AMD recently held an event to launch its latest graphics card – the Radeon RX 6700 XT, but many of us were also hoping to hear more about FidelityFX Super Resolution, AMD’s alternative to Nvidia’s DLSS technology.
The fact that AMD doesn’t currently have a counter to DLSS is, as we recently explained, giving its rival Nvidia a performance advantage, especially with mid-range cards. However, it is working on an alternative – known as FidelityFX Super Resolution – and according to Linus Tech Tips, it could be coming soon to PCs, as well as the new PS5 and Xbox Series X game consoles.
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While the Nintendo Switch uses Nvidia hardware, both the PS5 and Xbox Series X use AMD hardware, and if they are indeed getting FidelityFX Super Resolution, it means they could get some big performance gains at 4K resolutions. It may even help them achieve the 8K resolutions both console makers have hinted at.
How does it work?
While AMD didn’t mention FidelityFX Super Resolution during the Radeon RX 6700 XT launch, Linus Sebastian in the video above claims that in a media briefing, AMD is not “rushing it out the door on only one new top-end card,” but instead “want it to be cross-platform, in every sense of the word.”
This, Sebastian claims, doesn’t just mean AMD’s existing PC GPUs, but also “the ones inside consoles.”
DLSS is a technology used by Nvidia to render games at lower resolutions, then uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to upscale the frames of the game to higher resolutions. This allows PCs with compatible GPUs running games that take advantage of the tech to hit higher resolutions and frame rates than usual – even when resource-intensive effects like ray tracing are enabled.
FidelityFX Super Resolution is likely to do something similar, and the fact that it could also be used in the PS5 and Xbox Series X is potentially very exciting. Although both consoles have only just launched, they can struggle to hit 4K at 60 frames per second (FPS) in visually demanding games. FidelityFX Super Resolution could help eliminate dips in FPS, or allow more games to use ray tracing effects. It may also mean in the future the consoles may be able to hit 8K – though in our own tests with the RTX 3090 and DLSS, 8K gaming is still a long way off being achievable.
Interestingly, rumors of a revised Nintendo Switch have appeared that suggest it will rely heavily on DLSS to boost graphics to 4K when in docked mode.
While FidelityFX Super Resolution coming to consoles is exciting, according to Sebastian, AMD is holding off releasing the tech on PC until it can come to consoles as well. For PC gamers, having to wait for this tech is painful enough without the news that its delay may be because of the consoles.
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