AMD RSR increases FPS in games – this is how it works and this is what gets it

Sebastian Schenzinger

With Radeon Super Resolution (RSR), AMD has implemented a function in the latest release of the Adrenalin Edition software ( for download ) that is intended to significantly improve the gaming experience of owners of an RDNA or RDNA 2 graphics card. RSR is an image upscaling technology based on FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), but implemented at the driver level. This allows significantly higher FPS values ​​to be achieved in almost every game. We explain the requirements for using FSR, how it can be activated and what advantages and disadvantages it has over FSR.

The system must meet these requirements

In order to be able to activate Radeon Super Resolution, the AMD graphics card driver (for download) in version 22.3.1 from March 17th or a newer version must be installed. From this it can be concluded that RSR only works on AMD GPUs, but unfortunately there are other limitations. The function can currently only be activated on AMD Radeon RX 5000 and RX 6000 desktop graphics cards.

This is a big difference from FSR, which offers support for GPUs from AMD, Nvidia and Intel GPUs and even for consoles.

These restrictions on RSR caused a real shitstorm on various online platforms such as Reddit (read the article) . As a result, AMD employee Glen Matthews stated that they were continuing to work on RSR. The Ryzen 6000 APUs should be officially supported from the second quarter and support for older graphics card generations will probably follow in the third quarter.

How to enable Radeon Super Resolution

If the requirements listed above are met, activating RSR is very simple. Open the “AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition” by right-clicking on the desktop in the context menu that opens and switch to the “Gaming” tab. Depending on whether you want to enable RSR for all games or just certain titles, you now have two options. For all games, go to the “Global Graphics” submenu and enable the “Radeon Super Resolution” slider. When you activate it for the first time, brief instructions for the next steps are displayed.

Once you have enabled RSR in the driver, start a game of your choice. In the game options menu, lower the resolution below the native monitor resolution and make sure full screen mode is enabled and the game is not in windowed mode. If you want to check if FSR is active, press “Alt + R” in-game to open the graphics menu. If there is a green tick next to “Upscaling Status” then FSR is working as designed.

Alternatively, you can only activate FSR in individually selected games. All games installed on the system are displayed under the “Gaming” tab in “AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition”. Select the title for which you want to activate RSR. Check the “Radeon Super Resolution” box as described above and reduce the display resolution in full-screen mode in the game.

Advantages and disadvantages of Radeon Super Resolution

Like FSR, RSR is a spatial upscaling technology. This means that the image is rendered at a lower resolution than the native monitor resolution and then upscaled. Because the graphics card only has to calculate the game in a lower resolution, the graphics load drops and you get significantly more frames per second. This makes it possible to play games in high resolution, which usually cause lag, without having to reduce the graphics settings.

Especially with activated ray tracing, which requires a lot of computing power, activating RSR can make the difference between a stuttering orgy and a smooth gaming experience.

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However, one must not forget that a lower resolution offers fewer pixels and therefore less image information. For example, a 2160p resolution delivers four times as many pixels as a 1080p resolution and thus four times as much image content. With spatial upscaling, this missing image information cannot be reconstructed and the upscaled image is therefore worse than with native UHD resolution, but better than with native Full HD resolution.

The decisive advantage of RSR over FSR is quite clear that it can be easily activated in the driver and therefore does not have to be implemented by the game developers. This makes Radeon Super Resolution work on all games running in full screen mode. On the other hand, RSR only works on AMD graphics cards and even here there are currently restrictions on the current RX 5000 and RX 6000 desktop graphics cards.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution will soon receive an update to version 2.0

While the expected increase in performance between the FSR and RSR is almost identical, there are differences in image quality. While RSR upscales every single pixel after the calculation by the game engine, FSR starts at a different point through the implementation in the game. For example, game menus are not scaled up, but are displayed in the native resolution, and various image post-processing effects, such as anti-aliasing, are only executed after upscaling. This is not the case with RSR.

Conclusion: Is it worth activating RSR?

How well the implementation works ultimately depends on the specific game and, above all, on anti-aliasing. In the case of still images, clear differences between the scaled-up image and the native display resolution are noticeable, especially with leaves or hair on game characters, but as soon as we walk through the game world and concentrate on the gameplay, this quickly recedes into the background. Ultimately, every gamer has to decide for themselves whether high image quality or a smooth gaming experience is more important to them.