In recent years, graphic optimization in video games has become a key issue for the industry. With the advancement of upscaling technologies such as NVIDIA DLSS or Intel XeSS, AMD has worked on its own solution, known as FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). Now, thanks to a Strategic collaboration between Sony and AMD, the fourth version of this technology has been developed, called FSR4, with the aim of improving the visual experience on the console PlayStation 5 Pro.
One of the most relevant aspects of this advance is that Sony has actively participated in the development of FSR 4 through its Project Amethyst, an initiative aimed at optimizing the use of artificial intelligence in video game graphics. Mark Cerny, lead architect of PS5 Pro, has confirmed in an interview that this collaboration has allowed for significant improvements in the quality of upscaling on the console.
AMD and Sony collaborated on the development of FSR 4
FSR 4 is not only a natural evolution of AMD's rescaling technology, but has been Developed in conjunction with Sony Interactive Entertainment. This collaborative work has allowed the neural network used to improve the sharpness and stability of the games to be optimized for both PC hardware next-generation as well as the PlayStation 5 Pro.
Project Amethyst has been the central pillar of this collaboration, providing the necessary foundations for training artificial intelligence models that allow for better real-time rescaling. The big difference from its previous versions is that FSR 4 incorporates a more advanced approach that uses convolutional neural networks (CNN), reducing quality loss problems in particles and transparencies.
PS5 Pro will have an optimized version of FSR 4 in 2026
Even though Sony has been involved in the development of FSR 4, the implementation on PS5 Pro will not be identical to the PC version. According to Cerny, the console will adapt a variant of this technology integrated with PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR). This upgrade is expected to be available for titles arriving in 2026.
Integrating this technology is not a trivial process, as FSR 4 has been designed to take advantage of dedicated hardware on the new Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards, which use the RDNA 4 architecture. This poses a challenge since the PS5 Pro chip is based on RDNA 2, meaning a special implementation is required to optimize performance without compromising game stability.
To learn more about the characteristics of the For PS5It is important to note that FSR 4, while improving visual quality, will have to be specifically tailored for this console.
FSR 4 improves visual quality at the cost of a slight performance reduction
One of the aspects that has drawn attention to FSR 4 is that it offers a significant improvement in visual quality compared to FSR 3.1, but at the cost of a slight frame rate reductionIn recent tests, it has been observed that using this new version decreases FPS by approximately 8%, although the improvement in sharpness and stability is evident.
This is comparable to NVIDIA's approach to its DLSS technology, where the latest Transformer-based version also sacrifices a small percentage of performance to achieve better image quality.
The future of console graphics with Project Amethyst
Beyond FSR 4, Sony and AMD have made it clear that their partnership has a long-term focus. Project Amethyst not only seeks to improve visual quality on PS5 Pro, but also lays the groundwork for the next generation of consoles, possibly PlayStation 6.
The objective is to develop a More efficient hardware architecture for machine learning, allowing future Sony consoles to take advantage of these advancements even more effectively. This includes not only improvements in upscaling, but also in ray tracing and AI-assisted frame generation.
It's clear that AMD and Sony have firmly committed to artificial intelligence as the future of graphics in video games. The arrival of this technology on PS5 Pro in 2026 will mark a turning point in the industry, offering a new form of visual optimization that will allow players to enjoy titles with better graphic quality without having to upgrade their hardware.
