not make games for techs that don’t exist yet). They concluded DLSS to be a fail three months into its life and then proceeded to ignore DLSS 2.0 when it released and I believe this may be the first mention of it.

Oh and to all the fanboys praising AMD for making FSR work on Nvidia. If they didn’t then devs wouldn’t bother putting it in their games as AMD have a pitiful GPU market share due to the fact that most people choose to buy Nvidia solutions.

DLSS was criticized by every objective techsite when it launched, it was a terrible implementation, so bad that Nvidia changes to DLSS 2.0 made it something completely different than what 1.0 was and that's why it works now.

DLSS 2.0 criticism of low numbers of games supported plus the fact that you have to own an specific Nvidia GPU is completely valid and Techspot has said numerous times how that is the only con bringing DLSS 2.0 down.

 

[pit1209]

If you lose even slight visual quality over the original res that the game is set to it is still a loss,which means it isn't free and it isn't even 1440p then,in fact the res can be as pathetic as 720p but atleast your settings say 1440,so everything is good.

You obviously don't understand how the technology works. FSR and many upscaling techniques for that matter can be worse or almost indistinguishable than native resolution but they look much better than the resolution they are upscaling from, it has been proven, you can check for videos if you want.

 

[Adi6293]

Love the article.

However This might be a bad take, but I find it soo funny that DLSS and FSR are so popular and being touted when I remember how much crap the PS4 Pro and Xbonex got for only upscaling to 4K by PC gamers and now that's what we want. I understand there is a difference due to FPS differences and the type of upscaling but there is a bit or Irony in there

Most PC gamers are hypocrites... : - P

 

[Nobina]

Love the article.

However This might be a bad take, but I find it soo funny that DLSS and FSR are so popular and being touted when I remember how much crap the PS4 Pro and Xbonex got for only upscaling to 4K by PC gamers and now that's what we want. I understand there is a difference due to FPS differences and the type of upscaling but there is a bit or Irony in there

I think it's mostly the hardcore PC gaming fans that were shitting on console upscaling, the vocal minority. Most PC gamers, the silent majority, don't have high-end gaming PCs and appreciate what consoles are capable of.

Nobody likes PC gaming master race fanatics, online or offline.

 

[Irata]

If you lose even slight visual quality over the original res that the game is set to it is still a loss,which means it isn't free and it isn't even 1440p then,in fact the res can be as pathetic as 720p but atleast your settings say 1440,so everything is good.

If you lose quality over the lower resolution the game is upsampled from then yes, otherwise no.

Here‘s a good example from hardware Canucks:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1407380111129825288

 

[sreams]

It isn't free fps if you have to lose any sort of visual quality.

It ain't free. but it costs a lot less than if it wasn't an option.

Or another way to put it... it's a free quality improvement. Because if 2160p with DLSS/FSR can achieve the same framerate as 1440p, you get a visual quality bump for nothing.

 

[Stoly]

Considering that it took the anti-consumer d!cks at nvidia 3 tries with dlss (v1, v2, v2-rereleased with the same version number), this is very encouraging from AMD part.
Lets see how this will translate on consoles and the upcoming AMD powered Exynos SOC, since it looks like AMD lost the pc due to superior marketing brainwashing from nvidia and sheep mentality of those in there.

Make that 1.0 and 1.5 which debuted only in Control but quickly upgraded to 2.0.
I'm curious on DLSS 1.5 as it didn't use the tensor cores and still looked pretty good. I wonder why nvidia ditched it.

Anyway DLSS keeps getting better and better, while I don't really see how AMD can improve IQ.

 

[ClintL]

It ain't free. but it costs a lot less than if it wasn't an option.

Or another way to put it... it's a free quality improvement. Because if 2160p with DLSS/FSR can achieve the same framerate as 1440p, you get a visual quality bump for nothing.

It is 1440p,not 2160 anymore.
Explain to me how people\reviewers can say they have the game set at 2160 with fsr\dlss set to balanced and say they are playing with these great frame rates and make a big song and dance about how high the fps at 4k and they aren't playing at 4k anymore.

I can't remember which site I saw this bit of info but they compared 720p native to the 720 enhanced,can't remember what was the original res but the enhanced version did have a lower fps than the stock 720.
Which is understandable because it is the enhanced graphics at 720p,doesn't matter if the in game settings say 1440p.


I'm just going to leave this last comment that I read at the end of the Guru3d review of this "feature" because I think it should be asked - I'll end this article with an open question towards the graphics card industry, applying to AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA. Why did tinkering with image quality become a norm and is that deemed to be acceptable?

 

[Lew Zealand]

I'm just going to leave this last comment that I read at the end of the Guru3d review of this "feature" because I think it should be asked - I'll end this article with an open question towards the graphics card industry, applying to AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA. Why did tinkering with image quality become a norm and is that deemed to be acceptable?

If you emphasize that 4K DLSS or FSR are the same as real 4K and discuss it as equivalent, then that criticism is valid. Anyone claiming this, whether the manufacturer or a reviewer, is landing somewhere between disingenuous and outright lying/misinformation.

If instead you view DLSS and FSR as upsampling technique which is superior to all others for displaying 1440p games on your 4K monitor (or any other pair of resolutions), then these are excellent options for every gamer to have and there's no drawback to either at all. Really, none.

It's all in the emphasis of the argument, and as many other people have mentioned about many other technologies (even Intel GPUs!):

More Options Is Better.

 

[kiwigraeme]

At the moment with a 3080 & 2060- I now have the best of both worlds DLSS and FSR - so obvious choice is buy a Nvidia card - but the gotcha is going forward - as alluded to with others above - it will be implemented on nearly all XboxOne and PS5 AAA games going forward- so thereby PC games.
FSR 2 will get better .
AMD will implement an AI improvement for their newer cards at least.
AMD will include DLSS like elements as well in future .

AMD and NVidia will need make the inclusion of their upscalers very easy for developers to implement - at the moment AMD has the easier solution - a wider base ( with consoles ) - so they can drip in A.I stuff - AAA studios can use the "Adobe Photoshop" solution - Indies can use the "Adobe Elements" solution .

Some of the game engines are getting easier to use - tools for FSR implementation/integration will be coming fast IMHO. Nvidia will need to subsidise this for DLSS

 

[m3tavision]

Even GTX owners are excited....

Thank you Dr SU..!