AMD unveils ML-powered FidelityFX Super Resolution 4, but only for RX 9000 series

AMD had plenty of new hardware to show off at CES 2025 from both its CPU and GPU sides. Alongside it, the company also unveiled the next generation version of its upscaling tech, FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), which is finally taking the machine learning route much like Nvidia.

The fourth official iteration of AMD's upscaling solution is being developed for graphics cards from AMD's latest RDNA 4 architecture. This means that unlike previous versions of FSR, this one will be exclusive for customers of the company's new generation of RX 9000 series graphics cards.

As such, the new RX 9070 XT and the RX 9070 will support FSR 4 and all its ML-powered upscaling features thanks to the new hardware's "supercharged AI compute" from AMD's 2nd generation AI accelerators. AMD says this will mean "high quality 4K upscaling" for supported games, though no exact performance numbers nor comparisons have shown up just yet. FSR 4 will work hand in hand with the company's existing frame generation solution as well as Anti-Lag 2 for low latency gameplay as well.

For those in the dark, upscaling tech has the game rendering at a lower resolution and using algorithms for image enhancement, lessening the impact of the lowered resolution on the screen but offering improved performance. So far, AMD has utilized spatial and temporal upscaling with filters for achieving its image upgrades, while Nvidia's DLSS and Intel's XeSS tech leaned on machine learning using AI models for image quality improvements.

With AMD now also going the same route, FSR 4 users may be in for a big jump in image quality. It potentially becoming an AMD graphics hardware exclusive solution much like Nvidia with DLSS may be a sticking point for some though. However, FSR 3 and frame generation should still be offered as a platform and generation-agnostic solution for games going forward.

At the same time, AMD is going all-in on AI with a new driver feature for Radeon hardware users. Dubbed AMD Adrenalin AI, this will let players generate images, summarize local documents, and even ask AMD-related questions from a dedicated chat AI, straight from the driver Radeon Settings app on Windows.