AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution im Test : Test |CUP | Specs |Config

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) is now available in first games. ComputerBase took a look at the Nvidia DLSS competitors in the games Anno 1800, Godfall and The Riftbreaker and presented quality impressions in pictures and video as well as benchmarks with Radeon and GeForce – because FSR runs everywhere.

The Nvidia DLSS competitor FSR in test

With RDNA 2 and the Radeon RX 6000 series, AMD is finally able to compete in the hardware segment again, with the exception of ray tracing performance, right up to the top of the range when it comes to graphics cards for gaming PCs. On the other hand, there was still a lag on the software side, because AMD still had nothing to do with Nvidia’s intelligent AI upsampling DLSS.

For a long time this didn’t seem to be a big problem, because the first DLSS iteration had various weaknesses and was only used sporadically. Since DLSS 2.0 (test), however, the technology has been very convincing in many games. If you want to use high resolutions and ray tracing at the same time, you can often not get past DLSS even with high-end graphics cards and you no longer have to do so. And as a reaction to AMD’s powerful Radeon RX 6000, the technology is now also being used separately in more and more games without RT coupling as an optional performance turbo.

AMD had to react and did so in early 2021 with the announcement of FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). Then it was quiet again for the time being, until at the beginning of June, almost surprisingly, the announcement by FSR for June 22nd was made.

That June 22nd is today. With immediate effect, the first seven games support FSR, twelve more titles have been announced and 44 developers and publishers have already announced support.

FSR and DLSS could hardly be more different

FSR wants to be a competitor to DLSS, but AMD actually does everything differently. It starts with the software philosophy (closed source vs. open source from mid-July), extends to the technology (AI vs. no AI, temporal vs. spatial upsampling) and the objective (comparable vs. minimally poorer image quality) continues and ends with the supported hardware (only GeForce RTX vs. AMD, Nvidia and Intel).

The question of how competitive FSR is with this approach to the recently strengthened DLSS, ComputerBase investigates in the games Anno 1800, Godfall and The Riftbreaker, because these are three of the seven titles that support FSR from today.

AMD FSR vs. Nvidia DLSS: Technologies in Comparison

FSR works fundamentally different to DLSS and Nvidia definitely brings heavier guns on DLSS. DLSS not only scales up, but also replaces the game’s anti-aliasing, which is made possible by the fact that the technology not only processes individual frames separately, but also compares the previous images for each image and includes them in the current frame to be rendered. So there is a temporal component in DLSS, which has various advantages.

With this approach, DLSS can manage to smooth any elements in an image, which is why the graphics with DLSS often appear much more flicker-free, i.e. without. At the same time, the technology often manages to correctly display objects that are not correctly displayed in the native resolution – as the additional data from the previous frames are helpful for this. This work is carried out by a neural network that Nvidia has trained beforehand and continues to train and thus improve.

Temporal upscaling is not only the great strength of DLSS for the two reasons mentioned. At the same time, the technology can replace poor anti-aliasing in the game. However, DLSS is not perfect – not even when it comes to image quality. If there are graphics errors in games, for example, be it smeared objects or errors that are already present, they are mercilessly amplified by DLSS. Sometimes titles with DLSS also lose their sharpness and even if Nvidia has improved the integration of the exclusive technology (it is particularly easy with the UE4 with the new plug-in), the game developers still have to invest time in installing it. In addition, DLSS only works on GeForce RTX graphics cards.

FSR is more classic, simpler and more flexible than DLSS

AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution works completely differently. AMD does indeed do without a neural network, so AI does not play a role. And a temporal component is also missing. FSR is a simple so-called spatial upsampling. Nevertheless, FSR should deliver a visibly better image quality than the native resolution or a significant performance boost with only a minimal loss of quality. And so the objective differs from FSR. AMD’s technology should deliver significantly more performance with minimal loss of quality, while Nvidia promises significantly more performance with comparable quality.

How FSR works in detail has not yet been made public by AMD. With regard to the result, the company speaks of “high quality edges” and “distinctive pixel details“. After upscaling, FSR also sharpens the image to make lost details visible again – DLSS does that in some games. FSR does not offer its own temporal stability, but the anti-aliasing of the game can do this job. This means that the end result of FSR inevitably depends heavily on the game’s anti-aliasing. If it is good, the missing temporal component of FSR need not be a disadvantage at all. On the other hand, if it is inherently problematic, it will remain problematic with FSR.

Supported games, compatible graphics cards, open source approach

In terms of quality, the missing temporal component can be a disadvantage, but the FSR implementation should be easier because the developer does not have to pay attention to the correct use of motion vectors for DLSS. For this reason alone, optimization for each individual game is not necessary, although it is entirely possible in order to adapt the technology to the peculiarities of a title.

This aspect and the potentially broad base as a result of the open approach seem to be well received by developers. With seven games at the start and a further twelve titles to follow shortly, FSR’s starting line-up is significantly more extensive than that of DLSS, which took more than a year to get to this portfolio – and this is likely to have played a role here too that DLSS always went hand in hand with RT in the beginning.

The 44 developers and publishers who want to incorporate the technology into their games also speak for the popularity of AMD FSR, especially since they include numerous heavyweights such as Capcom, Crystal Dynamics, EA with Frostbite, Gearbox, Ubisoft, Unity, Valve and Warner Bros. Games condition.

In addition, FSR does not only work under Windows, because Linux is also included. The same goes for the Xbox Series X / S, which Microsoft has already announced that it will support. Technically, the PlayStation 5 (and, if desired, the last-gen generations) is also able to use FSR, for which there is no official confirmation.

In contrast to Nvidia DLSS, which requires a GeForce RTX, FSR also supports competitive graphics cards and older generations. Even Intel’s integrated GPUs and the discrete graphics cards that are expected to appear this year belong to the target group of FSR, even if AMD does not name Intel products as currently supported hardware.

Four quality levels for more FPS

FSR, like DLSS, gains performance because the internal rendering resolution is reduced. With “Ultra Quality”, “Quality”, “Balanced” and “Performance”, AMD’s variant offers four different modes that use the same scaling factors in each target resolution.

“Ultra Quality”, for example, uses a scaling factor of 1.3, so in Ultra HD it is rendered with 2,954 × 1,662 pixels. “Quality” with a factor of 1.5 and the resulting internal resolution of 2.560 × 1.440 then corresponds to DLSS in the quality setting, while FSR on “Balanced” with 1.7 and internal 2.259 × 1.270 is almost the same as DLSS “Balanced” and FSR on “Performance” with 2.0 and internally calculated 1,920 × 1,080 with Nvidia’s performance setting is identical. There is no equivalent to Nvidia’s ultra-performance mode.

The scaling factors are the standard but not set in stone. Developers can customize them.

FSR works in any resolution including widescreen aspect ratios. However, AMD only recommends the technology as the target resolution from WQHD. It is not only about the expected image quality, but also about the performance gain, which becomes smaller and smaller in low resolutions, because the graphics card, as the bottleneck, fades into the background.

Speaking of performance gain: According to AMD, this should be high: On average, there should be 2.4 times more FPS with the target resolution Ultra HD, whereby this value applies to the performance mode. Of course, this is primarily due to the reduced rendering resolution. Using this to create the finished image in the target resolution shouldn’t cost a lot of effort either.

The compute shader used for FSR should almost exclusively load the ALUs of the GPU. And since these are massively relieved by the reduction in resolution, the computing effort is hardly significant, explains AMD. In addition, the compute shader takes advantage of FP32 and FP16 computations, which can be computed faster on most GPUs. And since the upscaling algorithm used has no dependencies on other calculations, it should never have to wait for anything. According to AMD, the “upscaling pass” (edge ​​reconstruction + re-sharpening) in The Riftbreaker costs only 6 percent FPS after rendering the lower resolution.

On the next page: The image quality of AMD FSR