AMD Remains Quiet on INT8 FSR 4 Support for Older RDNA Graphics Cards

AMD’s reluctance to officially support FSR 4 for non-RDNA 4 graphics cards has raised eyebrows in the gaming community. Despite the increasing demand for broader compatibility, there appears to be no immediate plans for AMD to address this issue.

Evidence shows that AMD’s FSR 4 upscaling technology can indeed be utilized on older RDNA GPUs, including the RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 models. Gamers have discovered workarounds that enable the activation of FSR 4 on both RX 6000 and RX 7000 series graphics cards, often leveraging leaked files. An unintended release of the INT8 DLL file for FSR 4 last year sparked interest as it allowed early adopters to implement the upscaler across more dated hardware.

Comparative analyses between FSR 3.1 and FSR 4.0 on the RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 platforms have highlighted notable improvements in visual quality with FSR 4. Although the INT8 variant of FSR 4 has exhibited some performance setbacks, users can effectively utilize the FSR 4 Performance Mode to approximate the visuals offered by FSR 3.1 while enjoying enhanced graphical fidelity.

Inquiries made by Hardware Unboxed concerning the status of INT8 FSR 4 availability for previous-gen RDNA GPUs yielded a disappointing response from AMD, which stated:

No Updates to Share at this time.

– AMD to HUB

The ambiguity surrounding AMD’s intentions leaves gamers in a state of uncertainty regarding the future of FSR 4 for older architectures. It’s unclear whether AMD simply chooses to withhold the release out of concerns for performance issues or has no plans at all. Additionally, while the noticeable performance overhead of FSR 4 cannot be ignored, a parallel can be drawn with NVIDIA’s approach to DLSS 4.5, which remains available to users of RTX 20 and 30 series graphics cards, allowing them to opt for the latest upscaling technology even on older hardware.

Given that RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 graphics cards inherently lack the native FP8 instructions necessary for the advanced FP8 version of FSR 4, it raises the question: why not make the INT8 version accessible? The growing limitations imposed by AMD’s narrow hardware support are prompting many gamers to turn away from AMD products, especially as NVIDIA continues to make their cutting-edge technologies compatible with a wider array of older devices.

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