Steam Deck got support for AMD FSR scaling technology in all games

A fresh software update, discussed earlier this month, for the Steam Deck handheld has added system-wide support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) scaling technology with Gamescope's Wayland composer.

The technology is built into the SteamOS operating system itself - meaning that FSR can be activated even for games that don't support AMD's scaling technology, but are compatible with Valve's handheld. In the case of projects where FSR support is provided by the developers themselves, gamers are advised to use the official implementation of the technology. This ensures that FSR will not affect other game elements - for example, the readability of UI elements, which otherwise will be scaled from a lower resolution, as well as the game itself. At the same time, the fact that Steam Deck has a low resolution display (720p) can noticeably affect the picture quality after AMD FSR is activated in the game, officially not supporting this technology. This is where the sharpening filters built into a particular project should come in to help. AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is a technology that allows increasing frame rate without affecting graphics quality. It renders frames with a lower resolution and then scales them using a special algorithm, which allows spending less computing power. Remind also that yesterday the PC-version of Cyberpunk 2077 got the AMD FSR support with the patch 1.5 release.

Mod for GTA V added support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution

Last month AMD launched FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) support & ; NVIDIA's open source DLSS counterpart, which also works on other manufacturers' graphics cards. Officially the technology is only supported in 7 games so far, but one modder managed to implement FSR in Grand Theft Auto V and showed the results.

The FSR from the mod replaces GTA V's internal upscaler, allowing you to control the picture scaling technology directly from the game menu. Since AMD has not opened access to the FSR source code yet, the modder used a pre-made library from another game (he did not specify which one).

He also presented a comparison video, and on Reddit users posted some screenshots. You can see that in 2K resolution at maximum quality FSR allows for an extra 10 fps. If you choose the maximum performance setting, the gain is about 20 fps, but the image becomes less sharp.

Recall that the mod is not official, so we do not recommend downloading and installing files in which you are not sure. Also modification can be considered as dangerous and built-in GTA V anticheat, so there is a chance to get a ban in online mode.

Video: AMD told about ray tracing and VRS in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

Earlier we wrote that the eighth addition to World of Warcraft called Shadowlands, along with DIRT 5 and Godfall, is included in a small number of games with support for ray tracing and other optimizations for new graphics cards Radeon RX 6000 due to participation in the partner program AMD. The company shared detailed video stories about cooperation with the developers of DIRT and Godfall, and now has released a video dedicated to Shadowlands.

Game producer John Night and technical director Frank Kowalkowski in the third episode of the AMD Radeon RX 6000 Partner Showcase cycle told about a number of new graphic technologies implemented in partnership with AMD specialists. For example, the game supports Variable Rate Shading 2 (VRS), which is designed to save graphics card resources and, as a result, improve performance. The technology allows to reduce the load when calculating peripheral objects, low-value zones or fast-moving parts of the scene, keeping the detail where it is most needed.

In addition, the popular MMORPG has also received DirectX Raytracing support for dynamic shadows based on hardware ray tracing. However, as in the case of Dirt 5 and Godfall, the difference cannot be called fundamental. By the way, AMD has not yet shown other effects based on tracing in games from its partners; for example, reflections. This could have been more spectacular, and NVIDIA usually focuses on reflections. Finally, in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, the AMD FideltyFX Ambient Occlusion shading model was applied, resulting in significant performance improvements over similar past Blizzard implementations. The visual difference is difficult to notice. It seems that mainly from the cooperation with AMD will benefit the end players, who will get the most out of the new graphics cards with RDNA 2 architecture. By the way, the video mentioned that the high-speed 128 MB memory buffer of the new graphics cards, Infinity Cache, also contributes to the performance improvement. It's a pity that World of Warcraft: Shadowlands can't be called a visually rich game where you can actually see the performance gain on such powerful solutions. By the way, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands together with Godfall is included in the new promotional package « Join the game in all-around» for buyers of AMD Radeon RX 5000 in partner stores. In particular, players will receive both games if they purchase RX 5700 XT, RX 5700 and RX 5600 XT or only code for Godfall if they purchase RX 5500 XT.

AMD video story about working with Counterplay on Godfall optimization for Radeon RX 6000

We have already written that Godfall from Counterplay Games is included in a small number of games that have received support for ray tracing and other optimizations for new Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards thanks to participation in the AMD partner program. The company released a detailed story about its cooperation with DiRT developers, and now a similar video dedicated to Godfall has been released.

In this video the head of Counterplay Studio Keith Lee told about the latest technologies, which the game got due to cooperation with AMD. Godfall is built on the engine Unreal Engine and uses such features of graphic API DirectX 12 Ultimate, as DirectX Raytracing 1.1. The gunman uses « rays » for a more realistic and accurate calculation of shadows & ; previously the same could only be achieved by preliminary calculations of the scene and only for static, not dynamics.

The studio also added various effects to the game from the AMD FidelityFX set. For example, it's Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) technology, which helps improve image quality by achieving increased clarity with minimal artifacts, eliminating the loss of detail after the use of Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) technology. The game also supports LPM (Luminance Preserving Mapper) & ; a method for processing wide range or extended dynamic range (HDR) tonal representation. This technology allows you to quickly and easily add support for extended dynamic range or wide range of tones to the game.

For high quality in 4K resolution Godfall sometimes uses textures 3920 × 3920, which requires huge bandwidth. According to the developers, Radeon RX 6000 gas pedals with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and a high-speed 128 MB Infinity Cache buffer allow playing the game at maximum settings and high frame rates.

The game also supports Variable Rate Shading 2 (VRS) technology, which is designed to save graphics card resources. It reduces the load when calculating peripheral objects, low-value zones, or fast-moving parts of the scene, while maintaining detail where it is most needed. The result is significant performance gains while maintaining almost the same image quality. The launch of Godfall is expected on November 12 this year on PC (in the Epic Games Store) and PlayStation 5. Version for the Sony console will not be able to offer a resolution of 4K at 120 frames per second.