Last Updated on March 24, 2022 by Anu Joy
Last week, AMD teased a new version of FSR which promised to deliver better than native 4K image quality without the need for a new processor with dedicated machine learning cores. The company has finally taken the wraps off the inner workings of the new FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0) at GDC 2022.
AMD announced that FSR 2.0 is coming to Microsoft’s Xbox game consoles as well. Although it hasn’t specified a timeline, the company says that the tech will be “fully supported on Xbox and will be available in the Xbox GDK for registered developers to use in their games”. The latest version of FSR is not limited to AMD’s GPUs alone, they are touted to work on Nvidia GPUs as well.
What Is FSR 2.0?
The company showed off how it almost doubled the framerate while running the game Deathloop at a 4K-equivalent resolution, without dedicated machine learning cores that Nvidia’s DLSS uses. AMD says that its FSR 2.0 technology does not use Machine Learning (ML) for its upscaling algorithm. This means that the tech will essentially not require dedicated ML hardware to work.
It notes that although ML is “an incredibly useful set of tools and techniques that can aid and accelerate” the process of high-quality upscaling, the result may not always be the best. ML reportedly lacks “the spark of human imagination that can often lead to breakthroughs for complex problems”.
Like its predecessor FSR 1.0, FSR 2.0 will offer various quality modes which will let you tweak the balance of image quality to performance according to your liking. FSR 2.0 features three primary quality modes that will work on all games that support the technology, along with one optional mode for developers.
FSR 2.0 For Gaming
AMD’s blog post notes that FSR 2.0 “uses frame color, depth, and motion vectors in the rendering pipeline and leverages information from past frames to create very high-quality upscaled output”. The tech also promises high-quality anti-aliasing. It will be open source and will be available for developers as an API that supports DirectX 12 and Vulkan. Additionally, it will also have a plug-in for Unreal Engine.
Deathloop will be the first game to get FSR 2.0. AMD also announced that it will also come to Forspoken when it releases in October this year. The company said that it is working with developers such as Arkane Studios and Luminous Productions to bring FSR 2.0 tech to as many games as possible.
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