FSR 4 Frame Generation suffers from frame pacing issues causing the tech to be borderline unusable

Q: What difference did Hardware Unboxed observe between perceived smoothness and reported output FPS when FSR 4 was enabled?

Hardware Unboxed found that although FSR 4 was reporting a 120FPS output from a 60FPS base frame rate, the real-world experience felt like a 60FPS experience. They also observed one frame being displayed roughly four times longer than the next consecutive frame, causing massive jitter despite the higher reported output FPS.

Q: Did enabling V-Sync with FSR 4 frame generation resolve the frame pacing problems in the tests?

No. The article states that enabling V-Sync with FSR 4 frame generation did not fix the frame pacing issues; Hardware Unboxed tested some games with V-Sync on and they exhibited the same problems.

FSR 4 Frame Generation was tested with slow motion cameras, revealing severe jittering problems as frames are displayed on screen.

Aaron Klotz

Tech Reporter

Published Aug 21, 2026 1:25 PM CDT

1 minute & 15 seconds read time

TL;DR: Hardware Unboxed's slow-motion camera tests show FSR 4 Frame Generation produces severely uneven frame pacing, with generated frames displayed for inconsistent durations, causing heavy jitter and making 120FPS output feel like 60FPS. Most tested games exhibited the problem, V-Sync didn't fix it, and AMD's FSR frame-generation pacing remains unresolved since FSR 3.

Voice: DefaultSpeed

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New evidence has exposed serious frame pacing issues with FSR 4 frame generation, and it is so bad that the technology is almost entirely unusable. Hardware Unboxed on YouTube published a video benchmarking FSR 4 frame generation frame pacing with slow-motion cameras, revealing that the generated frames from FSR barely have any time on screen in most of the games they tested, making them nearly invisible to the viewer.

Specifically, Hardware Unboxed saw their RX 9070 XT displaying one frame around roughly four times longer than the next consecutive frame. The result was massive jittering on-screen, with real-world usability reportedly feeling like a 60FPS experience in a situation where FSR 4 Frame Generation is outputting a 120FPS experience with a 60FPS base frame rate.

This issue was prevalent in the vast majority of games Hardware Unboxed tested, with none of the games the channel tested exhibiting perfect frame pacing. God of War Ragnarok, Cyberpunk 2077, Mafia: The Old Country, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, Resident Evil Requiem, Alan Wake 2 and Crimson Desert exhibited the issue the worst. Borderlands 4 and Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight exhibited the issue less (but the problem is still there in the right situations).

Worse still, enabling V-Sync with frame generation also does not fix the frame pacing issues. Hardware Unboxed tested some games with V-Sync turned on, but they exhibited the same issues.

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Question #1

Which specific games tested showed the worst FSR 4 frame pacing jitter according to the article?

Question #2

How did Hardware Unboxed measure FSR 4 frame pacing issues in their tests?

Hardware Unboxed measured FSR 4 frame pacing issues by benchmarking frame generation using slow-motion cameras to observe how long generated frames were actually displayed on screen. Their slow-motion footage showed the RX 9070 XT often displaying one frame roughly four times longer than the next, producing severe visible jittering, and they also tested with V-Sync enabled and found the same issues.

Answered

Question #3

What difference did Hardware Unboxed observe between perceived smoothness and reported output FPS when FSR 4 was enabled?

Question #4

Did enabling V-Sync with FSR 4 frame generation resolve the frame pacing problems in the tests?

Have a question about this content not listed here? Ask below and TweakBot will answer it.

Unfortunately, nobody knows exactly why AMD's FSR 4 technology has such bad frame-pacing issues. Worse still, AMD has reportedly had this problem since FSR 3's frame generation technology came out and has made no progress fixing it. By contrast, NVIDIA has been constantly iterating on DLSS frame generation with frame pacing improvements, and in its current state has virtually no frame pacing problems.