AMD has just launched FSR Redstone, a collection of features made of machine-learning-based upscaling and frame generation, along with two other components—Ray Regeneration and Radiance Caching—that aim to improve ray tracing quality and performance. FSR Redstone looks promising, but not all’s rosy.
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What is AMD FSR Redstone?
AMD FSR Redstone is a suite of four features that aim to improve performance, image quality, and ray-traced visuals in video games. They all have one thing in common: they’re all machine-learning-based. The four components of FSR Redstone are:
- FSR Upscaling
- FSR Frame Generation
- FSR Ray Regeneration
- FSR Radiance Caching
FSR Upscaling
FSR Upscaling is simply a rebranding of FSR 4. Aside from the name, nothing’s changed; this is still machine-learning-based FSR 4 upscaling, which has been around since the release of RDNA 4 GPUs. Quality-wise, it’s sitting between DLSS 3 and DLSS 4.
FSR Frame Generation
FSR Frame Generation uses machine learning networks for optical flow processing and motion vector reprojection to generate “fake” frames and insert them in-between rendered frames.
The end result is much higher image quality and temporal stability compared to FSR 3.1 frame generation. In a nutshell, FSR Redstone Frame Generation uses the same technology as NVIDIA’s DLSS Frame Generation and aims for a similar level of image quality and temporal stability.
FSR Ray Regeneration
FSR Ray Regeneration is an equivalent tech to NVIDIA’s Ray Reconstruction. Games that incorporate ray tracing effects usually use fewer than one ray of light per pixel to generate them, resulting in a grainy, noisy image because not all pixels on the screen interact with rays.
FSR Ray Regeneration is a bespoke denoiser designed to work with RDNA 4 GPUs. It takes the base, noisy image, processes it and “cleans” the noise, improving the image quality and resolution of ray tracing effects.
At the moment, RDNA 4 GPUs use default denoisers available in games, which don’t offer the same level of quality as FSR Ray Regeneration. But from now on, developers can implement both FSR Ray Regeneration and DLSS Ray Reconstruction for improved ray-traced image quality on AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.
FSR Radiance Caching
Lastly, we’ve got FSR Radiance Caching, a technology that aims to improve gaming performance when ray tracing or path tracing is enabled. Radiance Caching uses ray-tracing data in a scene to generate fine lighting detail, allowing games to use fewer rays to create ray-traced and path-traced effects, improving overall performance.
While the FSR Redstone SDK (software development kit) includes all four components, game developers don’t have to include every FSR component in their games. They can mix and match them at their discretion. Some games will only include one or two components, while others can incorporate the full suite of FSR Redstone features.
FSR Redstone Game Support
As of writing this, over 200 games support FSR Upscaling (FSR 4), either in-game or via driver override. Not too shabby, even if we account for the fact that FSR 4 has been around since early 2025. As for FSR Frame Generation, there are over 30 games that support it. Again, not bad considering it’s just launched.
FSR Ray Regeneration is only available in Black Ops 7 and you won’t see FSR Radiance Caching before 2026.
You can see the full list of supported games over on AMD’s website.
Overall, these are not disappointing numbers by any means. While AMD was a bit slow to increase the number of games that support FSR 4 after it launched, I can say that the current situation’s fine.
FSR Redstone looks excellent, but it’s got teething issues
FSR Upscaling is FSR 4, just with a different name, so it offers the same image quality as FSR 4. In other words, FSR Upscaling is an excellent machine-learning-based upscaling technique that beats DLSS 3 but still lags behind DLSS 4.
I’ve been using it extensively ever since I got my RX 9070 XT and can confirm that it’s indeed a very capable upscaler, better than DLSS 3. You can check out Digital Foundry’s FSR 4 review below to see just how good it looks in motion.
FSR Redstone Frame Generation aims to match NVIDIA’s DLSS Frame Generation, and provide a much more capable frame generation solution than FSR 3.1 Frame Generation. I tested the machine-learning version of FSR Frame Generation on an RX 9070 XT GPU against FSR 3.1 Frame Generation in two games: Black Myth: Wukong and Hogwarts Legacy.
For the purposes of the test, I disabled motion blur and other post-processing effects and limited the frame rate to 20 FPS to make it harder for frame generation algorithms to create fake frames and to make frame generation artifacts more pronounced.
FSR 3.1 Frame Generation screenshots are on the left, while the FSR Redstone Frame Generation screenshots are on the right.
FSR 3.1 vs. FSR Redstone Frame Generation in Hogwarts Legacy
In Hogwarts Legacy, FSR 3.1 Frame Generation makes my character a garbled mess. His hands are distorted beyond any recognition, and the algorithm fused part of his torso with the background, creating a rather unsettling sight.
FSR Redstone Frame Generation also has the usual frame-generation artifacts and blurriness, but they are drastically less pronounced. You can now actually recognize the character’s arms, and while it’s all very blurry, the algorithm reproduced his body rather accurately.
FSR 3.1 vs. FSR Redstone Frame Generation in Black Myth: Wukong
In Black Myth: Wukong, FSR Redstone Frame Generation takes another decisive win. The FSR 3.1 Frame Generation algorithm didn’t even manage to reconstruct the playable character. You’ve got some hints that someone, or something, is there, but the better part of the character’s body is missing, and you cannot see his cane at all.
The ML-based FSR Redstone Frame Generation algorithm did a much better job. The character is still very blurry, but at least now you can see there’s an actual person in the image and that he’s swinging a massive cane.
Overall, FSR Redstone Frame Generation looks much better than FSR 3.1 Frame Generation. That said, the differences are much less pronounced when you play games with a base frame rate of 60 FPS or higher, with frame generation doubling the perceived frame rate to at least 120 FPS.
I’ve played a few games with FSR 3.1 Frame Generation enabled with an average frame rate of 100FPS or higher, and, honestly, I didn’t notice the frame gen artifacts. However, it is clear from the screenshots above that AMD’s new machine learning-based frame generation tech is a massive step-up over FSR 3.1.
While it looks better than FSR 3.1 Frame Generation, FSR Redstone Frame Generation does suffer from some teething issues. Namely, similar to the FSR 3.1 frame gen tech, FSR Redstone Frame Generation suffers from uneven frame pacing.
Instead of inserting generated frames at the middle point between rendered frames, FSR Redstone Frame Generation places them at uneven intervals. This manifests as stuttering when you play a game with FSR Redstone Frame Generation enabled, with stuttering becoming more pronounced as the frame rate increases.
Now, I cannot show this with static content, so I’ll leave you with Hardware Unboxed’s FSR Redstone review to see what I’m talking about. The video also includes image quality comparisons with DLSS Frame Generation, showing that AMD’s ML-based frame generation tech is as good as NVIDIA’s.
DLSS Frame Generation had suffered from similar issues at release, but NVIDIA remedied them with updates, so I hope AMD will do the same. Other than the uneven frame pacing, FSR Redstone Frame Generation looks great in motion.
FSR Redstone Ray Regeneration is only available in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 at the moment. Since I don’t own an NVIDIA GPU, I couldn’t test how it stacks against NVIDIA Ray Reconstruction, so I’m sharing Digital Foundry’s excellent FSR Redstone Ray Regeneration review below, which compares the two denoisers in great detail.
Lastly, FSR Redstone Radiance Caching is currently only available to developers, so I couldn’t test it.
Making FSR Redstone RDNA 4 exclusive is a kick in the gut for RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 GPU owners
While FSR Redstone looks very promising, it’s limited to RDNA 4 graphics cards. If you own an AMD RDNA 2 or RDNA 3 GPU—the RX 6000 and RX 7000 series, respectively—you won’t be able to use any of the features that are part of the suite.
While I’m fine with machine-learning frame generation, ray regeneration, and radiance caching not being available on older cards because they require hardware found only in RX 9000 GPUs, deciding not to release the INT8 version of FSR 4—the one that leaked months ago—is a clear anti-consumer move by AMD.
The INT8 version of FSR 4 doesn’t look as good as its ML-based counterpart, and it doesn’t provide as big a performance bump as FSR 3.1 and older versions on RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 graphics cards. However, it does look much better than FSR 3.1, and offers a solid performance improvement, as many RDNA 2 and 3 GPU owners who’ve been using the feature via OptiScaler can attest.
Personally, I’ve been using it in some games on my PC handhelds, and I can confirm that it looks much better than FSR 3.1, even on compact handheld screens, while offering a serviceable performance boost.
For instance, in The Outer Worlds 2, I injected INT8 FSR 4 with OptiScaler, set it to “Balanced”, and got notably better image quality and pretty much the same level of performance as with FSR 3 set to the “Quality” preset. This allowed me to play the game at 900p with the same level of performance and much higher image quality than what’s available by default, but I had to use a third-party solution that many RDNA 2 and 3 GPU owners don’t know about.
Considering how many PC gamers own RDNA 2 or RDNA 3 GPUs, especially when you include PC handhelds such as the Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally, this means millions of gamers will have to improvise and use unofficial tools to inject INT8 FSR 4 into games, which may not work in every title, instead of having access to an official implementation from AMD.
AMD should’ve officially released INT8 FSR 4 as part of the FSR Redstone suite. It would’ve been seen as a very classy move and would have given the company a lot of goodwill among PC gamers, especially owners of AMD graphics cards.
But it didn’t, which is very unfortunate considering that the company’s public perception went down the drain after it had announced it would stop actively supporting its RDNA and RDNA 2 GPUs just a few months ago. AMD quickly walked back the changes after the initial backlash, but its reputation has suffered—and I reckon it’ll suffer further now that it’s clear INT8 FSR 4 will never officially release.
While it has frame pacing issues, FSR Redstone Frame Generation looks much better than FSR 3.1 Frame Generation, and FSR Ray Regeneration holds its ground against DLSS Ray Reconstruction. FSR Upscaling, formerly known as FSR 4, looks great as well, and I hope that Radiance Caching will improve RDNA 4 ray tracing and path tracing performance, bringing them in line with what their NVIDIA counterparts are capable of.
Aside from the frame generation frame pacing issues, the only disappointment with AMD Redstone is that the company didn’t release the INT8 version of FSR 4, which is very bad news for RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 graphics card owners and a deeply disappointing move by AMD.
