Skip to main content

AMD has an answer to Nvidia’s DLSS, but not ray tracing

Image used with permission by copyright holder

In a press event leading up to AMD’s E3 livestream, the company clarified that it was not yet ready to move forward with hardware accelerated ray tracing in its new graphics cards. It did, however, announce some new tricks in the world of upscaling and post-processing to compete with Nvidia’s DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling).

Recommended Videos

Known as Radeon Image Sharpening, AMD’s solution is an intelligent sharpening technology that provides a lift in the visual quality of a game without a dip in performance. The effect takes a look at the high contrast parts of any given scene in a game and artificially draws out more detail. AMD says this sharpening of textures makes 1080p look close to 1440p when upscaled on a higher resolution monitor.

AMD showed a screenshot from a game and highlighted how Radeon Image Sharpening pulled out crisper details in the shadowy rocks from the darker aspects of an image without interrupting any anti-aliasing softening happening near the light source.

Unlike DLSS, which must be implemented on a game-by-game basis, Radeon Image Sharpening is a simple switch. According to AMD, it just works.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Nvidia never pitched DLSS as a solution for upscaling. Instead, it was meant as a performance enhancement for Nvidia’s RTX ray tracing. However, in our testing, DLSS resulted in blurry image quality at high resolutions to compensate for that performance. AMD had both solutions running Battlefield V side-by-side — the Nvidia system at 4K with ray tracing and DLSS on, and the AMD system with Radeon Image Sharpening in 1440p. The result was very similar, with the AMD system looking close to 4K thanks to the added sharpness of RIS. And, because it was still technically playing at 1440p, Battlefield V hit framerates upward of 90 FPS.

As of now, however, RIS is only available on AMD’s new Radeon RX 5700-series graphics cards, and doesn’t yet include support for DX11. AMD says it’s only a matter of resources, but Radeon Image Sharpening is currently only available for DX9, DX12, and Vulkan.

FidelityFX and ray tracing

AMD has taken its DLSS solution even further. It also announced FidelityFX, a open-source developer toolkit that could have an even wider impact on future games. The most significant tool in the kit is CAS (Contrast Adaptive Sharpening), which is based on a similar set of technology as Radeon Image Sharpening.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Unlike Radeon Image Sharpening, Contrast Adaptive Sharpening must be implemented individually by games, but it’s all completely open source and free for developers to use through AMD’s GPUopen.com. It’ll even work on Nvidia cards, according to AMD.

The features in FidelityFX give developers more control over in-game visuals, tweaking sharpness for ultimate results. It’s even possible to give players manual control for custom results. Radeon Image Sharpening, by contrast, is an on/off switch that can’t be customized.

Ray tracing is coming. Eventually.

While AMD supports the software-enabled ray tracing that’s been available for years now, AMD insists game developers are wary about committing to ray tracing. Instead, AMD says developers are asking for features like CAS, which allows for mass adoption. AMD claims that unlike DLSS and ray tracing, AMD’s features are led by what developers ask for, not what they want to push on developers.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

AMD reaffirmed that ray tracing would eventually need to include hardware acceleration, but gave no clear indication when that would appear in future cards. AMD also mentioned that the eventual solution would move to “full scene ray tracing leveraging cloud computing,” though it didn’t elaborate more on how that would happen.

Adoption of both DLSS and ray tracing has been disappointing, as few developers have been willing to integrate Nvidia’s features. The few games that have used it, have implemented in very limited scenarios, leaving the effect on the overall image quality underwhelming.

AMD’s continuing hesitant public stance ray tracing is interesting given what we know about the next generation of game consoles. Both Xbox Scarlett and the PlayStation 5 will support ray tracing, and both will use AMD’s RDNA graphics architecture. That makes it clear that ray tracing is planned — it may not arrive in AMD hardware until late 2020.

Luke Larsen
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Luke Larsen is the Senior Editor of Computing, managing all content covering laptops, monitors, PC hardware, Macs, and more.
Even AMD is surprised by how fast it’s gaining on Nvidia
Several AMD RX 9000 series graphics cards.

AMD's RX 9000 series quickly joined the ranks of the best graphics cards, and it appears that its success came as a surprise to everyone -- yes, even AMD itself. At a recent roundtable in Japan, the company revealed that its market share skyrocketed recently, reaching a whopping 45% in Japan. Although this refers to Japan, it's easy to imagine that AMD is gaining on Nvidia globally, too, although there are a few things to consider here.

AMD's Yoshiaki Sato and Saki Suzuki shared a couple of updates during a Team AMD Roundtable held in Japan, which was later shared by ASCII. AMD was joined on stage by representatives of its many board partners, including ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, and Sapphire. AMD's add-in board partners (AIBs) reportedly shared that they wanted to make and sell more Radeon graphics cards, but were being held back due to a lack of GPUs. To this, AMD's Sato replied: "AMD isn't used to selling [this many] graphics cards."

Read more
AMD takes lead over Nvidia, but how long will it last?
An Asus RX 9070 XT TUF GPU.

While both AMD and Nvidia make some of the best graphics cards, pitting the two against each other usually reveals that Nvidia dominates the GPU market with an over 80% share. However, a new survey revealed that, at least in the recent weeks, many gamers preferred to go with AMD when buying a GPU. But how long will this surprising lead even last?

https://x.com/3DCenter_org/status/1899732939686256846

Read more
AMD’s RX 9070 XT beats Nvidia’s $1,000+ GPU, but there’s a catch
Fans on the RTX 5080.

AMD's RX 9070 XT hit the shelves last week, and the response has been largely positive. The GPU was expected to perform on around the same level as Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti, making it capable of beating some of the best graphics cards. However, a known overclocker just managed to push the GPU to new heights, helping it beat Nvidia's $1,000+ RTX 5080.

Der8auer took the RX 9070 XT out for an extensive spin and achieved interesting results. Prior to launch, many thought the RX 9070 XT would rival the RTX 5070 at best, but now, we've seen it beating not just the RTX 5070 Ti but also the RTX 5080 in today's test. The catch? Not only did Der8auer use a premium card, but the GPU was also overclocked and undervolted.

Read more