PlayStation 5 Pro to Receive FSR 4-Based Upscaling Technology in 2026

[AleksandarK]

Sony has confirmed plans to implement an advanced AI upscaling solution for PlayStation 5 Pro in 2026, based on AMD's newly released FSR 4 technology. PlayStation lead architect Mark Cerny revealed to EuroGamer that the next evolution of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) will leverage the neural network architecture co-developed with AMD through Project Amethyst. "Our target is to have something very similar to FSR 4's upscaler available on PS5 Pro for 2026 titles as the next evolution of PSSR," Cerny stated. This implementation aims to maintain compatibility with existing frameworks while delivering significantly enhanced image quality. The collaborative initiative between Sony and AMD, which began in late 2023, has already yielded measurable results. FSR 4 represents the first tangible output from Project Amethyst, with Cerny noting that the technology "can exceed the crispness of PSSR" currently deployed on PS5 Pro hardware.

Sony's PS5 Pro features custom ML hardware delivering 300 8-bit TOPS of computing power without sparsity, which Cerny believes will be sufficient to handle the computational demands of the new upscaling algorithm. While the reimplementation process is described as "ambitious and time-consuming," the underlying architecture appears capable of supporting the technology without significant modifications. For 2025, Sony's priority remains to encourage developers to integrate the current PSSR technology into their titles while the enhanced version undergoes development. Cerny indicated that console-specific optimizations will be necessary, as "technical targets for console game development and PC game development tend to be slightly different," particularly regarding frame rate consistency. Project Amethyst extends beyond upscaling technology, with indications that ray tracing enhancements may also be part of the collaboration. The partnership aims to establish a hardware architecture optimized for machine learning in graphics processing, giving us a hint of what the future hardware will be like.



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[ZoneDymo]

hey if its not too heavy, then yeah, seems obvious

 

[dir_d]

Will microsoft come along and declare this too with their next console? It would be nice to see FSR4 adopted by both major consoles that would put FSR4's marketshare pretty high in the future.

 

[mrnagant]

Isn't PSSR supposed to be better than FSR2?

Is PSSR is a spatial upscaler than? I had just assumed it was ML based.

 

[Vya Domus]

Isn't PSSR supposed to be better than FSR2?

Is PSSR is a spatial upscaler than? I had just assumed it was ML based.

None of these are spatial upscalers, they all have a temporal component, apparently PSSR is just not that great.

 

[remekra]

Isn't PSSR supposed to be better than FSR2?

Is PSSR is a spatial upscaler than? I had just assumed it was ML based.

Both are temporal and both use ML. It's just that FSR4 is better.

BTW
There is already new release of Optiscaler which allows to mod in FSR4 and the result is staggering:

 

[Event Horizon]

I am glad that I was proven wrong about FSR 4. I prefer it to DLSS 3.x and even 4's Transformer mode in some cases. It's been a very pleasant surprise.

 

[Visible Noise]

RDNA 3 owners still left out in the cold.

 

[tpa-pr]

Now this is interesting, because the PS5 is based on older RDNA technology is it not? So hopefully that means FSR4 can and will be backported to RDNA3 at least.

 

[wNotyarD]

Now this is interesting, because the PS5 is based on older RDNA technology is it not? So hopefully that means FSR4 can and will be backported to RDNA3 at least.

I first thought it was RDNA3.5. After a little googling, turns out it is RDNA3. I hope it's just a matter of time until it's ported to the 7000-series Radeons (and knowing how marketing goes, sales on the 9000-series must go cold before that happening).

 

[cinemaware]

I am glad that I was proven wrong about FSR 4. I prefer it to DLSS 3.x and even 4's Transformer mode in some cases. It's been a very pleasant surprise.

You mean you already have a 9070 and a Blackwell card? Lucky man

@remekra Optiscaler looks very interesting, thanks for the heads up.

 

[Event Horizon]

You mean you already have a 9070 and a Blackwell card? Lucky man

@remekra Optiscaler looks very interesting, thanks for the heads up.

Just a 9070 and my previous Ampere card. Transformer DLSS is usable on 2000 series and onwards.

 

[chrcoluk]

Will microsoft come along and declare this too with their next console? It would be nice to see FSR4 adopted by both major consoles that would put FSR4's marketshare pretty high in the future.

Its probably a given at this point.

Both are temporal and both use ML. It's just that FSR4 is better.

BTW
There is already new release of Optiscaler which allows to mod in FSR4 and the result is staggering:

Im guessing they showcasing performance instead of quality as quality wasnt as bad with the shimmer on FSR3? So it highlights the benefits better as that shimmering is really bad.

 

[remekra]

I first thought it was RDNA3.5. After a little googling, turns out it is RDNA3. I hope it's just a matter of time until it's ported to the 7000-series Radeons (and knowing how marketing goes, sales on the 9000-series must go cold before that happening).

It's actually RDNA2 regarding it's shaders and instructions, but it got RT from RDNA4 and custom ML hardware different even from the one from RDNA4.

As for backporting it to RDNA3, there is a whitepaper on what FSR4 is based on, would need to find a link but short version is that it's a hybrid CNN and Transformer model, image first goes through CNN and then after that through Transformer model. RDNA3 with it's AI Accelerators and instructions that it has would be able to run the CNN part of the model but not the Transformer model (RDNA3 doesn't support FP8), but they have developed it so that it can be split. There will be a loss of quality compared to full hybrid but it still will be better than FSR3.
Question is when they will implement it.

Its probably a given at this point.


Im guessing they showcasing performance instead of quality as quality wasnt as bad with the shimmer on FSR3? So it highlights the benefits better as that shimmering is really bad.

Here is a comparison between FSR3 Quality and FSR4 performance:

They really knocked it out of the park with FSR4, I thought they would maybe be a little worse than DLSS3, or something on a level of DLSS2 but it's far better than that.
It's a shame they didn't release a xx80 class card, would have bought it instead of 5080 but well I hope with UDNA they will and I would gladly switch.

 

[Rightness_1]

At this point, it's best to wait 2 years for the PS6.

 

[chrcoluk]

It's actually RDNA2 regarding it's shaders and instructions, but it got RT from RDNA4 and custom ML hardware different even from the one from RDNA4.

As for backporting it to RDNA3, there is a whitepaper on what FSR4 is based on, would need to find a link but short version is that it's a hybrid CNN and Transformer model, image first goes through CNN and then after that through Transformer model. RDNA3 with it's AI Accelerators and instructions that it has would be able to run the CNN part of the model but not the Transformer model (RDNA3 doesn't support FP8), but they have developed it so that it can be split. There will be a loss of quality compared to full hybrid but it still will be better than FSR3.
Question is when they will implement it.



Here is a comparison between FSR3 Quality and FSR4 performance:

They really knocked it out of the park with FSR4, I thought they would maybe be a little worse than DLSS3, or something on a level of DLSS2 but it's far better than that.
It's a shame they didn't release a xx80 class card, would have bought it instead of 5080 but well I hope with UDNA they will and I would gladly switch.

What I want is FSR3 quality vs FSR 4 quality. Same with DLSS which was also compared on performance. Although I can see even FSR3 quality is a mess without the FSR 4 next to it.

 

[remekra]

What I want is FSR3 quality vs FSR 4 quality. Same with DLSS which was also compared on performance. Although I can see even FSR3 quality is a mess without the FSR 4 next to it.

Well you can basically use FSR4 on perf and still get better results than FSR3. In Quality mode it will only improve.