AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution plugin now available for UE4

Godfall AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution comparisons
(Image credit: Gearbox Software)

Both AMD and Nvidia have upscaling technologies which generally allow for a higher resolution image of otherwise lower quality renders. In the Nvidia corner you have Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS which has been around for a few years. It’s a fairly complicated and resource hungry process, but it’s a big part of why we are seeing more and more real-time ray tracing in games.

AMD’s solution is called AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and it’s a very different approach. Rather than intensive computer processes, FSR is open source software that uses a special algorithm to upscale images and give them sharper edges. We did a bunch of tests on it when it first came out. It’s much simpler than DLSS and while that has downsides, this simplicity also means it can run on a much wider range of GPUs. 

As it’s been out longer, it’s no surprise Nvidia has provided DLSS plugins for Unreal Engine 4 and 5 for a while now. FSR has taken a bit longer, but is now available as a plugin available for Unreal Engine 4.

Black Friday deals

Black Friday deals

Black Friday 2021 deals: the place to go for the all the best early Black Friday bargains.

Spotted by Videocardz, the UE4 plugin for FSR can be downloaded by anyone from the GPUOpen website. The website also gives an overview with helpful bits of information like recommended settings, and descriptions of the various modes. It also covers things to watch out for, one of which being that FSR already features a Contrast Adaptive Sharpening pass integrated so developers might need to disable any others.

It’s always nice to see software like this become available for more people, especially with how relatively lightweight FSR. Developers of all sorts can likely make use of it, and they don’t need the beefiest kit in the world to do it. Hopefully soon we’ll see FSR make its way to UE5 as well. 

Hope Corrigan
Hardware Writer

Hope’s been writing about games for about a decade, starting out way back when on the Australian Nintendo fan site Vooks.net. Since then, she’s talked far too much about games and tech for publications such as Techlife, Byteside, IGN, and GameSpot. Of course there’s also here at PC Gamer, where she gets to indulge her inner hardware nerd with news and reviews. You can usually find Hope fawning over some art, tech, or likely a wonderful combination of them both and where relevant she’ll share them with you here. When she’s not writing about the amazing creations of others, she’s working on what she hopes will one day be her own. You can find her fictional chill out ambient far future sci-fi radio show/album/listening experience podcast right here. No, she’s not kidding. 

Read more
Cyberpunk upscaling
New modder tool makes it easier than ever to swap AMD's FSR 4 scaling for Nvidia's DLSS or Intel's XeSS and vice versa
Adler on a motorcycle
AMD's FSR 4 will use machine learning but requires an RDNA 4 GPU, promises 'a dramatic improvement in terms of performance and quality'
A slide from an AMD presentation showing Space Marine 2 running at 3.5x the frame rate at 4K with FSR 4 and frame generation enabled
'Infused with AMD DNA': FSR 4 has been announced with a healthy dose of machine learning and support for 30+ games at launch
Slides showing FSR 4's implementation in Space Marine 2 compared to previous versions
AMD says 'there is a ton of interest' in FSR 4 and that it is 'working very hard to make sure the next blockbusters that come out are enabled with FSR 4 technology'
Black Ops 6
FSR 4 may be a simple upgrade for FSR 3.1 games according to leaks, which hopefully means we won't see a repeat of FSR 3's poorly-supported launch
A still from a video at Nvidia's CES 2025 keynote, showing a character running through some archways in a game with DLSS 4 enabled and ful RT on, achieving 146 fps.
Nvidia announces DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, says it can help multiply frame rates by 'up to 8X over traditional brute-force rendering'
Latest in Graphics Cards
Nvidia App
Hmmm, upgrades: Nvidia App gets an optional AI assistant and custom DLSS resolution scaling
A close-up photo of an Nvidia RTX 4070, with its heatsink removed, showing the AD104 GPU die and the surrounding Micron GDDR6X VRAM chips
With Nvidia Ace taking up 1 GB of VRAM in Inzoi, Team Green will need to up its memory game if AI NPCs take off in PC gaming
A collage of Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards, as shown in AMD's promotional video for the launch of RDNA 4 at CES 2025
AMD's CEO claims 9070 XT sales are 10x higher than all previous Radeon generations but that's just for the first week of availability
Colorful iGame RTX 5070 Ti Vulcan OC graphics card from various angles
The RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti are rumoured to be mere weeks away, with board partners reportedly required to ensure at least one MSRP model at launch
Nvidia headquarters
Nvidia CEO sets sights on making 'several hundred billion' dollars worth of electronics in the USA over the next four years, increasing the chance of your next GPU being made in America
The Asus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 Dhahab Edition, a gold-plated graphics card on a sand dune background
A Jensen Huang-signed version of this golden Asus RTX 5090 will be auctioned off to support relief efforts for the California wildfires
Latest in News
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway