AMD Announces FSR 3.1: Seriously Improved Upscaling Quality

AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 technology package introduced a plethora of enhancements to the FSR technology on Radeon RX 6000 and 7000-series graphics cards last September. But perfection has no limits, so this week, the company is rolling out its FSR 3.1 technology, which improves upscaling quality, decouples frame generation from AMD's upscaling, and makes it easier for developers to work with FSR.

Arguably, AMD's FSR 3.1's primary enhancement is its improved temporal upscaling image quality: compared to FSR 2.2, the image flickers less at rest and no longer ghosts when in movement. This is a significant improvement, as flickering and ghosting artifacts are particularly annoying. Meanwhile, FSR 3.1 has to be implemented by the game developer itself, and the first title to support this new technology sometime later this year is Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

Another significant development brought by FSR 3.1 is its decoupling from the Frame Generation feature introduced by FSR 3. This capability relies on a form of AMD's Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) optical flow interpolation. It uses temporal game data like motion vectors to add an additional frame between existing ones. This ability can lead to a performance boost of up to two times in compatible games, but it was initially tied to FSR 3 upscaling, which is a limitation. Starting from FSR 3.1, it will work with other upscaling methods, though AMD refrains from saying which methods and on which hardware for now. Also, the company does not disclose when it is expected to be implemented by game developers.

In addition, AMD is bringing support for FSR3 to Vulkan and Xbox Game Development Kit, enabling game developers on these platforms to use it. It also adds FSR 3.1 to the FidelityFX API, which simplifies debugging and enables forward compatibility with updated versions of FSR. 

Upon its release in September 2023, AMD FSR 3 was initially supported by two titles, Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum, with ten more games poised to join them back then. Fast forward to six months later, the lineup has expanded to an impressive roster of 40 games either currently supporting or set to incorporate FSR 3 shortly. As of March 2024, FSR is supported by games like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Starfield, The Last of Us Part I. Shortly, Cyberpunk 2077, Dying Light 2 Stay Human, Frostpunk 2, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will support FSR shortly.

Source: AMD