AMD's FSR 4 could work on Xbox Series X but not PlayStation 5

With people getting an unreleased version of AMD's FSR 4 to run on RDNA 2 GPUs, this means it could be ported over to the Xbox Series X|S consoles.

AMD's FSR 4 could work on Xbox Series X but not PlayStation 5
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TL;DR: AMD's FSR 4 AI upscaling, officially using FP8 format on RDNA 4 GPUs, now unofficially runs in INT8 mode on RDNA 2 and 3 hardware, improving image quality over FSR 3.1 with moderate performance trade-offs. AMD hints at future FSR 4 updates, potentially expanding support to more devices and consoles.

Yesterday, we posted a story on one of the investigations into AMD's unintentional leak of an INT8 version of its FSR 4 upscaling solution powered by AI. As the official FSR 4 release uses an FP8, or 8-bit floating-point format, for its AI model, it's currently exclusive to the desktop lineup of Radeon RX 9000 Series GPUs because RDNA 4 is the only Radeon hardware that can support this more complex AI solution.

FSR 4 running on RDNA 2 hardware similar to what's inside the Xbox Series X, image credit: Digital Foundry/YouTube.
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FSR 4 running on RDNA 2 hardware similar to what's inside the Xbox Series X, image credit: Digital Foundry/YouTube.

The INT8 version of FSR 4 is both official and unofficial, and with some clever tinkering, it works on RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 GPUs like the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 7800 XT. Image quality falls short of the full FP8 version of FSR 4, but it's a notable improvement over FSR 3.1 and still provides a small to decent double-digit boost to performance. Although it's a performance loss compared to FSR 3.1, many see it as a better solution for 1080p and 1440p gaming because it offers image quality much closer to DLSS than FSR 2 or 3.

A new deep dive into this INT8 version of FSR 4 from the tech gurus over at Digital Foundry builds on what we've seen so far, with better image quality at the cost of performance compared to FSR 3. Testing on RDNA 2 graphics cards shows that it works, which means that this version of FSR 4 could technically be ported over to the Xbox Series X|S generation of consoles.

The reason for this is that the GPU hardware in current-gen Xbox consoles is essentially RDNA 2, whereas the PlayStation 5's custom AMD hardware doesn't fully support RDNA 2's entire feature set. Of course, Sony has its own AI-powered upscaling solution for the PS5 Pro called PSSR, but as we're starting to see the wider community get FSR 4 working on a wide range of hardware, including PC gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck and even GeForce RTX graphics cards, it does look increasingly likely that AMD could port FSR 4 to a broader range of systems and hardware.

On that note, Digital Foundry asked AMD if the INT8 version of FSR 4 would get a proper release. The company provided the following statement.

"We look forward to more updates to FSR 4 this Fall that will continue to improve gamers' experiences."

Now, this could mean a number of things, and it could simply be related to the long-awaited release of the company's FSR Redstone project. Either way, it does feel like AMD needs to detail its plans for FSR going forward and probably release this INT8 version for the many RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 PC gamers out there.