News AMD Pinky Promises FidelityFX Super Resolution Is Still on Track for 2021 Debut

[Admin]

AMD's Scott Herkelman said the company's answer to Nvidia DLSS, FidelityFX Super Resolution, should debut this year.

AMD Pinky Promises FidelityFX Super Resolution Is Still on Track for 2021 Debut : Read more

 

[hannibal]

Interesting...
This could be good!

Options are, we have Nvidia sponsored games with Nvidia dlls, we would have AMD sponsored games with super resolution and Intel sponsored games having some other upscaling option...

Or we could have common api to all upscale solutions...
We need this, or we will have very segmented market... again!
Then it would be just about who makes that api work better, and faster than two other competitors. Instead of having three separate systems that only work with one manufacturer...

 

[spongiemaster]

I'd prefer a better solution to a universally available inferior technique. DLSS 2.0 is supposed to be relatively simple for developers to implement, and Nvidia undoubtedly helps them through the process. If FidelityFX is a completely software driven hardware agnostic technique, I don't see how it will perform as well as DLSS 2.0 or any upcoming newer version.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Or we could have common api to all upscale solutions...
We need this, or we will have very segmented market... again!
Then it would be just about who makes that api work better, and faster than two other competitors. Instead of having three separate systems that only work with one manufacturer...

There isn't going to be an API for upscaling solutions because said solutions are implementation details. API does not define implementation details.

I'd prefer a better solution to a universally available inferior technique. DLSS 2.0 is supposed to be relatively simple for developers to implement, and Nvidia undoubtedly helps them through the process. If FidelityFX is a completely software driven hardware agnostic technique, I don't see how it will perform as well as DLSS 2.0 or any upcoming newer version.

The name of the feature itself to me implies it's using super resolution imaging. Though honestly, the only thing I'm taking issue with now is AMD appears to be branding things that are essentially open or have existed like they came up with it or something. Adaptive syncing was already a thing. PCIe resizable BAR was already a thing. And if it's more or less true that FidelityFX Super Resolution is simply a super resolution imaging technique, then well, time to add that to the list.

 

[husker]

"AMD Radeon CVP and GM Scott Herkelman said in a video interview with PCWorld that FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), the company's response to Nvidia DLSS, is "progressing very well internally" and that he believes it could debut later this year. "

Hmmm... not really that positive of a comment. It's only March and AMD is saying it could debut this year. That's the same as saying it possibly could not debut this year. But since I won't be able to find a RX6800 or 6900 till next year anyway, I guess it's a mute point.

 

[salgado18]

There isn't going to be an API for upscaling solutions because said solutions are implementation details. API does not define implementation details.

The name of the feature itself to me implies it's using super resolution imaging. Though honestly, the only thing I'm taking issue with now is AMD appears to be branding things that are essentially open or have existed like they came up with it or something. Adaptive syncing was already a thing. PCIe resizable BAR was already a thing. And if it's more or less true that FidelityFX Super Resolution is simply a super resolution imaging technique, then well, time to add that to the list.

By "was already a thing" you mean "the spec existed, but AMD made the first practical implementation"? Because there were no products with Adaptive sync or PCIe resizable BAR before AMD made them. Even Nvidia is now supporting Adaptive Sync.

I agree that proprietary solutions give better results, but they are not good for consumers in general. I won't even mention PhysX again, just consider that you needed a GeForce card and a G-sync monitor to make it work, and now you can get any card and almost any monitor.

Proprietary is only good in the company's perspective, as it profits from the monopoly of technology. And, as a monopoly, it can price whatever it wants. It is never good for the consumer.

 

[hotaru.hino]

By "was already a thing" you mean "the spec existed, but AMD made the first practical implementation"? Because there were no products with Adaptive sync or PCIe resizable BAR before AMD made them. Even Nvidia is now supporting Adaptive Sync.

Well here's a counterpoint to what I feel AMD is doing. NVIDIA funded the research for FXAA. I don't see NVIDIA's branding on it anywhere nor did NVIDIA try make it seem like the own the algorithm.

I mean it's cool and all that AMD pushed for something to be done with it. But I feel it's a slap in the face to call it "open" when you repackage it and put your own branding on it.

I agree that proprietary solutions give better results, but they are not good for consumers in general. I won't even mention PhysX again, just consider that you needed a GeForce card and a G-sync monitor to make it work, and now you can get any card and almost any monitor.

Proprietary is only good in the company's perspective, as it profits from the monopoly of technology. And, as a monopoly, it can price whatever it wants. It is never good for the consumer.

And I'm not saying it is or isn't. However, I'm not a fan of a company putting their mark on something they didn't actually invent in order to win points.

 

[mitch074]

Well here's a counterpoint to what I feel AMD is doing. NVIDIA funded the research for FXAA. I don't see NVIDIA's branding on it anywhere nor did NVIDIA try make it seem like the own the algorithm.

I mean it's cool and all that AMD pushed for something to be done with it. But I feel it's a slap in the face to call it "open" when you repackage it and put your own branding on it.


And I'm not saying it is or isn't. However, I'm not a fan of a company putting their mark on something they didn't actually invent in order to win points.

They may not have invented it, but they were the first to actually make it work. Intel and Nvidia never bothered until AMD rubbed their nose in it.

 

[spongiemaster]

I agree that proprietary solutions give better results, but they are not good for consumers in general. I won't even mention PhysX again, just consider that you needed a GeForce card and a G-sync monitor to make it work, and now you can get any card and almost any monitor.

Proprietary is only good in the company's perspective, as it profits from the monopoly of technology. And, as a monopoly, it can price whatever it wants. It is never good for the consumer.

Why do you need a G-sync monitor for PhysX? G-sync didn't even exist when Nvidia acquired PhysX.

Nvidia isn't making money directly from DLSS. The development costs are rolled into the cost of the video card just like the development cost for AMD's FidelityFX will be rolled into the cost of their GPU's. Don't think because FidelityFX is supposed to be open that that makes it free to anyone buying an AMD card. You're still paying for their development costs. Their is no licensing fee for developers to use DLSS. The only money Nvidia makes off of it is from customers buying their GPU's because they want the feature.

 

[salgado18]

Why do you need a G-sync monitor for PhysX? G-sync didn't even exist when Nvidia acquired PhysX.

I'm not linking the two like that. I mean PhysX is a great physics simulation tech that was always locked to Nvidia GPUs, and because of that it never got used as a game tool, only as a special effects gimmick. Consumers lost a lot all those years because of it (no game could be heavily based on PhysX, risking locking the game to one GPU manufacturer, because CPUs can't handle the load properly).

Nvidia isn't making money directly from DLSS. The development costs are rolled into the cost of the video card just like the development cost for AMD's FidelityFX will be rolled into the cost of their GPU's. Don't think because FidelityFX is supposed to be open that that makes it free to anyone buying an AMD card. You're still paying for their development costs. Their is no licensing fee for developers to use DLSS. The only money Nvidia makes off of it is from customers buying their GPU's because they want the feature.

They are making money out of DLSS. Their cards double performance with it, AMD cards don't because they don't support it. This is fine from the company's perspective, and I think it is natural, but it's not good for consumers, because only one vendor does it, which is a monopoly, which lets the company price it however it likes.

Want a pro-consumer idea? Make DLSS open. It still needs hardware that AMD doesn't have, but it is not locked to Nvidia anymore. RX 6000 could have the hardware to do it, and then it would be able to compete on the implementation front (like it is one generation behind in RT performance), but I could get an RX 6800 and use some sort of DLSS with it. Nvidia would be better? Sure, but then devs wouldn't need to implement two solutions, consumers wouldn't be locked out of inovation, every game could have it (imagine only AMD cards had anti-aliasing, how would that feel?).

Again, it makes sense from the company perspective, but it's bad for consumers. Open technology, proprietary implementation, that's good.

 

[spongiemaster]

I'm not linking the two like that. I mean PhysX is a great physics simulation tech that was always locked to Nvidia GPUs, and because of that it never got used as a game tool, only as a special effects gimmick. Consumers lost a lot all those years because of it (no game could be heavily based on PhysX, risking locking the game to one GPU manufacturer, because CPUs can't handle the load properly).

PhysX has been open source for a few years now. It's never caught on because it doesn't bring much to games. The technology is 20 years old now, it's not like Nvidia bought a universally loved tech and then ruined it. It was never popular. The implementation required too much work by developers for something that was never going to sell games. Advance physics modeling isn't something you can demonstrate in static pictures in a magazine. Originally requiring an add in PCI card only for physics calculations pretty much doomed the tech from the start.

They are making money out of DLSS. Their cards double performance with it, AMD cards don't because they don't support it. This is fine from the company's perspective, and I think it is natural, but it's not good for consumers, because only one vendor does it, which is a monopoly, which lets the company price it however it likes.

Want a pro-consumer idea? Make DLSS open. It still needs hardware that AMD doesn't have, but it is not locked to Nvidia anymore. RX 6000 could have the hardware to do it, and then it would be able to compete on the implementation front (like it is one generation behind in RT performance), but I could get an RX 6800 and use some sort of DLSS with it. Nvidia would be better? Sure, but then devs wouldn't need to implement two solutions, consumers wouldn't be locked out of inovation, every game could have it (imagine only AMD cards had anti-aliasing, how would that feel?).

Again, it makes sense from the company perspective, but it's bad for consumers. Open technology, proprietary implementation, that's good.

Nvidia controls 80% of the dGPU market. Anything that Nvidia produces for their cards isn't exactly fragmenting the market. They pretty much are the market. This isn't like the late 90's when there were 5 or more companies each trying to develop their own technologies. Nvidia didn't develop DLSS then give it to devs and tell them good luck. Nvidia works with the developers to utilize their technologies. Especially with DLSS 1.0, Nvidia had to train every resolution for every game that used it on their own supercomputers. Why on earth would Nvidia then turn around and just let it work on AMD's hardware? Nvidia shoulders all the work and costs and then let's AMD benefit from it for nothing? That's not consumer friendly, because companies aren't going to develop technologies with financial returns that benefit their competitors more than it does themselves.

 

[hotaru.hino]

They may not have invented it, but they were the first to actually make it work. Intel and Nvidia never bothered until AMD rubbed their nose in it.

And yet NVIDIA left the name alone as "Resizable BAR" while AMD renamed it into "Smart Access Memory," which a lot of people had to point out that it's not some magical sauce AMD came up with. That's my issue. It makes them look like they take existing technologies and slap their name on it as if to dupe people they made it up for better brand recognition.

I'm not linking the two like that. I mean PhysX is a great physics simulation tech that was always locked to Nvidia GPUs, and because of that it never got used as a game tool, only as a special effects gimmick. Consumers lost a lot all those years because of it (no game could be heavily based on PhysX, risking locking the game to one GPU manufacturer, because CPUs can't handle the load properly).

Advanced physics models don't bring much to a game anyway aside from pretty effects. The only other practical thing I can think of is destructible environments, but those bring a whole set of issues that in practice are too annoying to work with.

They are making money out of DLSS. Their cards double performance with it, AMD cards don't because they don't support it. This is fine from the company's perspective, and I think it is natural, but it's not good for consumers, because only one vendor does it, which is a monopoly, which lets the company price it however it likes.

Want a pro-consumer idea? Make DLSS open. It still needs hardware that AMD doesn't have, but it is not locked to Nvidia anymore. RX 6000 could have the hardware to do it, and then it would be able to compete on the implementation front (like it is one generation behind in RT performance), but I could get an RX 6800 and use some sort of DLSS with it. Nvidia would be better? Sure, but then devs wouldn't need to implement two solutions, consumers wouldn't be locked out of inovation, every game could have it (imagine only AMD cards had anti-aliasing, how would that feel?).

So companies that come up with a novel idea shouldn't be allowed to exclusively capitalize on it and instead be forced to share it with their competition? Then why even bother trying to come up with anything innovative if you're forced to share it? Innovation is what gives people a reason to go with one product or the other.

I believe developers should be allowed to self-determinate. If that means they want to keep the secrets for themselves, so be it. That just means someone else can come up with an alternative solution if they want

 

[salgado18]

Nvidia controls 80% of the dGPU market. Anything that Nvidia produces for their cards isn't exactly fragmenting the market. They pretty much are the market. This isn't like the late 90's when there were 5 or more companies each trying to develop their own technologies. Nvidia didn't develop DLSS then give it to devs and tell them good luck. Nvidia works with the developers to utilize their technologies. Especially with DLSS 1.0, Nvidia had to train every resolution for every game that used it on their own supercomputers. Why on earth would Nvidia then turn around and just let it work on AMD's hardware? Nvidia shoulders all the work and costs and then let's AMD benefit from it for nothing? That's not consumer friendly, because companies aren't going to develop technologies with financial returns that benefit their competitors more than it does themselves.

So companies that come up with a novel idea shouldn't be allowed to exclusively capitalize on it and instead be forced to share it with their competition? Then why even bother trying to come up with anything innovative if you're forced to share it? Innovation is what gives people a reason to go with one product or the other.

I believe developers should be allowed to self-determinate. If that means they want to keep the secrets for themselves, so be it. That just means someone else can come up with an alternative solution if they want

I'm not saying anyone should be forced to do anything. If they want to build monopolies (all of them do), then go for it. But you are saying Nvidia shouldn't do what AMD is doing right now: making open standards upon which everyone can evolve.

All I'm saying is that Nvidia choose the selfish capitalist route, destroying the competition through better proprietary technologies, that benefit only those who join them. And AMD choose the communitary approach, helping society as a whole to evolve, and then offering compeling products inside that reality.

Oh no, I became a communist 😱

 

[cryoburner]

If FidelityFX is a completely software driven hardware agnostic technique, I don't see how it will perform as well as DLSS 2.0 or any upcoming newer version.

When you consider that hardware agnostic upscaling and sharpening routines could outperform DLSS 1.0, it's probably not much of a stretch that they could match or outperform 2.0 as well. As it is, the existing upscaling routines work reasonably well, and while they might not produce quite as good of a result as DLSS 2.0, it's not like AMD doesn't already have an answer for upscaling games to higher resolutions. I would expect their new solution to use those existing CAS routines as a base to work off of, while further improving the results and streamlining developer integration, rather than being something completely new built from the ground up.

But since I won't be able to find a RX6800 or 6900 till next year anyway, I guess it's a mute point.

Or a moot point. : 3