Introduction

Resident Evil 4 Remake is out now on PC, with plenty of additional visual enhancements over its PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series release, such as higher quality ray traced reflections, higher quality ambient occlusion (AMD’s FidelityFX CACAO), higher resolution for textures, support for ultra-wide screens (except the cutscenes), and this version on PC also has support for AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 (FSR 1.0), AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.1 (FSR 2.1) and RE Engine’s interlaced checkerboard rendering mode. Unfortunately, there is no official support for NVIDIA’s DLSS Super Resolution or NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing (DLAA), so the FSR 1.0, FSR 2.1 and interlaced rendering mode are the only available options for upscaling. In order to run this game at maximum graphics settings and reasonable framerates at native resolution, quite a powerful GPU is required, which is why upscaling solutions are so important. But depending on the game, there are subtle differences in the implementation of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 (FSR 1.0) and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.1 (FSR 2.1), so we are keen to have a look at these upscalers in this game.

Below, you will find comparison screenshots at 4K, 1440p, 1080p, and in different FSR 1.0 and FSR 2.1 quality modes; the Interlaced and TAA screenshots are also available in the dropdown menu. For those who want to see how FSR 1.0 and FSR 2.1 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 4080 GPU at Maximum graphics settings with ray tracing enabled; motion blur and depth of field were disabled for better image viewing.

Screenshots

Side-by-Side Comparison Video

Conclusion

In Resident Evil 4 Remake, both the FSR 1.0 and FSR 2.1 implementations do not use any sharpening filters in the render path at all and do not have the ability to enable it from the menu. However, the in-game TAA solution uses a sharpening filter in the render path without the ability to tweak the sharpening values through a sharpening slider and it is set to the high value by the developers, which might look a bit oversharpened in some sequences of the game, especially at lower resolutions, but the sharpening filter does not cause any negative side effects or artifacts during gameplay.

Speaking of image quality, the FSR 1.0 and FSR 2.1 implementation comes with very noticeable compromises in image quality even at 4K Quality mode—in favor of performance in most sequences of the game. Both FSR 1.0 and FSR 2.1 are suffering from a very blurry overall image quality in comparison to the native image and interlaced checkerboard rendering mode, and the FSR 2.1 implementation has even more image quality issues compared to the FSR 1.0. One of the most noticeable differences in image quality between FSR 2.1 and other rendering methods is the quality of the built-in anti-aliasing. In the TAA, FSR 1.0 and interlaced checkerboard image, most of the edges of the game geometry are smoothed well, whereas in the FSR 2.1 image they have a somewhat more pixelated look, it is especially visible on Leon’s hair. The second-most-noticeable difference is the shimmering issues: we spotted excessive shimmering and flickering on vegetation, tree leaves and thin steel objects; they are shimmering even when standing still and it is very visible even at 4K FSR 2.1 Quality mode, which might be quite distracting for some people.

Speaking of performance, compared to FSR 1.0 and interlaced checkerboard rendering mode in this game, FSR 2.1 has the smallest performance gains across all resolutions, while also producing more image quality issues compared to other available rendering techniques, therefore unfortunately, we can’t recommend using FSR 2.1 in this game in its current implementation, especially at lower resolutions. Instead, we do recommend to take a closer look at RE Engine’s interlaced checkerboard rendering mode, which produces an acceptable image quality and higher performance gains compared to other available upscaling techniques if you need more performance without significant image quality loss.