Digital Foundry simulated how the leaked AMD FSR 4 Xbox Series X-compatible INT8 version would perform on consoles. This new version offers a significant potential advantage in frame rate and image quality, especially in certain scenarios. Let’s examine the results of this simulation using the active framework.

AMD FSR 4 Xbox Series X Compatibility and Differences

The official version of FSR 4 uses the FP8 format, which doesn’t support older RDNA architectures. However, the leaked INT8 version is compatible with the RDNA 2 GPUs found in the AMD FSR 4 Xbox Series X console. This compatibility allows access to the technology on a wider range of hardware. Therefore, AMD chose FP8, which offers greater dynamic range and stability.

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In terms of quality, the INT8 version contains ghosting (aliasing) and temporal artifacts compared to the official FP8 version. However, FSR 4 INT8 offers significantly superior image upscaling quality compared to the previous-generation FSR 3. Therefore, there’s significant upgrade potential for players using FSR 3.

In terms of performance, FSR 4 INT8 is unfortunately slower than FSR 3 and Intel XeSS. For example, it only offers a 28% performance increase in Performance mode compared to 4K native resolution, while FSR 3 Performance mode offered a 29% faster boost.

Most notably, Digital Foundry ran a test of the Alan Wake 2 benchmark using Xbox Series X-like settings. In this test, FSR 4 Performance mode outperformed FSR 2 Balanced mode by approximately 4% in frame rate. Despite upscaling from a lower base resolution, it still delivered a cleaner image.

These results suggest a potential benefit for the Xbox Series X in some scenarios, as the console boasts a full RDNA 2 feature set and INT8 support.

Since PlayStation 5 consoles don’t offer INT8 support, it’s not expected that most multiplatform games will utilize the FSR 4 INT8 feature. Looking ahead, AMD has stated that it will release further updates for FSR 4 in the fall. This means that performance-boosting improvements could be coming for RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 hardware.

So, what are your thoughts on this potential advantage of AMD FSR 4 for the Xbox Series X? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!