The PS5 Pro may acquire similar technology next year on newer versions of AMD FSR.
AMD released its next-generation graphics cards, the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT last week. They are built around a new RDNA 4 architecture, including hardware support for a new version of FidelityFX super resolution called FSR 4.
In an interview with Digital Foundry, Mark Cerny, designer of the PlayStation Lead Console, said that Sony and AMD are working to introduce The Tech, which was announced in an X post.
The PS5 Pro already has upscaling, known as PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution or PSSR, but when integrated with this new version of FSR, you can get closer to Nvidia’s machine learning-based upscaling technology DLSS.
It’s not just about putting your FSR 4 on your PS5
One of the biggest differences between FSR 4 and previous versions is that FSR 4, unlike previous versions of FSR, uses hardware-based machine learning to optimize performance, similar to DLSS.
FSR 4, on the other hand, suffers from the same drawbacks as DLSS in that it is hardware dependent. In other words, the PS5 Pro only works with the RDNA 4 architecture.
Cerny thinks that shouldn’t be that much of a problem, and believes that despite the performance gap between the RX 9070 and 9070 XT compared to the FS5 Pro, the PS5 Pro should be able to run without changing hardware, not to mention the processing overhead associated with the FSR 4.
That’s what we’re targeting and we believe we can achieve that.
“The hardware on the RDNA 4 and PS5 Pro are completely separate designs, so when we talk about the new upscaling network used in FSR 4, we can talk about the ‘re-implementation’ in the PS5 Pro,” he says. “I am definitely looking forward to a future with collaborative hardware capabilities for machine learning that dramatically improves interoperability.”
Cerny is considering Project Amethyst and FSR 4, beyond the PS5 and beyond future console generations, to move outside the PlayStation itself, integrating machine learning-based hardware into a variety of devices. AMD is looking at results on mobile devices to optimize power efficiency and increase battery life.
Given the inadequate sales of the PS5 Pro, it makes sense that Sony is trying to improve its technology in the future. FSR 4 has significantly increased quality compared to previous versions and PSSR, so the updated console gives more value for money.
