General Gaming AMD FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) debuts June 22nd, older GPUs are supported (ie: 1060)

[crispy4000]

PC only on the 22nd, but consoles inevitably won't be far behind.
 

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) launches June 22nd, supported by Radeon and GeForce GPUs - VideoCardz.com

VIDEOCARDZ.COM

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AMD has unveiled its FidetlityFX Super Resolution technology AMD demonstrated its super-resolution technology in Godfall, a game that already heavily depends on AMD technology.  The FSR will officially be supported by all Radeon RX graphics cards, including RX Vega, RX 500, RX 5000 and RX 6000 series. In fact, AMD will enable FSR support even […]

 

 

Just on the surface of things, it looks like an appropriate next-gen upscaling solution.  Doesn't appear to be shooting to best DLSS in terms of general fidelity or resolving added detail.  But it should be a notable improvement over traditional checkerboarding, and the performance gains are impressive across a broader swath of GPUs.

Comparisons to other temporal techniques that are in vogue right now might get interesting, both from a performance and fidelity angle.  The quality presets that get popularly used on consoles will also be a topic going forward.  Quality, second highest of the 4, doesn't seem to approximate native all that well at a 1440p target.  Though at a higher resolution target that could matter less.

 

Quote

 In our pre-briefing with AMD, the company did confirm that FSR is going to be a purely spatial upscaling technology; it will operate on a frame-by-frame basis, without taking into account motion data (motion vectors) from the game itself.
 

For GPU junkies, many of you will recognize this as a similar strategy to how NVIDIA designed DLSS 1.0, which was all about spatial upscaling by using pre-trained, game-specific neural network models. DLSS 1.0 was ultimately a failure – it couldn’t consistently produce acceptable results and temporal artifacting was all too common. It wasn’t until NVIDIA introduced DLSS 2.0, a significantly expanded version of the technology that integrated motion vector data (essentially creating Temporal AA on steroids), that they finally got DLSS as we know it in working order.
 

Given NVIDIA’s experience with spatial-only upscaling, I’m concerned that AMD is going to repeat NVIDIA’s early mistakes. Spatial is a lot easier to do on the backend – and requires a lot less work from developers – but the lack of motion vector data presents some challenges. In particular, motion vectors are the traditional solution to countering temporal artifacting in TAA/DLSS, which is what ensures that there are no frame-by-frame oddities or other rendering errors from moving objects. Which is not to say that spatial-only upscaling can’t work, only that, if it’s competitive in image quality with DLSS, that would be a big first for AMD.
 

Unfortunately, AMD isn’t doing themselves any favors in this regard with today’s presentation. Within their slide deck there is a single split image with FSR seemingly enabled, which they use for a GTX 1060 performance comparison. I’ve gone ahead and extracted the raw image from the slide deck given to the press and uploaded it here, to try to preserve as much image quality as possible.

 

 

Taking a jab at NVIDIA by comparing the GTX 1060 running at 1440p native versus FSR in quality mode, the demonstration slide shows that performance is significantly improved, bringing the GTX 1060 from 27 fps to 38 fps. Unfortunately the image quality hit is quite noticeable here. The building and bridge are blurrier here than the native resolution example, and the tree in the background – which is composed of many fine details – easily gives up the fact that it’s running at a lower resolution.

 

AMD Formally Unveils FidelityFX Super Resolution: Open Source Game Upscaling

WWW.ANANDTECH.COM

Lastly, it doesn't appear that it can be enabled just by a GPU setting toggle. AMD is asking which games we'd like to see patched first.

[Xbob42]

Yeah, looks significantly worse than DLSS as we expected. Gonna have wider support for GPUs but the fact that games will need individual patches is... not a good sign. Was hoping it would be a GPU control panel level thing.

[crispy4000]

27 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Yeah, looks significantly worse than DLSS as we expected. Gonna have wider support for GPUs but the fact that games will need individual patches is... not a good sign. Was hoping it would be a GPU control panel level thing.

That was always wishful thinking. But it would have been great!

I wonder if game engine makers like Epic are doing things any differently.  Epic said UE5’s method is a temporal solution developed together with AMD.  Not a good sign if they wouldn’t go for FSR as is (if that’s the case), but it would leave the door open for improvements.

[Brian]

Samsung and AMD are working on an Exynos mobile chip with ray tracing

T.CO

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Samsung will have more to say later this year

 

[Ominous]

11 hours ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Samsung and AMD are working on an Exynos mobile chip with ray tracing

T.CO

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Samsung will have more to say later this year

 

So I can use my S23 to keep my coffee hot by running a game and setting the cup on the back! 

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, BlueAngel said:

 

It's not shit, pretty comparable to DLSS2.0 for the most part considering this is the first iteration. AMD said they have the ability to improve it over time as well, should be interesting to see how this turns out in a few months.

DF’s take is it pretty much is shit at this point.  Any TAA solution is better (including Unreal’s), and the quality loss is hard to justify unless you’re running the ultra setting at 4K.

For now, it’s behind standards behind DLSS.  The dream of this extending my 1060’s lifespan is pretty much dead.

[Link200]

I think it is a step in the right direction.

 

DLSS 1.0 was shit and has definitely improved with version 2.0. I expect similar occurring here. I honestly didn't expect AMD to actually beat nvidia right off the bat.

[crispy4000]

It’s not the performance gains that are problematic, it’s the fidelity.

 

But that’s somewhat subjective, admittedly.  If you think it looks better than temporal solutions used elsewhere, go you.  It looks far behind DLSS 2.0 at this point to me, but it didn’t need to be that good.

 

I personally wouldn’t say AMD did their job correctly if it’s not beating what most game engines were doing already.  DLSS 1.0 had similar issues, and needed to prove itself further. It wasn’t good at the start.

[stepee]

21 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

It’s not the performance gains that are problematic, it’s the fidelity.

 

But that’s somewhat subjective, admittedly.  If you think it looks better than temporal solutions used elsewhere, go you.  It looks far behind DLSS 2.0 at this point to me, but it didn’t need to be that good.

 

I personally wouldn’t say AMD did their job correctly if it’s not beating what most game engines were doing already.  DLSS 1.0 had similar issues, and needed to prove itself further. It wasn’t good at the start.

 

Ya, It’s not a step in the right direction, it’s like literally a step in the wrong direction lol.

[crispy4000]

45 minutes ago, BlueAngel said:

Took a screenshot on and off, can't visibly see a difference.

 

FSR 4k max settings:

 

4k max settings FSR off:

 

You be the judge, this was with FSR at Ultra quality.

DF did mention that’s the ideal place for it in their article. You’re seeing 1662p upscaled to 4K.  Pulled back camera also might be helping.

 

Its probably best to watch their coverage for the nitty gritty.

[stepee]

7 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

DF did mention that’s the ideal place for it in their article. You’re seeing 1662p upscaled to 4K.  Pulled back camera also might be helping.

 

Its probably best to watch their coverage for the nitty gritty.

 

Yeah that game like that is going to look fine at 1662p anyway.

 

The problem is that it’s just technologically not a good solution and nothing that will ever end up being better than anything. The only time it’s going to be advantageous is when a developer purposefully uses it instead of another already existing better technique.

 

It’ll work fine for that when the only other option is native, but I seriously doubt even amd considers this their actual answer to dlss beyond maybe a completely different tech down the line keeping the branding.

[crispy4000]

DLSS 1.0 suffered from obvious artifacts, development time required to pre-train a game, and general questions on if NVIDIA delivered on what was promised.  Was it better than other upscaling solutions at the time?  Arguably yes.  Maybe only eclipsed by Insomniac’s solution.  But problematic for a number of reasons.

 

There’s no reason to be down on AMD just to root against them, or something else silly.  Their tech will inevitably find its way into lots of games regardless.  It’s hugely important to the consoles especially that they do get it right.  Or maybe not, if engine developers like Unity and Epic are able to do them one better.  

Whatever the case, it’s not going to be superior to much of anything if they don’t explore temporal reconstruction as part of the algorithm.

[crispy4000]

Realized the DF stuff was never posted.  So here it is:

 

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2021-amd-fidelity-fx-super-resolution-fsr-performance-wins-but-what-about-image-quality

 

 

[cusideabelincoln]

This is good for consoles, and HTPCs, where users are going to be sitting far enough away from their TVs to not notice the difference in sharpness, but still allow developers to up other special effects.  Or, hopefully, have them target 60 fps. 

[Keyser_Soze]

BA is a proud potato user, let him have his day in the sun ok guys!

[crispy4000]

8 hours ago, cusideabelincoln said:

This is good for consoles, and HTPCs, where users are going to be sitting far enough away from their TVs to not notice the difference in sharpness, but still allow developers to up other special effects.  Or, hopefully, have them target 60 fps. 

While true, it’s also just another option in that space.
 

Until AMD improves this, console devs will need to decide if their games look better with higher-end FSR settings or existing TAA upsampling It could very much be game dependent which looks better when.

 

Epic’s upscaling algorithm in UE5 could be the winner here, on AMD hardware at least.

[Keyser_Soze]

19 minutes ago, BlueAngel said:

RX580 is hardly a potato but ok, suck down that Nvidia juice.

 

I'll suck it all day baby!

[cusideabelincoln]

8 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

While true, it’s also just another option in that space.
 

Until AMD improves this, console devs will need to decide if their games look better with higher-end FSR settings or existing TAA upsampling It could very much be game dependent which looks better when.

 

Epic’s upscaling algorithm in UE5 could be the winner here, on AMD hardware at least.

Not all games will use UE5, so hopefully AMD can help out other devs.

[crispy4000]

29 minutes ago, cusideabelincoln said:

Not all games will use UE5, so hopefully AMD can help out other devs.

 

Whether it helps depends on what other engines use and how they compare.  Most large publishers already created their own TAA upscaling solutions to stay competitive in the console space.  Anything as good as UE4's essentially makes FSR redundant.  Those which aren't will probably switch over to FSR.

 

Quoting DF:

 

Quote

Conceptually, I also think FSR has a less competitive position in the market of image enhancement technology. If a game only offers basic upscaling, FSR will do a better job, but why would a game only have basic upscaling? Every major engine on the market - whether it's from Ubisoft, Epic, Capcom or Square-Enix - has some form of TAA upscaling already. And because they're accumulating and reconstructing from more available data, they deliver improved results up against a single-frame spatial scaler.

 

Maybe the real question to ask is whether FSR is better than what Unity has now.

[jaethos]

All of the other reviews I've seen have been pretty positive, even Gamers Nexus are optimistic and they trashed DLSS 1.0.

[Ominous]

17 hours ago, BlueAngel said:

I'm sure you will. It's pretty crazy a 6900XT whoops all over a 3090 though, AMD sucks I guess. 

 

How's that ray tracing working out? 

[Littleronin]

3 hours ago, jaethos said:

All of the other reviews I've seen have been pretty positive, even Gamers Nexus are optimistic and they trashed DLSS 1.0.

I did notice that they were quick to say that they believe AMD intentionally didn't try to be put in games that have DLSS so their were no direct comparisons. 

[Reputator]

On 6/22/2021 at 4:20 PM, crispy4000 said:

DF’s take is it pretty much is shit at this point.  Any TAA solution is better (including Unreal’s), and the quality loss is hard to justify unless you’re running the ultra setting at 4K.

For now, it’s behind standards behind DLSS.  The dream of this extending my 1060’s lifespan is pretty much dead.

 

I think Hardware Unboxed's take was a lot more fair. Ultra Quality and Quality are perfectly usable at 4k, while UQ is the only usable setting at 1440p. 1080p is pointless to use with FSR.

 

[crispy4000]

5 hours ago, Reputator said:

 

I think Hardware Unboxed's take was a lot more fair. Ultra Quality and Quality are perfectly usable at 4k, while UQ is the only usable setting at 1440p. 1080p is pointless to use with FSR.

 

 

DF didn't say Ultra Quality wasn't usable at 4k, quite the opposite.  It's FSR's best foot forward against existent TAA upscaling methods.  There could be a slight performance gain too, for those who go with it.

 

Alex said he still thinks (UE4's) TAA upscaling beats FSR across the board.  But it doesn't appear the differences are as pronounced the higher the internal resolution goes.

The real losers here are those who were expecting/hoping for FSR to breathe new life into old cards.  That dream, pitched by AMD themselves, is dead. For the time being at least.

[Xbob42]

This is peak AMD.

[Reputator]

5 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

The real losers here are those who were expecting/hoping for FSR to breathe new life into old cards.  That dream, pitched by AMD themselves, is dead. For the time being at least.

 

That is DEFINITELY not true. If you're expecting a RX 570 to suddenly be a 4k monster, then yeah I guess you'd be disappointed, but then your expectations would be overblown. But so far I'm seeing old cards able to run new games at 1440p that weren't running very smooth before, and the performance uplift is over 30%? That's a huge deal for something that's free.

[crispy4000]

5 hours ago, Reputator said:

 

That is DEFINITELY not true. If you're expecting a RX 570 to suddenly be a 4k monster, then yeah I guess you'd be disappointed, but then your expectations would be overblown. But so far I'm seeing old cards able to run new games at 1440p that weren't running very smooth before, and the performance uplift is over 30%? That's a huge deal for something that's free.

 

It's ONLY a big deal for games that would have not supported TAA upscaling.  And thus, weren't getting that ~30%+ upscaling performance bonus already, at arguably superior image resolve.

 

There's also the curious case of Godfall, which is an Unreal game but only has FSR as an option in-game.  You can still enable TAA U through backdoor methods.

 

 

If you've got an older card running Godfall, you're better served looking into that instead.

 

 

[crispy4000]

Digital Foundry also updated their article with Godfall TAA U vs FSR comparisons with their viewer.

 

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Certainly not a home run.  Hardware unboxed showed FSR being better than simple upscaling, but that DF picture, to my eyes (haven't went through the review) shows FSR looking worse than simple upscaling.

 

TAA is really good though, subjectively looks very close to native resolution.

[crispy4000]

6 hours ago, cusideabelincoln said:

Certainly not a home run.  Hardware unboxed showed FSR being better than simple upscaling, but that DF picture, to my eyes (haven't went through the review) shows FSR looking worse than simple upscaling.

 

TAA is really good though, subjectively looks very close to native resolution.

That’s Quality, not Ultra Quality, to be fair.  And results can differ depending on what you’re looking at.

 

I’d recommend you scroll around in the image from their tool yourself, if you’re interested. 

[crispy4000]

 

Good amount of FSR talk right at the beginning.

[stepee]

Man, I’m trying dlss 2.2.10 in Cyberpunk now in ultra performance mode and it’s just insane how decent the iq still is. The way I have my settings right now (everything maxed) is like 10fps at native 4k lol. Ultra Performance is totally locked 60fps constantly everywhere maxed on a 3080. And while native obviously looks a decent amount better it’s not like THAT much of a difference, feels like 1800pish to me, and the trade off of what you get in return by using it and going psycho rt and locking in 60 all times is worth the extra artifacts.

 

And that’s crazy that it’s just a few extra artifacts that I don’t even notice when actually playing, they are so close I think ultra performance’s fps boost will be something you can commonly use to get stable almost 4k looking quality very soon.

 

Anyway that just had me thinking, we just got to skip a generation ahead because of ai/image reconstruction, we are going to see such cool shit this gen people don’t even know.