FSR 2.0 is easy to implement
This is where FSR 2.0 being open-source really comes into play. Since anyone can access the source code, anyone with the knowhow of how to make it work can essentially implement it in any game. Well, not exactly any game, but games that already have DLSS support are ideal since the foundation has already been laid and fans just have to do the easy work. That’s why FSR 2.0 mods have been popping up around town like crazy. Just a couple of weeks ago, we saw the first unofficial FSR 2.0 mod for Cyberpunk 2077. Created by “PotatoOfDoom“, this mod has become instrumental in the development of FSR 2.0 mods for other games. Last week, another FSR 2.0 mod came into prominence, this time for Dying Light 2. This mod was a fork of PotatoOfDoom’s Cyberpunk 2077 FSR 2.0 mod and worked in the exact same way the latter did. Due to DLSS being in place, all the mod has to do is replace DLSS files with FSR 2.0 files and voila, you’re golden. Of course, the implementation is far from perfect since it’s kind of jerry-rigged and not native. There are known issues in both of the games that have FSR 2.0 mods, but they’re not significant enough to become bothersome. Plus, the upsides of FSR 2.0 are just too good to not make a compromise in some place. After all, FSR works with pretty much any GPU out there, including those of the competition’s.
Red Dead Redemption 2 with FSR 2.0
Today, another mod has come forward that adds to the ever-growing list of unofficial FSR 2.0 support. Thanks to the PotatoOfDoom’s work and the Dying Light 2 fork showing it was possible to add FSR 2.0 into other games, a new FSR 2.0 mod for Read Dead Redemption 2 has surfaced online. It brings huge improvements to the visuals and performance of the game alike. “FidelityFx Super Resolution 2.0 for Red Dead Redemption 2” was developed by RealIndica and is a fork of the Cyberpunk 2077 FSR 2.0 mod we’ve been talking about. You can find the mod on GitHub and Nexus Mods with install instructions and other details, if you wish to check out the mod for yourself. As for how well the mod exactly performs, we have a couple of screenshots to take a look at: Again, the implementation of this mod is based on PotatoOfDoom’s Cyberpunk FSR 2.0 mod (Github) so updates concerning FSR 2.0 bugs will most likely be mainly handled by himself and the rest of the open-source community. I have simply made a loader for his mod and implemented the correct ViewMatrix offset! You can view the source code for this project here. The screenshots above have the game running at 1080p resolution with the first picture showing how it looks natively with no mods applied. Then, the next two pictures show tha game with the FSR 2.0 mod running in Quality and Performance modes, respectively. The image quality identical across the board with FSR 2.0 providing a nice FPS boost, resulting in a better-looking and performing game. MxBenchmarkPC also posted a video comparing FSR 2.0 with DLSS 2.4 that you can check out below:
FSR 2.0 for even more games
Right around the time the FSR 2.0 mod for Red Dead Redemption 2 went live, reports of FSR 2.0 mods working with other games started floating around town. Three games were highlighted by users on Reddit as proof of concept for FSR 2.0 displaying effective results in-game, however mods for these games have not been developed. These are using the same Dying Light 2 mod with no optimizations made to tune the mods to work best with each game. Therefore, there are issues with each one of them but, again, nothing too annoying that would take you out of the game. All of them also have the same install instructions, which are to download the original mod and:
FSR 2.0 for Death Stranding
Firstly, we have Death Stranding that supposedly benefits a lot from FSR 2.0 support. Reddit user u/JohnPt66 highlighted that even with an unofficial mod at bay, the image reconstruction with FSR 2.0’s Quality Mode surpasses the game’s native quality, however it provides a minimal boost in performance at 1080p. This is likely due to the fact that the game is more CPU-bound at this resolution, which gives FSR 2.0 little room to shine. That being said, a much more sizable FPS uplift is seen in Ultra Performance Mode, as expected, though the game doesn’t look nearly as good as native or when played in Quality Mode. When the camera is still, the image quality is surprisingly sharp (as good as FSR 1.0 Ultra Quality!), but as soon as you start moving around, everything becomes a blurry mess. This confirms that motion causes issues on lower resolutions with this mod.
FSR 2.0 for Metro Exodus
The second game is Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition, which seems to be taking quite well to FSR 2.0, albeit with some ghosting issues. This discovery was pointed out by Reddit user u/bctoy, who claims that the Quality Mode doubled his frame count at 6400×1080 resolution with just a tiny dip in image quality.
FSR 2.0 for Guardians of the Galaxy and more
Lastly, Reddit user u/0gluk confirmed that the FSR 2.0 mod for Dying Light 2 works with Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Little details were provided as to how the mod performs, all we have is an in-game screenshot of the settings menu showing DLSS working with another screenshot attached telling us that the user has an AMD GPU. A few other games, namely Control and Horizon Zero Dawn, are also said to be working with FSR 2.0 mods, though we have no way of confirming that since no evidence of that can be found online as of yet. If you want, you can try your luck and become the lab rat for verifying FSR 2.0 support for these games, but make sure you know the risks. With the ever-growing number of games supporting FSR 2.0, official or unofficially, it’s clear that the technology has carved its own place in the industry. From breathing new life into older GPUs, and giving non-RTX card a taste of that upscaling magic, AMD has come a long way with FSR, and it looks like the journey is just starting.
