AMD brings FSR 4.1 to Radeon RX 6000 and, soon, to Xbox
AI upscaling comes to 2020 cards with driver 26.10.1; on Xbox consoles it will arrive "soon," with no date.
AMD has brought FSR 4.1, its machine-learning image upscaling, to Radeon RX 6000 cards, which launched in 2020. AMD's announcement on Oct. 20 says the feature already ships in the Adrenalin 26.10.1 driver.
It also covers Ryzen AI Max processors, laptops with Ryzen AI 9 and handhelds with Ryzen Z2 Extreme and Z2 A, such as the ROG Xbox Ally X. For these chips, AMD built a lighter version of the AI model, meant for less powerful devices.
The Xbox Series X|S are the piece of most interest to console players. Scott Van Vliet, Xbox's chief technology officer, confirmed in the announcement video that FSR 4.1 will arrive on those consoles "soon." There is no date or list of games, and some reports describe it as already available when it is not.
What changes for an RX 6000
Until now, an RX 6000 could only use FSR 3.1. Jack Huynh, AMD's senior vice president, introduced the change on X with a video. In his demo, an RX 6800 XT ran Crimson Desert at 4K Ultra at 95 frames per second with FSR 3.1 and 101 with FSR 4.1. Those are AMD's numbers, with no independent testing yet.
RX 6000 cards have no dedicated AI hardware, so the model runs on the shader cores. AMD adapted the version it had already made for the RX 7000, which got FSR 4.1 in July. Based on schedules published earlier, the RX 6000 was supposed to wait until early 2027.
Anyone using FSR 4 on an RX 6000 relied on unofficial mods such as OptiScaler. Now the route is official, though each game has to integrate the SDK to take advantage of it.
AMD also announced FSR 4 support for Vulkan and frame-pacing improvements in frame generation. Its announcement gives no date for either, and it notes that on handhelds, timing depends on each manufacturer.
