- AMD’s FSR 4 can now be used in more games that don’t have an official implementation, thanks to the Optiscaler mod
- It isn’t compatible with all games, as FSR 4 reportedly doesn’t support Vulkan yet
- Players may run into trouble using the mod in anti-cheat games
The reception to AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 series GPU launch was mixed considering the inflated prices, and lack of availability for some. However, if you were fortunate enough to land one at MSRP, a new and improved mod may make life a little easier regarding AMD’s new upscaling method and its compatibility in games.
As reported by VideoCardz, modders have managed to implement AMD FSR 4 support in numerous titles that already have DLSS or XeSS (Nvidia and Intel’s similar technologies, respectively). This is all thanks to a mod known as Optiscaler on GitHub from cdozdil, which has previously been used to enable other older versions of upscaling methods in titles that don’t have official support.
It’s an important mod for Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT users to take advantage of since so far, there are only a few titles that have official FSR 4 implementation from game developers. FSR 4 significantly enhances visual quality, particularly with its performance mode – which is arguably a game changer as previous FSR models suffered from ghosting issues that caused a blurry image or trail left behind by in-game UI or character models when in motion.
As well as super-resolution (Xe Super Sampling for Intel’s XeSS), frame generation can also be injected in unsupported games – this is similar to Nukem (on GitHub) which uses DLSS’ Frame Generation in games to implement FSR 3’s frame generation.
While it certainly isn’t as well polished as official support (it’s currently an experimental addition), it could be enough to hold users over for the time being. It’s worth noting that not all games are supported on Optiscaler as of now, which is supposedly because FSR 4 doesn’t support Vulkan (a graphics API used for rendering in plenty of games) yet.
There’s no guarantee that certain titles will even get official FSR 4 implementation – it took CD Projekt Red several months to add FSR 3 to Cyberpunk 2077 (likely because of its partnership with Nvidia), so don’t expect it to happen overnight with FSR 4 – especially with other titles that share a similar agreement with Nvidia.
Modding capabilities as such should be allowed on anti-cheat games
While mods like this are great for RDNA 4 users and those who can’t use frame generation (mostly owners of Nvidia RTX 3000 series and older GPUs), the only major downside is that it doesn’t seem to work with games that use anti-cheating tools.
Titles like Elden Ring, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, and The Finals, use anti-cheat software which is used to prevent cheating online. While I won’t argue against these measures (even though they can ruin performance in some games), they make mods like Optiscaler effectively useless, as users could be banned if they are using it.. Now, I haven’t seen cases of this myself without players genuinely cheating, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible either.
I’ve shared the same frustrations when it comes to games that don’t support ultrawide resolutions and aspect ratios – those games usually require modification, as evident in Street Fighter 6 which cannot be played at 21:9 or 32:9 aspect ratios unless you use RE Framework by Praydog on GitHub, but Capcom views modding as cheating.
It’s a very similar scenario in this case – gamers spend hard-earned money to acquire new hardware, and if you can’t even use upscaling methods like FSR 4 in a large number of titles, mods like Optiscaler are the only way. So, with those anti-cheat measurements, maybe dial it down a little…Please?
Leave a comment