AMD is continuing to upgrade its FidelityFX Super Resolution technology, now with the recent release of FSR 2.1.
As reported by GPUOpen, this update to the image enhancement tech “includes significant changes to certain parts of the algorithim which allows games to further increase quality and reduce artefacts such as ghosting or shimmering.”
In layman’s terms, this update cleans up the final image even more, removing more artefacts that are the product of the processing involved in the enhancement.
FSR 2 is already a step above FSR 1, which goes much further with taking a low-res source and better upscaling it to produce a much cleaner, richer final output image.
This brings it even closer to Nvidia’s DLSS technology, which has a similar function of using AI to reconstruct an image and allow it to output at a higher resolution minus the usual cost that comes with performance degradation when trying to do so using a system’s native GPU. In fact, both solutions can actually offer better performance, depending on the title.
One of the highest-profile titles that are making use of AMD FidelityFX is Farming Simulator 22 from Giants Software which launched back in late 2021. AMD recently published a video on its YouTube channel which shows a comparison between the implementation of FSR 2.0 and FSR 2.1 in the same in-game scenes. It also compares performance when using FSR 2.1 vs having it turned off.
According to AMD’s test, it found the game to have a 1.4x performance increasing when using FSR 2.1. This was achieved by running the game in 4K and using the “Performance” mode of FSR 2.1, all powered by an AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT GPU.
There are currently 19 other titles that support FSR 2, with 25 more that will support it later down the line. One of them is yet another high-profile title, Microsoft Flight Simulator.
That same sim is also implementing Nvidia DLSS technology; these features will come in an update being released in November.
While this latest advancement for FSR was shown off with Farming Simulator 22 running on a PC, the tech is being implemented in some console titles, too. Of course, the implementation there is far more fixed, meaning it’s not something the end-user really has any control over.
For instance, Nintendo has apparently implemented it in the recent Nintendo Switch Sports; a detail that was found only by means of perusing through the game’s license agreements. Nintendo itself has neither confirmed nor denied its use, nor has it advertised the benefits it brings in any way. But, it shows that even a company like Nintendo, one that doesn’t opt to produce excessively complex titles from a graphical/technical standpoint, is still finding uses for this image enhancing tech.