Introduction

This is our fifth review of a FSR 2.0 community mod. In previous reviews we covered Cyberpunk 2077, Dying Light 2, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, and Red Dead Redemption 2—the modders continue to improve games before developers even release their patches. Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is the next AAA-game to receive FSR 2.0 support through a community mod. The way this mod works is by replacing the NVIDIA DLSS DLL that resides in the game folder with a customized DLL. The new DLL takes the various DLSS-specific API calls and translates them into the calls FSR 2.0 needs. FSR 2.0 and DLSS 2.0 are very similar in nature, so this translation process is relatively easy. Theoretically, this method is compatible with all games supporting DLSS, but some manual per-game adjustments are needed. Just to clarify, Eidos-Montréal has not added official FSR 2.0 support to the game, and we do not know if they ever will. What we are reviewing today is the community patch to replace DLSS with FSR 2.0.



How to install the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 Mod for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (download link):

• Extract the .reg files and run EnableSignatureOverride.reg, which may require admin permission. The directory these are extracted to does not matter.
• Extract all files to Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy\bin so it is next to nvngx_dlss.dll and gotg.exe.
• Launch the game, open the graphics options, and enable the "DLSS" setting.
• The game will now run with FSR 2.0.

Below, you will find comparison screenshots at 4K, 1440p, 1080p, and in different FSR 1.0, FSR 2.0, and DLSS quality modes. For those who want to see how DLSS, FSR 1.0, and FSR 2.0 perform in motion, watch our side-by-side comparison video. The video can help uncover issues like shimmering or temporal instability, which are not visible in the screenshots.

All tests were made using a GeForce RTX 3080 GPU at Ultra graphics settings with ray tracing enabled; motion blur and depth of field were disabled for better image viewing. DLSS was manually updated to version 2.4.3 by swapping the DLL file.

Screenshots

Side-by-Side Comparison Video

Conclusion

In Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, all upscaling solutions are implemented with a separate sharpening slider in the settings menu, and this time around, we set the sharpening filter to zero for FSR 1.0, FSR 2.0, and DLSS 2.4. Even though sharpening filter values are the same across all available upscaling solutions, the FSR 1.0 image looks more sharpened because the FSR 1.0 sharpening implementation uses incorrect values in the render path. Even setting it to zero in the menu will have it apply some level of the sharpening filter in the render path.

Compared to FSR 1.0, FSR 2.0 image quality is a very noticeable upgrade at a slight performance cost. We didn't test the FSR 1.0 implementation in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy when it was released, but in the current state of the game, image quality with it enabled is pretty underwhelming because of incorrect sharpening filter values, excessive shimmering on the whole image at lower resolutions, and a very blurry overall image across all modes except 1440p and 4K Ultra Quality/Quality mode. All of these issues with FSR 1.0 were resolved with this unofficial FSR 2.0 community patch. You might still see the shimmering at very low internal resolutions; 1080p performance mode, for example. But other than that, shimmering issues were greatly reduced.

However, as this mod is not an official implementation, it has some issues FSR 1.0 and DLSS 2.4 do not. The most noticeable of those with this FSR 2.0 mod is excessive ghosting on NPCs at medium and far distances, small neon signs, and player ship while moving quickly. The level of these ghosting issues is similar to DLSS 2.1. In some scenarios, it may even look like smearing, which most people will find quite distracting. Just like in other games we tested, the FSR 2.0 mod conflicts with in-game motion blur, creating black borders around the image as if squinting, so we recommend turning motion blur off. The ray tracing features, like reflections, are working as intended with the FSR 2.0 mod applied.

Compared to DLSS 2.4, FSR 2.0 provides a similar level of image quality if we exclude the few issues we described earlier, which may of course be fixed in the future. FSR 2.0 eliminates excessive shimmering in comparison to FSR 1.0, small details in the distance are rendered more correctly and completely, and the image is less blurry and oversharpened at lower resolutions. The most noticeable difference between FSR 1.0 and FSR 2.0 is at lower resolutions. In Quality mode, FSR 2.0 delivers similar performance and drastically better image quality while running at lower internal resolution compared to FSR 1.0 Ultra Quality mode. Performance-wise, FSR 2.0 works at a slight performance cost in comparison to FSR 1.0 internal resolutions, and compared to DLSS 2.4 in this game, FSR 2.0 basically works identically to DLSS 2.4 in terms of performance gains across all resolutions.