PSSR Upgrade: PlayStation 5 Reportedly Getting Upgrades Similar to AMD FSR 4
PSSR Upgrade: PlayStation 5 Reportedly Getting Upgrades Similar to AMD FSR 4
Image: Sony
In an interview with Digital Foundry, Sony’s Mark Cerny confirmed that AMD’s new FSR-4 technology will be released as an upgrade to PSSR technology in PlayStation in 2026. The partnership between AMD and Sony is also expected to continue and will also influence the design of the PlayStation 6.
FSR 4: The Result of AMD and Sony’s Collaboration
With the PlayStation 5 Pro, Sony introduced its own Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) to improve the graphics of current games via AI upscaling to 4K. PSSR is a temporal anti-aliasing upscaling system with a machine learning component that works similarly to NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR. It can also handle dynamically changing resolutions, which are often used by game consoles. PSSR is superior to AMD’s FSR2, but not FSR 4. In collaboration with AMD, Sony would therefore like to incorporate the extended failure of FSR 4 to 2026 into future PSSR modifications. AMD and Sony have been working closely together since the launch of the PlayStation 5 Pro to optimize the PS5 Pro’s AI features, particularly for ray tracing and scaling.
Following the introduction of RDNA 4 and the new Radeon RX 9070 series, Mark Cerny, a senior system architect at PlayStation, confirmed that the new FSR 4 is the result of this collaboration between AMD and Sony, but has already surpassed PSSR.
Not FSR 4, but comparable
Sony is now working on integrating FSR’s AI models and technologies into the next iteration of PSSR. However, this shouldn’t be possible 1:1, as the PlayStation 5 also defines the officially required RDNA 4 for FSR 4 in the Pro version at the Cu level, while the RT portion of the PS5 Pro relies on RDNA 4. Therefore, the goal is to implement something similar to the FSR 4 upgrade. The same inputs should essentially drive the same editions. However, this implementation is quite ambitious and time-consuming, which is why the FSR 4-based upgrader has not yet been included in the PS5 Pro, explains Mark Cerny. Implementation is expected to take place next year.
He also confirms that the hardware of the PlayStation 5 Pro is completely different from AMD’s RDNA 4. Therefore, this is a new implementation and not simply a port of the PC technology. However, he believes FSR 4 can be ported to the PS5 Pro’s AI hardware.
Playstation 6 MIT FSR 4/5
It remains to be seen what drawbacks the new processor has on the PS5 compared to FSR 4. According to Mark Cerny, AMD and Sony have been working closely on ML and AI for graphics since 2023, with long-term plans indicating that the PlayStation 6 may use FSR 4, if not FSR 5.
A lifelong video game enthusiast, Julien reviews the latest releases and explores the technologies transforming the gaming world.
