AMD FSR Redstone Launches, Brings Machine Learning-Based Upscaling to Games

AMD has thrown a curveball at high-end gaming with the FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) refresh. Redstone arrived today, along with a new driver for Radeon RX 9000 graphics cards. Redstone is a bundled system made up of four primary components: upscaling, frame creation, ray regeneration, and radiance caching. To improve speed and detail, all four of these employ machine learning models trained on real-world game data.

Upscaling starts with the basics, as games are rendered at lower resolutions, such as 1080p, rather than full 4K. Redstone then rebuilds the image to its full dimensions, which looks so similar to native 4K that it sometimes outperforms it. The effects in Mafia: The Old Country are outstanding, particularly on minor aspects such as ropes and wires. By the end of the year, this will be a simple replacement for prior FSR versions in over 200 titles.

However, frame creation goes a step further by creating additional frames to fill in the gaps between the frames your game is drawing. So one new frame for every actual one you receive essentially doubles your frame rate. The good news is that they’ve gotten it to work without the previous instability; shadows are steady, and fast motion eliminates the flickering that was a problem in previous versions. The developers used genuine gameplay videos to train the model under challenging conditions such as racing games, and the results are astonishing. Expect this feature to appear in at least 30 more titles in the near future.

Ray regeneration cleans up ray-traced effects, which are lines of light that are designed to replicate real-world reflections and shadows but sometimes appear noisy. Redstone begins by collecting less lines of light and then fills in the gaps with a model. The effects in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 are quite spectacular; reflections are crystal clear with sharp edges, and everything happens far faster than with full ray-tracing. This is now only available in Call of Duty, however more games will be released in the near future.

Radiance caching is the final piece of the jigsaw because it deals with indirect light (the way light reflects off walls) and requires all those difficult calculations to be correct. Redstone performs the math at critical sites, then stores and blends them together for less important places. The ultimate effect is fewer calculations and faster rendering, with nice colors and soft shadows. Developers now have the new software kit and can begin integrating it, but the public will have to wait until 2026 to see more games that utilize this feature.

Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K performance mode increases from 26 to 123 fps on an RX 9070 XT, God of War Ragnarok by 2.2 times, and Black Ops 7 by up to 4.7 times. When all of the features are combined, we’re looking at a 3.3-fold increase over straight 4K rendering. Benchmarks have demonstrated that shadows and motion outperform their competitors. RDNA 4 architecture does all processing in hardware, hence any older Radeons will be excluded. If you have FSR 3.1 or 4, the new driver will upgrade you automatically, with no menu tinkering required. Simply switch it on in AMD Software, then enable frame generation for silky smooth gameplay.

NVIDIA’s DLSS had dominated this space for a long, serving as the go-to tool for upscaling, frame insertion, and ray cleanup. Redstone maintains its high level of excellence. Shadows in motion are as good as DLSS, due to testing in F1 25 and Black Ops 7. AMD has bypassed multi-frame generation, opting for one extra frame per genuine frame rather than three.
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