AMD's FSR 3 upscaling technology is set to make its debut tomorrow, on September 29, or September 30 depending on where you live in the world. AMD's Frank Azor, the chief architect of gaming solutions and marketing made the announcement today via Twitter (or X if you really must call it that). FSR 3, or FidelityFX Super Resolution, was announced by AMD back at the launch if the Radeon RX 7000-series in early November 2022. It's been a long time coming, but the wait is almost over.
Two games with FSR 3 support will be announced, though which two was not stated. The two likely contenders are Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum, which are the ones prominently mentioned on AMD's website, though of course, more games with FSR 3 support are in development.
FSR 3 introduces what AMD calls Fluid Motion Frames, and it can be thought of as AMD's answer to Nvidia's DLSS 3. It uses a combination of super resolution temporal upscaling and frame generation to deliver major performance increases in games that support it.
For a very good explainer of FSR 3, do check out our man Jeremy's comprehensive overview.
According to AMD, FSR 3 will be optimized for a broad range of products. In its pre-release demonstrations, it can dramatically increase frame rates at the highest ray traced settings. Using Forspoken as an example, with FSR 3 off at 4K with ultra high settings and raytracing, a Radeon RX 7900 XTX will deliver an average of 53 FPS. But with FSR3 set to performance mode with frame generation, that jumps up to 175 FPS—a huge gain.
The quality mode with frame generation results in 137 FPS, still well over double the 53 FPS when FSR 3 is off.
FSR 3 also introduces a new AA mode that AMD calls 'Native AA'. It's a method that applies the FSR3 AA and sharpening but without any upscaling. AMD says this can provide superior image quality with only a modest performance hit. And you can enable frame generation too, delivering what should be the best of both worlds. We'd need to see it in action before passing judgment on it, of course.
Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.
We look forward to seeing FSR 3 in action. In addition to Forspoken and Immortals of Aveum, FSR 3 support is coming to Cyberpunk 2077, Space Marine 2, and Crimson Desert, among others.
Notably, FSR 3 is an open technology, and doesn't require machine learning capabilities. That means it can be used with other vendors' hardware. AMD says the Radeon RX 5700 and newer will support upscaling and frame generation along with Nvidia RTX 20-series cards and newer. Without frame generation, support is widened to include the RX 590 and above, and the GTX 10-series and above. There's no mention of Intel Xe support right now.
One of us at PC Gamer will surely take FSR 3 through its paces in the near future. The preliminary performance gains look great, but an analysis of image quality will be needed too.
