Interested in seeing what kind of crazy voodoo AMD’s new temporal upscaling solution can do on older but still-popular hardware such as NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1060? You can certainly try thanks to FSR 2.0’s broad level of support, but you might want to prepare yourself for some level of disappointment based on a chart shared by AMD that lists the technology’s optimal starting-level hardware. The chart suggests that FSR 2.0 is not really designed to run on anything lower than Radeon RX 6500 XT, Radeon RX 590, GeForce GTX 16 Series, and GeForce GTX 1070 graphics cards, all of which have been tested to provide a good upscaling experience for 1080p screens at the very least. FSR 2.0 is a new iteration of the technology that improves upon its predecessor with temporal rather than spatial upscaling, a solution that’s more demanding on GPUs.
Performance and Hardware Support
| Target Upscaling Resolution | AMD Graphics Cards | NVIDIA Graphics Cards |
|---|---|---|
| 4K | Radeon RX 6700 XT Radeon RX 5700 (And above) | GeForce RTX 3070 GeForce RTX 2070 (And above) |
| 1440P | Radeon RX 6600 Radeon RX 5600 Radeon RX Vega Series (And above) | GeForce RTX 3060 GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1080 (And above) |
| 1080P | Radeon RX 6500 XT Radeon RX 590 (And above) | GeForce GTX 16 Series GeForce GTX 1070 (And above) |
FSR 2.0 Quality Modes
| FSR 2.0 Quality Mode | Description | Scale factor | Input resolution | Output resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | “Quality” mode provides similar or better than native image quality with a projected significant performance gain. | 1.5x per dimension(2.25x area scale) (67% screen resolution) | 1280 x 720 1706 x 960 2293 x 960 2560 x 1440 | 1920 x 1080 2560 x 1440 3440 x 1440 3840 x 2160 |
| Balanced | “Balanced” mode offers an ideal compromise between image quality and projected performance gains. | 1.7x per dimension(2.89x area scale) (59% screen resolution) | 1129 x 635 1506 x 847 2024 x 847 2259 x 1270 | 1920 x 1080 2560 x 1440 3440 x 1440 3840 x 2160 |
| Performance | “Performance” mode provides image quality similar to native image quality with a projected major performance gain. | 2.0x per dimension(4x area scale) (50% screen resolution) | 960 x 540 1280 x 720 1720 x 720 1920 x 1080 | 1920 x 1080 2560 x 1440 3440 x 1440 3840 x 2160 |
AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 GDC 2022 Announcements (AMD)
FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 is designed to boost framerates in supported games; however, it is fair to say that as FSR 2.0 is an advanced temporal upscaling solution, it will be more demanding on graphics cards than a spatial upscaling solution like FSR 1.0.
That does mean that while FSR 2.0 will support a broad spectrum of hardware, from both AMD and select hardware from our competitors, there are some caveats that gamers need to be aware of when compared to FSR 1.0. To start, though, we do want to say that as an open-source cross-platform solution, we are not placing any constraints on FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 compatibility, and what we are talking about here are recommendations for an optimal experience using the technology.
Noting the above then, for an optimal FSR 2.0 experience, we have some recommendations for the starting level of graphics card for the different target upscaled display resolutions. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that your gaming experience may vary with these hardware suggestions. Depending on your specific system specifications, the system requirements of individual games that support FSR 2.0, and your target resolution, you may be still able to have a good upscaling experience on lower-performing or older GPUs than listed below.