Xbox Series X|S is getting FSR 4.1 support to rival PS5 QSSR
by Stefan L · tsaAMD made a big announcement for both PC with older Radeon GPUs and Xbox Series X|S gamers as a whole, with the release of FSR 4.1 upscaling support for RX 6000 series GPUs, and promise that this is also coming to Xbox Series X|S consoles soon.
The full list of support includes:
- AMD Radeon™ RX 6000 Series graphics cards
- AMD Ryzen™ AI Max processors
- Laptops powered by AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 processors
- Gaming handhelds featuring AMD Ryzen™ AI Z2 Extreme, Ryzen™ Z2 Extreme, and Ryzen™ Z2 A processors
- Xbox Series X|S consoles, coming soon
There’s also the possibility that FSR 4.1 will be supported on Steam Deck, though the chipset Valve used there is not part of AMD’s main product line.
FSR 4.1 is the latest iteration of AMD’s upscaling tech, using a machine-learning algorithm to upscale rendered frames, using information and detail from previous frames. It’s a rival to Nvidia’s DLSS and Intel’s XeSS.
Version 4 of FSR originally launched last year, exclusively supporting the RX 9000 (RDNA 4) series of GPUs, a couple generations newer than the GPUs in current gen consoles, with dedicated chip space for FP8 calculations, which the RX 7000 (RDNA 3) and RX 6000 (RDNA 2) series lacked.
Over the past year, AMD has worked to backport the new algorithm to these previous chips and their capabilities – OK, so an in development code base did leak with support for RX 7000 and 6000 GPUs, but it was a bit hacky – working through their own Project Redstone and their open collaboration with Sony on Project Amethyst. That saw an updated upscaling model brought to PS5 Pro’s PSSR, and just this month, the release of QSSR for the original PS5. RDNA 3 support arrived earlier this summer.
QSSR actually had to dig deeper for the PS5, as Sony opted out of including the INT8 functions from RDNA 2, and so its version of the algorithm relies on the more precise, but slower FP16. Xbox Series X|S, however, has a much fuller RDNA 2 feature set with INT8 included and, for the Series X in particular, it has 56 Computer Units to the PS5’s 36 CUs. This should make the Series X better suited to running FSR 4.1 upscaling, as a smaller proportion of its GPU CUs will have to be diverted to upscaling.
Digital Foundry analysed what QSSR was capable of on PS5, finding in Ghost of Yotei that it delivered the improved upscaling with little to no appreciable difference in frame rate and frame time versus FSR 3. Compared in Marvel’s Wolverine against Insomniac’s IGTI upscaler, there could be an 8-10FPS difference and increased 1.5-1.8ms frame time, though the game still ably played well above 60fps.
Using FSR 4.1 on Xbox Series X|S should be similar, but as was seen with its release for the RX 7000 GPUs, you could use a higher performance level (with a lower core resolution) to balance the frame rate hit and still have appreciably better upscaling.