Well, we all saw that coming. AMD has officially announced that FSR 4.0 will be exclusive to its RDNA 4 GPUs. FSR 4.0 will be an ML-based upscaling solution, similar to NVIDIA’s DLSS. As such, it will be locked behind the latest RDNA4 GPUs as those GPUs can effectively take advantage of it.
This right here shows why NVIDIA was on the right track all those years. I know, a lot of you are mad that the green team has been locking features behind its latest GPUs. But here we are with AMD doing the exact same thing.
This ML-based solution aims to provide better visual and performance. So, by using AMD FSR 4.0, owners of the RX 9070 and the RX 9070XT will be able to boost their performance with minimal image loss.
AMD claimed that FSR 4.0 will be using the same API as FSR 3.1. As such, it should be easy to replace FSR 3.1 with FSR 4.0. AMD did not go into details about how you can upgrade to FSR 4.0 in the games that already use FSR 3.1. At launch, PC gamers will be able to enjoy FSR 4.0 in 30 titles. By the end of 2025, there will be over 75 games that will support it. So, my guess is that you won’t be able to replace the DLL files of the games that use FSR 3.1 to enable FSR 4.0. Or at least that’s what I get from AMD’s statement.
It will be interesting to see how AMD FSR 4.0 fares against NVIDIA DLSS 4. DLSS 4 has made major improvements to image quality. Its Transformer model is right now miles beyond what FSR 3.1 can achieve. Since FSR 4.0 is an ML-based solution, though, it may come close to DLSS 3.
As for DLSS 4, we’ll have to compare them to find out whether they are comparable. Not only that, but NVIDIA still has the upper hand here. DLSS 4 has MFG and FSR 4.0 does not. Say what you want about “fake frames”, but NVIDIA is still way ahead. So, in this particular area, AMD is still playing catch up. Oh, and AMD has also used FSR 4.0 Frame Gen to advertise some enormous performance gains. This is another thing they’ve “borrowed” from NVIDIA.
Stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email