AMD FSR 4 announced, AI-powered and 'developed for RDNA 4'

At CES 2025, AMD formally announced the latest version of its AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution technology, FSR 4. Explicitly developed for RDNA 4, starting with the upcoming Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 GPUs, FSR 4 represents a significant evolution for the upscaling technology because it marks a shift to a new ML or AI-powered approach.

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Although we weren't given a release date or full specs for the upcoming Radeon RX 9070 XT, which is seeing a name change to match the latest generation of Ryzen CPUs and its GeForce RTX competition, we do know that the new RDNA 4 architecture features new "supercharged" AI hardware.

This means FSR 4, like NVIDIA DLSS and Intel XeSS, will use GPU AI hardware for upscaling and frame generation. AMD has undoubtedly decided to make this change to improve FSR's image quality and bring it closer to NVIDIA DLSS.

This is a significant change compared to all previous FSR versions, which didn't require specialized AI hardware and were compatible with multiple generations of Radeon and GeForce RTX cards. At this stage, it's unclear if FSR 4 will support non-RDNA 4 hardware with a non-AI variant, ala Intel XeSS. However, FSR 4 will be compatible with games that support FSR 3.1, so it does look like there's a fallback.

Quality and performance remain to be seen, but we wouldn't be surprised if FSR 4 shares technology with PSSR upscaling for the PlayStation 5 Pro console, as Sony's mid-generation refresh includes new RDNA 4 technology for its raytracing capabilities.

AMD confirmed the following details for FSR 4.

• It was developed specifically for RDNA 4
• It supports high-quality 4K upscaling for the new Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU
• It includes both FSR upscaling and Frame Generation
• Latency reduction for Frame Gen will be supported by AMD Anti-Lag 2
• One of the first games to support FSR 4 will be Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
• FSR 4 will be available in games with FSR 3.1