The latest updates to AMD’s GPUOpen graphics driver indicates that FSR 3 may not work on NVIDIA and Intel GPUs. A few lines of code from the patch seem to be related to the working of FSR 3, which combines temporal upscaling and frame interpolation. This might also make you wonder if the next-generation FidelityFX Super Resolution will be available across all games via the driver. That’s highly unlikely.
Temporal upscalers like DLSS 2 and FSR 2 rely highly on in-game motion vectors provided by the game engine. These “object trackers” allow the algorithm to keep track of the on-screen elements from frame to frame to prevent ghosting and shimmering. A driver-side implementation is not feasible as it wouldn’t have access to the in-game motion vectors, resulting in half-baked frames.
However, having some part of the algorithm requiring driver access means that FSR 3 may not work on rival hardware. AMD may still have some fallback options for NVIDIA and Intel cards, but that will likely be inferior to the primary implementation. Team Red integrated AI units (repurposed vector units) into its RDNA 3 graphics architecture for the first time, possibly for this reason.
The second line indicates that developers may be able to set a frame generation ratio, allowing for the interpolation of more than one frame per render. While this is possible, it may lead to artifacts and ghosting. DLSS 3, with its single-frame interpolation, is already prone to such issues.
AMD is yet to provide a concrete launch date for FSR 3. Going by its GDC 2023 presentation, I’d say we’re looking at a late 2023 or possibly even a 2024 release.
