First look: While FSR 4 has considerably narrowed the image quality gap between AMD's upscaler and Nvidia's DLSS, TechSpot's prior benchmarks still place DLSS 4.5 comfortably in front. A newly leaked build, however, suggests that Team Red's recent silence doesn't mean it has given up the fight.
A Guru3D forums user named "The Creator" recently shared a beta DLL file for an unannounced update to AMD's FSR upscaler. It didn't take long for users on Guru3D and Reddit to circulate mirrors and begin publishing side-by-side comparisons. The early verdict: noticeably less blur than the public release at identical frame rates.
Radeon RX 9000 owners can test what appears to be FSR 4.1 by downloading the leaked file from mirrors posted on Guru3D and Reddit. Users can then replace the "amdxcffx64.dll" file in System32, modify the Adrenalin installer executable, or load the DLL through OptiScaler.
Comparisons in games such as The Last of Us Part II, Stellar Blade, and Monster Hunter show that FSR 4.1 resolves substantially more detail in textures and foliage across multiple resolutions and quality presets, even in Ultra Performance mode. For example, in Cyberpunk 2077 (below, zoomed), texture quality for both near and distant objects in FSR 4.1 Ultra Performance closely mirrors FSR 4.0.3 running in Quality mode, with shadows extending further into the distance.
Some of the most dramatic differences appear in Hogwarts Legacy (above, zoomed). Using 1080p Ultra Performance to showcase a worst-case scenario, grass and bushes look significantly clearer with the beta DLL. Zooming in on the character's coat almost suggests a new texture has been added. Users also quickly confirmed that FSR 4.1 supports the unofficial INT8 mode on older AMD graphics cards, on both Windows and Linux.
AMD has recently come under fire for withholding components of FSR that could make it more competitive against DLSS. While FSR 4 nearly matches the image quality of Nvidia's upscaler, it supports a much smaller selection of games, and only on newer Radeon 9000 series GPUs.
Although the leaked INT8 path on Radeon RX 7000 and RX 6000 graphics cards does not improve frame rates as much as FSR 4's standard model on RX 9000, it could extend the upscaler's benefits to owners of older Radeon GPUs and handheld gaming PCs. While AMD has not revealed plans to release this feature, modders have demonstrated that it can be activated relatively easily. OptiScaler has also introduced a method for enabling FSR 4 under Vulkan, which AMD does not officially support.
AMD will likely announce and release FSR 4.1 alongside its next major Adrenalin driver update. While a release date remains unclear, it would not be surprising if the launch coincides with the company's next sponsored game, Crimson Desert, on March 19.