Free AMD FSR 4.1.1 mod delivers up to 25% higher FPS with new AI-trained upgrade

A community-developed modification for AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 4.1.1 is offering potentially substantial gaming performance improvements without requiring a graphics card upgrade. The project's latest release, dated October 19, introduces a new AI-trained option called lossy2, designed to improve image quality while retaining the speed gains of an earlier version. The free modification changes how FSR processes frames. While AMD's original implementation runs its neural network on every frame, the modified lossy version runs it on alternate frames, reusing and adjusting previous results in between. This reduces the processing workload but can introduce visual artefacts.

According to the developer's benchmarks, the original AMD shaders achieved 97 FPS in Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 4K using the Balanced preset on a Radeon RX 7800 XT under Linux. The new lossy2 version reached 121 FPS, representing an improvement of approximately 25%. An earlier lossy build achieved comparable performance, meaning the latest release primarily targets image quality rather than additional frame-rate gains.

To achieve this, the developer retrained the weights in six of FSR's twelve neural-network layers. The resulting changes reportedly improve the appearance of moving foliage, reduce certain bright visual artefacts and preserve fine details more effectively than the previous lossy implementation. 

The improvement comes with trade-offs. According to the developer's tests, lossy2 responds more slowly to increasing brightness, while some static images and scenes containing heavy film grain may appear less accurate. The new option also lacks dedicated support for FSR's Ultra Performance mode, where it falls back to the earlier lossy implementation.

The project provides downloadable versions for Radeon RX 6000 and RX 7000 graphics cards, alongside a separate package for integrated graphics. However, the modification remains experimental, and the developer explicitly advises against using it in online games or titles with anti-cheat protection.

The reported 25% frame-rate improvement comes from the developer's own benchmark and has not been independently verified. Performance gains may vary depending on the graphics card, game, resolution and settings.