After nearly a year of speculation, AMD has announced that it is bringing its latest generation of AI-powered upscaling technology, FSR 4.1, to its older generations of GPUs, starting with RDNA 3 cards as early as July.
FSR 4.1 launched in March for AMD’s latest GPUs, namely the RX 9070 XT, 9070, and more. Older, but just as capable, RDNA 3 cards such as the RX 7900 XTX, have been stuck on FSR 3, with AMD repeatedly stating that newer hardware in its latest cards enabled the AI upscaling in a way previous architecture couldn’t. That is no longer the case, with AMD’s Jack Huynh stating that the company has done a lot of work to ensure the upscaling suite is optimized for the older hardware. Better still, he says AMD is also planning to release FSR 4.1 on even older RDNA 2 GPUs, such as the one found in the Steam Deck, in early 2027.
This not only enhances older desktop GPUs during a time where the price of PC hardware has increased exponentially, but it also is good news for upcoming RDNA 3 devices, like Valve’s Steam Machine. When it was originally announced, Valve said that the living-room PC would leverage upscaling to support games at 4K, but the reliance on FSR 3 at the time didn’t make that option too enticing given its shortcomings. With FSR 4.1, the same technology that currently underpins Sony’s PSSR 2 on the PlayStation 5 Pro, that is a different discussion entirely.
What might be even more potentially exciting is AMD’s promise to also bring FSR 4.1 to even older RDNA 2 GPUs in early 2027, which includes those found in the Steam Deck. The news also suggests that consoles like the Xbox Series X could start leveraging the latest version of FSR, too, but that would be solely up to developers. And considering recent releases, such as Pragmata, still utilize FSR 1 on both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, there’s no guarantee that they will.
Still, this is great news if you’ve been looking to get more from your existing hardware, and should go a long way to making games look better when being scaled up from lower resolutions. How much performance you’ll be able to claw back at the same time, however, remains to be seen.
