Community Resources

[Amber_AMD]

Hello, Red Team!

We are hosting our first AMA (Ask Me Anything) event covering AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) technology. Comments will be open Friday, September 30^th at 5:00 pm CST on this post.

Our very own Alex Blake-Davies (FSR Senior Product Marketing Specialist) will be ready to answer any question(s) you may have.  

To give you an idea, here are a few examples of the questions we’re expecting:

1. How does FSR 2 differ from FSR 1 and RSR [Radeon Super Resolution]?
2. How does FSR 2 temporal upscaling work and differ from FSR 1 spatial upscaling?
3. How does FSR 2’s image quality compare to FSR 1 and native resolution?
4. How can FSR 2 deliver high-quality temporal upscaling without using Machine Learning (ML)?

Notes:

• Be sure to check out the entire Discussion to see if your question has already been asked by someone else and/or answered by Alex.
• We will not be able to answer any questions about upcoming FSR-supported games.
• For technical support, you can post your question(s) in the Drivers and Software Support forum.
• The AMA Discussion will open on Friday, September 30^th at 5:00 pm CST and close on Sunday, October 2^nd at 5:00 pm CST. Answers will be posted by Tuesday, October 4^th at 5:00 pm CST. 

Mark your calendar Red Team, and be ready to ask away!

[Amber_AMD]

Comments for the AMA are now open! Post your questions below 🙂 

[blahtest]

what are the biggest obstacles or challenges facing developers looking to add FSR to their game?

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for your question.

As with FSR 1, FSR 2 is open source, via the MIT license, and integration should be easy, with an intuitive, flexible API. Developers will find it easier to integrate FSR 2 technology into games that already have a temporal upscaling rendering path.

[goghor]

When will AMD releases FSR 2 Source Code for DX11 games?

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for asking. Developers interested in using FSR 2 with Microsoft DirectX 11 should contact their AMD developer relations representative about this topic. Smaller developers without an AMD representative can send me a PM with their contact info and someone from our developer relations team will reach out.

[solewalker]

We have already been known this, but what is the technical limitation of releasing the source? We really expected dx11 source too, so its a bit disappointing.

[Justifier]

What's preventing the dev team from implementing a solution like Lossless Scaling (found in Steam) for RSR, so that RSR doesn't have to be limited to Fullscreen programs?

[alexander_blake-davies]

Great question!

Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) was designed to incorporate low latency upscale capability to virtually any modern game. To achieve low latency upscale, AMD developed a novel means of reading and writing to the GPU frame buffer with a minimal performance penalty. To minimize this performance tax, we focused on full-screen exclusive and borderless full-screen gaming scenarios.

[Saylick]

Greetings!

I have a few questions, if you don't mind. 🙂

1. Can the algorithm behind FSR 2.0 be accelerated with future RDNA architectures, e.g. using packed math and/or lower precision math?

2. Can you elaborate on the level of effort needed to develop hand-tuned heuristics for FSR 2.0 in comparison to machine learning techniques? Is there a situation which favors using traditional methods for tuning FSR 2.0 over a pure ML approach?

3. Does AMD see itself developing an FSR feature similar to Nvidia's Frame Generation in the future?

Thanks!

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for your questions. To answer in order:

1. FSR 2 already takes advantage of 16-bit operations and data types for some platforms. Overall, our ongoing research and development focuses on all the pillars that made FSR 2 a successful technology: quality, performance, and ease of integration.

2. It is fair to say that it took considerable effort to develop the high-quality, high-performance analytical upscaling solution used in FSR 2. Given any problem defined by inputs and outputs, it is probably correct to expect Machine Learning (ML) to converge to a solution faster than human minds can. However, such a solution can impose requirements of dedicated hardware or slower code paths that may not make the final product attractive enough from a cross-platform and performance point of view. In addition, the fine-tuning and optimization potential of an analytical solution is likely higher than what an ML solution can provide.

3. While we can't comment on any of AMD's future plans for our FSR technology, it continues to be an area of active research and development at AMD and we’re looking forward to sharing updates in the future.

[ecffg2010]

Quick questions

1. When will AMD release DX11 source code for FSR2?

2. When will the debug view be added to the public release of FSR2?

3. Any timeline on a new major version like FSR 2.2?

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for asking these and to answer each of them:

1. Developers interested in using FSR 2 with Microsoft DirectX 11 should contact their AMD developer relations representative about this topic. If you are a smaller developer without an AMD representative, please send me a PM with your contact info and someone from our developer relations team will contact you.

2. The FSR 2 development team is committed to making integration even easier for developers and we look forward to sharing more about this in the near future.

3. While we can't comment on what's upcoming for our FSR technology, we are continuing our research and development of FSR and we’re looking forward to sharing updates in the future.

[Anonymous]

will warzone 2 have fsr2?

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for asking. Unfortunately, we are not able to answer which upcoming games will have support for FSR 2, but you can check back on our FSR web page, AMD Community blogs, and AMD Community Forums to see the latest games announced that support or will support FSR 2.

[Key-J]

Do players who game on 1080p have lots of opportunities to take advantage of FSR? If so, how does it work best for them?

What do you think is one of the most ambitious games to include FSR to date?

(Can be asked as a joke) - With so many amazing games out there, I know it can be hard to choose which one to use as the "face" of FSR. How did Farming Simulator come out on top? 😛 

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks a lot for your questions, and I'll even answer the last one 😀

1. The benefits to players who game in 1080p will vary depending on the graphics hardware being used. The scaling factors available in the different quality modes of FSR 2 allow upscaling from lower resolutions to 1080p but you also have to take into account the performance overhead of the upscaling process. On less performant graphics hardware this overhead may result in a lower performance boost at 1080p resolutions. However, even when gaming at 1080p, when you are playing a game with more demanding graphics, such as a game that has ray tracing, the overhead cost of FSR 2 is considerably offset and you may still see a significant performance boost.

Keep in mind though, while FSR 2 is able to provide some great benefits when gaming at 1080p, you will certainly still see better upscaling visual quality when using higher resolutions like 1440p or 4K, and FSR 2 can help you game at those higher resolutions if your graphics cards is not normally able to deliver the framerate you are aiming for when using them.

2. That's a very difficult question to answer, so I would say FSR benefits many different types of games in many genres, available from both smaller developers and some of the biggest AAA game developers around, and all of them are great games!

3. Farming Simulator 22 is an incredibly popular game (have a look here) and we have a close working relationship with the developer GIANTS Software. When we saw the ghosting issue reported in the version of the game with FSR 2.0, we felt that addressing this issue would be a good showcase to demonstrate the improvements of FSR 2.1.

[jamesc359]

• In the near term which upcoming games are planning to support FSR2.0?
• Do you know of any developers that are planning on implementing FSR2.0 in games they've already released?
• I realized today's headline is about FFSRSR2, so please forgive me for asking about the future; FSR2 seems to be quite a leap forward in performance over it's predecessor, looking forward how much more does AMD believe that they can improve the tech?

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for the questions, to answer all three:

1. For upcoming games that will support FSR 2, some key new titles launching in the near term would be Asterigos, UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection, Gotham Knights, Scorn, and The Callisto Protocol. More games are always being added to our list and info about which games support FSR can be found on www.amd.com/fsr  

2. Yes, quite a few of our upcoming FSR 2 games include games that have already been released such as Cyberpunk 2077, EVE Online, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Saints Row. Hitman 3 was just updated with FSR 2 support today! 

3. While we can't comment on any of AMD's plans for our FSR technology, it continues to be an area of active research and development at AMD and we’re looking forward to sharing updates in the future.

[solewalker]

1. FSR 2 still has many issues to solve, do you think these issues can be solved by FSR 2 without resorting to machine learning? Some of the issues are,
   • Ghosting in fast moving objects like cars, bike etc ( cars in farming simulator and spider-man remastered, bike in Death Stranding)
   • Transparent or holographic object inside the game ( in death stranding, deathloop)
   • Smearing of grass or foliage (grass in death stranding)
   • Snow and particle not drawing properly ( rain and snowfall in RDR2)
2. If the above issues are due to devs not implementing FSR2 properly, in that case would be be possible to make the integration easier or more clear to the devs? Its important to note that, which issues are inherent to FSR 2, and which issues are due to not implementing FSR 2 properly, we don't know that, this confuses many people and affects people's perception of FSR 2 for the worse.
3. What is the biggest cause do you think for the lack of FSR 2 integration in newer and popular titles? Is it the quality of FSR 2 in its current state? Devs not getting any monetary or technical support from AMD? Or devs not aware of FSR 2 at all?
4. What is AMD's strategy to increase FSR 2 support for upcoming games?
5. What is the reason there is almost no interaction of FSR devs on github issue tracker? Are the devs working on next version? Or those issues are solved in private branch? It does not bode well when issues are created and people commenting don't get any reply or nod, its like as if the project is abandoned, if the reason for open source is not support and feedback from community then what is?
6. Another pitfall of open source FSR 2 is, many competent dev would just fork the project and integrate or improve upon it but not merge to the main. Maybe the improvement are engine specific, but what would happen when a major version update of FSR 2 is released? So over the years there will be many versions of FSR 2, is there any measure in place to combat such  scenarios?
   
   I know my questions are too elaborate and big, but even if all of these are not answered, I would like for AMD/FSR devs to know about these and handle some of the issues internally. Thank you.

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for all the in-depth questions! There's a lot to cover here, so let's dive in 😀

1. While machine learning (ML) is one vehicle to solve problems, it is not a prerequisite to achieving good quality image upscaling. Inherently, there is nothing preventing a purely analytical upscaling solution from producing results comparable to ML-driven solutions. Our continued research and development of FSR, as can be seen by our recent release of FSR 2.1, demonstrates that we actively working to enhance our super-resolution technologies without needing to use ML.

2. We've been humbled by developer reception of FSR 2 and in particular by their statements of how easy it is to integrate into their games. This ease of use, combined with the overall performance/quality ratio of FSR 2 and its open-source nature is why we've seen tremendous adoption of FSR 2 in game titles. It is correct that the quality achieved by an FSR 2 integration in a given title depends on the optimal use of the API, notably in terms of mask use and associated variables. Ease of integration is certainly an objective that the FSR 2 continuously thrive to achieve, and as future revisions of FSR 2 get developed we expect significant improvements in those areas.

3. FSR has been integrated into many newer and popular titles already. As of today, FSR 2 is already available in games such as Deathloop, Dying Light 2, God of War, Hitman 3, Judgment, Marvel's Spider-man Remastered, and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. In addition, FSR 2 is upcoming in popular games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Gotham Knights, Microsoft Flight Simulator, The Callisto Protocol, and UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection. Leading game developers are all aware of FSR 2 and you can expect to see many more popular games join the list of available and upcoming games. We already have 64 available and upcoming games supporting FSR 2 and more info about which games support FSR can be found on www.amd.com/fsr

4. We do not comment on internal strategies for our products. However, I can say that we have already been very successful with gathering support for FSR 2, with (as of today) 64 available and upcoming games supporting FSR 2 in less than 6 months since its release.

5. There are definitely developer interactions occurring on the GitHub repo for FSR 2, although those are likely to happen "in bulk" at certain points in time as we collect and address feedback during specific phases of development. We also work directly with a large number of game studios that have access to pre-release versions of FSR 2, and with whom we communicate on a regular basis to improve the technology.

6. What you describe can be considered a drawback of open source, which unfortunately depends on good discipline from contributors to ensure the project evolves in the right direction. In any case, AMD is committed to our open-source approach as it represents the best solution for developers, cross-platform support, and fostering innovation. Ultimately users can only benefit from this.

[AlexGB56]

Could there be any chance that you implement the temporal FSR 2.0 algorithm in RSR (RSR 2.0)?

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for asking. At this time, we have no plans to use FSR 2 in RSR. Temporal upscaling technologies like FSR 2 require data from the game (such as motion vector information) that is not accessible by an upscaling solution built into a software driver, such as Radeon Super Resolution (RSR).

[LittleEndian]

FSR 2.1 brings some much needed improvements when dealing with ghosting, however a few titles have come out with 2.0 only. Is AMD doing anything to help/convince these developers to update their FSR implementation?

[alexander_blake-davies]

Great question!

The release cycles of game updates from developers are not always aligned with when AMD releases updates to game developer technologies such as FSR. Depending on when the integration work started and each game developer's internal process and timing (that can involve evaluation, implementation, then testing) there will always be situations when a game may be updated with a previous version of any given AMD FidelityFX technology. In these cases, you may see (again depending on the developer's process and their plans for ongoing support for the game) newer versions of our technologies added in future game updates. AMD is engaging with developers to help support updating to the latest version of FSR where needed.

[hawkeye]

How do you see up-scaling technologies evolve in the future ? I like that FSR works literally on any GPU but I'm worried that your competitors don't have the same approach...having exclusive features that work only on their hardware. Will we start to see games that only work only on a single brand of GPU ?

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for your question. AMD FidelityFX technologies, which FSR is part of, are our free and open-source technologies for game developers available on GPUOpen.com that work across a wide range of products both from AMD, other vendors, and even on consoles. We cannot comment on our competitor's technologies or what they may plan to do in the future. However, we do not expect to see PC games locked to only work on one vendor's products.

[Enzarch]

With some games being modded for FSR 2.x support; Many of those allow force setting any scaling value (from 1x (native) to 3.0x), Would you consider adding this functionality officially, As it is very nice to be able to fine tune scaling to grant the perfect balance of IQ to performance.

This is especially useful for games that don't need the performance increase, as you can set a 1.0x (or sometimes below) scalar and get vastly better anti-aliasing/image quality.

[alexander_blake-davies]

Thanks for asking. I've broken my answer down into two parts.

1. While FSR 2 allows developers to use any upscaling factor between 1x and 3x we strongly recommend they stick to exposing the official quality modes exposed by the API (at least when Dynamic Resolution Scaling is not used). This standardization of quality modes gives users some much-needed familiarity when deciding which mode to use, and also allows quality/performance comparisons with other upscaling solutions.

2. Regarding 1x upscaling: while it will indeed provide higher image quality thanks to FSR 2's built-in anti-aliasing, the upscaling logic is still being run and this mode may therefore incur a performance cost. As such, we don't recommend using FSR 2 without upscaling applied. We look forward to sharing info about future updates that may address this concern.

[Amber_AMD]

Hey everyone! Thanks so much for your thoughtful questions. Since there are so many good ones, we're going to need a little more time to gather some answers. We'll be sure to answer all your questions by Wednesday, October 5th. 🙂