Introduction

Just this week, God of War was updated with support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0), making it the third game to fully support FSR 2.0. We previously tested FSR 2.0 in Deathloop, and yesterday posted our Farming Simulator FSR 2.0 review. It’s important to note that unlike these other titles, God of War has completely removed support for FSR 1.0 with the FSR 2.0 patch—similar to what was done in some titles during the transition from NVIDIA DLSS 1.0 to DLSS 2.0. We managed to collect FSR 1.0 data right before the update came out and are now able to compare it to the new 2.0 version. What’s also interesting about God of War is that there are subtle differences in the implementation of NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 (FSR 1.0), and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0 (FSR 2.0), which we are keen to find out more about.

Below, you will find comparison screenshots at 4K, 1440p, 1080p, and in different FSR 1.0, FSR 2.0, and DLSS quality modes. For those who want to see how DLSS, FSR 1.0, and FSR 2.0 perform in motion, watch our side-by-side comparison video. The video can help uncover issues like shimmering or temporal instability, which are not visible in the screenshots.

All tests were made using a GeForce RTX 3080 GPU at Ultra graphics settings with motion blur and depth of field disabled. DLSS in this game shipped with version 2.3.4.

Screenshots

Side-by-Side Comparison Video

Conclusion

With a recent update for God of War on PC, the developers have added the long awaited DLSS sharpening filter slider in the settings menu. AMD’s FSR 1.0 render path in God of War never had the option to tweak the sharpening filter values, although it is well-tuned by the developers. With the FSR 2.0 update, the developers have added a separate sharpening filter slider for FSR 2.0. This time, we used zero for both sharpening filter values in our testing, as sharpening filters can cause negative side effects, like excessive shimmering in this game.

Speaking of image quality, there are a few important issues of note. The most noticeable is that at 1080p resolution, the image looks surprisingly dark, as if someone turned down the brightness value. This issue is present only if the internal rendering resolution is lower than 1080p. The lower your internal resolution, the darker the image becomes, and you may even encounter this issue in 1440p performance mode, for example. So it’s tied to your internal resolution no matter what. FSR 2.0 in God of War is slightly more susceptible to temporal instability than DLSS 2.0. This is most apparent when looking at areas that have thin lines with high contrast, like leaves, or surfaces with high contrast details. In some areas with snow, we noticed that when snow falls down in front of trees, the detail on the tree leaves just falls apart. These issues with temporal instabilities are visible in our side-by-side comparison video only, at around time code 0:30 to 0:40; they are not visible in the still screenshots.

Speaking of overall image quality and performance, compared to FSR 1.0, FSR 2.0 provides a decent upgrade in image quality at a slight performance cost and adds the ability to tweak sharpening filter values, which wasn’t an option with FSR 1.0. Only the temporal instability is a downside of the FSR 2.0 implementation in this game. While DLSS vs. FSR was very close in terms of image quality in Deathloop and Farming Simulator 200, in God of War, FSR 2.0 is clearly falling behind DLSS, but it’s still a very decent upgrade over FSR 1.0. The DLSS and FSR 2.0 performance uplift at 4K is a great improvement to the game even in Quality mode, but going down to 1440p and 1080p resolutions, the DLSS and FSR 2.0 performance increase is less impressive as it will boost performance by only around 10%, or even less at 1080p.