What is AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is a technology that helps increase game processing performance without sacrificing too much image quality developed by AMD. It can be applied with most graphics cards available on the market today.

Over the years, many new technologies have been born to serve the gaming industry, making the efforts of graphics processor developers “small,” even somewhat short of breath in the “technological race.”

These include the NVIDIA GTX 980Ti series graphics cards released five years ago with the expectation of being able to “fight well” games at 4K resolution but quickly bring disappointment to gamers. It wasn’t until recently, when the RTX 30 Series graphics cards, especially the GeForce RTX 3090 version, were released that it was completely possible to “conquer” at this resolution that the market promptly welcomed the models. TVs and monitors have resolutions up to 8K.

For example, Ray Tracing technology was released with NVIDIA’s RTX series of graphics cards. Game makers dared to apply a very small part of effects packages like Battlefield V applied reflection packs. Shadow of The Tomb Raider only uses shading packs, “greedy” as much as Metro Exodus also dares to use only three effect packs that make new graphics cards “sluggish” at the resolution 4K.

So in that context, today’s leading graphics processor chip developers such as NVIDIA and AMD are all looking for methods to enhance processing performance in addition to measures to increase processing power “raw” as usual.

If NVIDIA introduced the DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) solution for its RTX series graphics cards two years ago, it was not until recently that AMD officially introduced AMD FidelityFX technology. Super Resolution (FSR) came to market during the recent high-performance computing ecosystem event at Computex 2021.

AMD FIDELITYFX SUPER RESOLUTION – LIKE AND DIFFERENT FROM DLSS

So how does this feature work?

It can be said that this technology is part of the FidelityFX technology package launched with the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 driver released at the end of 2019, but different from most of the features in this package, such as RIS (Radeon Image) Sharpening) can be “forcibly” enabled through the graphics card driver, game makers must integrate AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution into their titles for the feature to take effect.

That feature has a somewhat similar operating mechanism to NVIDIA’s DLSS when it allows the game to be rendered at a low resolution. Upscaled through the “upscale” algorithm smooth another image to produce a “smooth” image quality roughly equivalent to the image rendered at the monitor’s native resolution.

This method, in theory, significantly accelerates the game processing speed of the graphics card because the processor chip only has to “carry” the image at a lower resolution. In return, the player has to sacrifice two A little bit of image quality, specifically and most noticeable is that the image will be a bit blurry compared to the image rendered at the original resolution, but still acceptable.

In return, the amount of image processing speed achieved has increased significantly with tests such as on the open-world hunting game Monster Hunter: World.

For DLSS technology, NVIDIA has continued to use its powerful central server system to handle the existing image enhancement for a wide range of games that support DLSS. Come up with a solution to process the most optimal image by machine learning method (Machine Learning – Deep Learning) for each game and then transfer these parameters into continuously updated driver versions.

Tensor cores in the RTX processor cores from the Turing architecture version responsible for AI processing will use these data to “smooth” the image and transmit information back to NVIDIA for further enrichment.

This method is quite simple, but it requires NVIDIA-specific hardware and encounters certain problems mentioned later.

With AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, AMD has taken a different approach from current hardware. This feature can work on most graphics cards on the market today, even for graphics cards. NVIDIA graphics, not just support for graphics cards from the “red team.”

This feature is enabled on supported games; the system will immediately render at the appropriate resolution depending on the level of image quality desired by the user with four levels of settings from Performance to Balanced, prioritizing Quality, and Ultra Quality.

Accordingly, the game will be rendered at different coefficients. For example, with the native resolution of 4K (3840×2160), we have the following rendering milestones:

Performance (1920×1080 – 2.0x aspect ratio)

Balanced (2259×1270 – 1.7x scale each)

Quality (2560×1440 – 1.5x scale each)

Ultra Quality (2954×1662 – 1.3x aspect ratio)

Then, the anti-alias, noise reduction, image sharpening features such as CAS (Contrast Aware Sharpening) or Variable Shading … will help enhance the image quality to asymptotically the image quality built at the original resolution.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution approach uses the algorithm and the graphics card’s power, so the output image is not as uniform as using machine learning and the perfect reference image on our DLSS NVIDIA. Still, in return, any graphics card can use this feature to gain more power.

Besides, because it only uses algorithms, this new feature from AMD is not limited in terms of rendering resolution like with DLSS.

Users can set the output resolution to only 1080p using the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution feature and force the renderer into Performance mode with a native resolution of just 960x540p. That significantly increases the frame rate for even old PCs using the popular AMD RX 480 or AMD RX 470 graphics cards.

AMD FIDELITYFX SUPER RESOLUTION – “BREAKING” FOR OLD PC SYSTEMS

When officially on the market, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution supports only seven “home-made” titles with development studios working closely with AMD’s engineering team, including GodFall, The RiftBreaker, 22 Racing Series, Anno 1800, Terminator Resistance, Evil Genius 2: World Domination, and KingsHunt.

Other games that support this feature will be available shortly, including Far Cry 6 or Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodhunt, released with the built-in FSR. Games already on the market today, like Resident Evil: Village or DoTA 2, will have this feature integrated through a major update.

All you need to do is download the latest update of the game; a new entry will be added in the graphics settings panel, allowing users to change AMD image quality levels. FidelityFX Super-Resolution from Performance to Ultra Quality depending on usage needs.

I realized that FSR is not expensive jewelry for high-end PC systems such as DLSS. This feature opens up a great opportunity for old PC systems with “aged” video cards to be “revived” with the ability to handle newer titles at the highest setting.

Indeed, when testing with a few years old MSI RX 480 Armor graphics card, the writer feels a whole new vitality when playing heavy games at the highest setting.

Experimenting with the game Terminator Resistance is a good example of bringing the impressive speed up to this outdated graphics card model with extremely low image quality degradation.

With the maximum setting at 1440p resolution, at normal rendering, the game only averages at 46.6fps while just slightly “tilting” down to the Quality setting, speed. The average jumped to 73.5fps, a 57% increase in speed that the quality change was barely perceptible to the naked eye with a steady minimum at 58.8fps.

The average speed jumped to 111.5fps, nearly 2.4 times higher than the rendering mode at a normal resolution when setting the Performance setting. The graphics quality was somewhat degraded enough to be recognized by the eye.

Small details such as grass, fences have slight grain breakage, complex color patches are a bit sticky, still very difficult to notice if you don’t pay close attention. That is easy to overlook when gamers focus on enjoying the gameplay and storyline.

Meanwhile, the “miracle” AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution does not achieve the same stable effect with the game Godfall as it does with Terminator Resistance and other games.

It must be said that although it is a game of AMD’s “house” category right from its launch, the MSI RX 480 Armor graphics card model can only “carry” this game with Epic settings and resolution. 1440p only averaged 19.9fps with normal rendering settings, which is almost impossible to enjoy with a fast-paced game.

The Performance setting brings the average speed to 43.9fps, 2.2 times higher than normal rendering. Still, object contours become unstable, camera and character movements create ripples on the screen, which is very annoying for the player.

However, the Quality setting provides a weaker acceleration, only 30.6fps, but can result in a loss of graphics quality that is very subtle. Only the scenes and characters are slightly blurred, completely enough for gamers to play the entire game without encountering any difficulties, in stark contrast to the “sluggish” situation when playing.

That shows that the quality of the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution feature is not quite as consistent with a single setting as it is with DLSS. Users often need to experiment to achieve a harmonious balance between image quality and rendering speed for each specific game.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution shows that this feature is not just “jewelry” for high-end rigs to “conquer” heights such as resolution with excellent performance in test games. 8K resolution or titles filled with Ray Tracing effects at 4K resolution such as DLSS, but this technology is also a bright “miracle” for mid-range PC systems, machines with limited configuration experience. Experience new games with the highest settings.

It can be seen that, although there is still a bit of complexity in the method of use, the simplicity of technology has shown higher scalability of the application, beyond the scope of the normal PC game world. Who knows, shortly, we will have the opportunity to see this technology appear on new console games or even mobile games with the launch of Exynos chip new generation integrated graphics solution RDNA 2 from AMD.