AMD FSR 4 Upscaling May Be Officially Coming To The Steam Deck

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One of the few ways that we can push games on the Steam Deck is through upscaling. Whether it be the built-in FSR 1 from SteamOS or using FSR 3 or XeSS in-game, it gives us a way to push performance on the Deck. Upscaling allows a game to render at a lower resolution, then use an algorithm to make the image look like it’s a higher resolution. It’s not perfect, but it can be very helpful. And today, we got some exciting news that might be bringing the newest version of FSR upscaling to the Steam Deck.

Today, Jack Huynh, the senior VP and GM at AMD, posted on Twitter/X, announcing that they are bringing FSR 4 upscaling to older GPU architectures (RDNA 3 and RDNA 2). RDNA 3 compatible FSR 4.1 will be available in July, while RDNA 2 compatible FSR 4.1 will be available early next year. Before this, FSR 4 was locked to the newer architecture of GPUs, RDNA 4, and that was because this AI upscaler used FP8 to quickly upscale at a higher quality. This result in a better looking image, and it really makes a difference from FSR 3, but it was only officially available for newer cards.

With the Steam Deck using the RDNA 2 architecture in its GPU, we didn’t get the benefits of using FSR 4 before. But with this change, we might. The only thing stopping me from being super excited is that in the video, Jack specifically mentions 6000 and 7000 series GPUs. He does talk about the older architectures, but specifically shows GPU series cards and mentions that they are coming to 6000/7000 series GPUs. I do still have some hope, because at the beginning of this video, they show handheld PCs like the ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go. Neither of these is the Steam Deck, but neither of them uses 7000 series GPUs. So, I do have some hope that it may be available across the board. And if that’s the case, we will be able to get FSR 4 officially on our Steam Decks early next year.

Now there are ways to get FSR 4 on our older GPU architectures, and that includes the Steam Deck, by injecting it using Optiscaler, but it comes at a cost. Because this is a heavier, upscaling algorithm, it does hurt performance. Hopefully, with it officially coming to older architectures, that cost will be negated to some degree. There may also be an easier or official way to put FSR 4 in our games, instead of the current way, or developers can put it directly in their games, and we will be able to select it.

Regardless, this is a fantastic development, and I really hope that this is a sign that better upscaling options will be officially available on the Steam Deck soon.

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