AMD’s next-gen ‘Redstone’ AI upscaling tech looks imminent – and a big clue has been spotted in the latest drivers
- AMD’s FSR ‘Redstone’ update could be here soon, with a new driver discovery referencing AFMF 3
- AFMF 3, a driver-level frame generation tool, could be included in the Redstone package
- Redstone could finally see FSR 4 backported to older RDNA 3 GPUs
AMD is going for gold this generation with its Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs placed among the best GPUs on the market, as the new ‘Redstone’ AI upscaling update to improve in-game frame generation, ray tracing beckons. Fortunately, it looks like, based on a crucial discovery, the overhaul may be closer than anticipated.
As reported by VideoCardz, AMD’s AFMF 3 (AMD Fluid Motion Frames) was spotted in driver files, as picked up by a user in Guru3D forums, indicating that the driver-level frame generation tool will arrive via the next 25.20 Adrenalin driver update – notably, this could come included in the long-awaited ‘Redstone’ update.
Redstone seeks to improve both in-game ML (Machine Learning) frame generation and ray tracing for Radeon RX 9000 series RDNA 4 GPUs. This also includes upgrades to FSR 4’s super resolution for better image quality while maintaining great frame rates when upscaling.
If recent speculation is spot on, we could very well see Redstone arrive with AFMF 3 packaged in a new driver update (which will likely be available for RDNA 4 and older GPUs), and most importantly, the potential backport of FSR 4 to RDNA 3.5 GPUs.
It’s not far-fetched to suggest that this could be accurate, as Team Red’s recent mistake of briefly making FSR 4 open-source has allowed modders to use FSR 4 on older AMD hardware, and hints that AMD may indeed be working on a backport in time for Redstone’s release.
Either way, AFMF 3 could bring some required improvements from AFMF 2.1, specifically in diminishing the impact of ghosting and input lag, and fiercely competing with Nvidia‘s equivalent, Smooth Motion.
Analysis: Redstone is the right time for FSR 4 to become available beyond RDNA 4 GPUs
While I primarily use Nvidia’s hardware on my desktop gaming PC, both my Lenovo Legion Go S and Asus ROG Ally are powered by AMD’s Z1 Extreme, and many users including myself, have been awaiting news on FSR 4, potentially finding its way onto the RDNA 3 Radeon 780M iGPU – and this Redstone update seems like the ideal time for that.
Again, I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but Nvidia’s DLSS 4 is still the better option over FSR 4 thanks to its greater image quality, ray tracing, and Frame Generation (including Multi Frame Generation), and DLSS 4 (super resolution) is available on all RTX GPUs.
Redstone needs to be the update that closes that gap between DLSS 4 and FSR 4, so that the latter is at least available to a wider range of AMD hardware users, and not just RDNA 4 GPUs.
While FSR 4 is technically available to use on older hardware via Optiscaler, an official implementation from AMD will alleviate any concerns with tinkering and workarounds for functionality. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long.
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