AMD’s upscaling technology FSR is integrated into the Unreal Engine

During the summer, AMD launched the Fidelity FX Super Resolution (FSR) upscaling technology, which is the company’s alternative to Nvidia’s Deep-Learning Super Sampling (DLSS). Unlike Nvidia’s ditto, FSR needs neither machine learning nor specific hardware features, but is based on an upscaling algorithm running on the graphics circuit shaderdevices.

Furthermore, AMD’s FSR should in theory work on all graphics card solutions regardless of manufacturer and be easy to implement in games, unlike Nvidia’s DLSS which requires a special hand placement for each game. Game developers have already implemented the technology in several games and clever modders have taken it to, among other things, VR games. Now Epic Games is following up with implementing FSR in the game engine Unreal Engine 4.

• Ultra Quality – produces an image with quality virtually indistinguishable from native rendering. It should be selected when the highest quality is desired. At recommended settings, it renders images at 77% of the display resolution.

• Quality – produces an upscaled image with a quality representative of native rendering, with a sizeable performance gain. At recommended settings, it renders images at 67% of the display resolution.

• Balanced – produces an upscaled image approximating native rendering quality, with a significant performance gain compared to native. At recommended settings, it renders images at 59% of the display resolution.

• Performance – visibly impacts image quality and should only be selected where needing additional performance is critical. At recommended settings, it renders images at 50% of the display resolution.

The new Unreal Engine 4 plug-in offers four different preset modes. As usual, there are four levels that in different ways balance image quality against performance. AMD also states that game developers can choose to use FSR in Unreal Engine 4 together with Temporal Anti-Aliasing with Upscaling (TAAU), or another temporal upscaling technology. In such a scenario, the temporal upscaling is the primary algorithm and the FSR the secondary, similar to how the studio Illfonic does with the game Arcadegeddon.

AMD FSR will be available as a plug-in for Unreal Engine 4 version 4.271.1. When the add – on to more modern Unreal Engine 5 is not yet known.

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