Experiencing performance issues in games? Check out our guide on how to use Optiscaler to force games to use FSR 4.
Modern upscaling solutions such as AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4) are supposed to offer AI-driven upscaling, motion reconstruction, and frame generation on RDNA4 hardware. Unfortunately, things are not so simple in the real world. Official game support frequently trails the release of the hardware. This gap means that the gamers who need FSR 4’s performance boost cannot really use it in the games that don’t support it yet.
Thankfully, OptiScaler has come to their rescue. It is a community-made middleware that addresses this gap by allowing FSR 4 injection into titles that are yet to ship with native support. This article will guide you on how to force FSR 4 using OptiScaler. Furthermore, it will discuss requirements, installation, configuration, and potential pitfalls.
Understanding FSR 4 and OptiScaler
FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 is the latest open-source technology by AMD that allows one to render games at lower resolutions internally. It upscales the frames using a mix of spatial reconstruction, temporal feedback, and AI-based improvements. The method provides better effective frame rates, improved details, and motion fluidity compared to FSR 3 or spatial-only upscalers.
OptiScaler is a middleware DLL that intercepts DirectX 11, DirectX 12, and Vulkan games. It intercepts the upscaling inputs that the game is making, and sends them on to whichever backend you prefer, whether that be FSR 4, FSR 3.1, XeSS, or even DLSS. This enables titles that only support DLSS to use XeSS or FSR 3. The latest release supports FSR 4 on RDNA 4 cards in cases where it has not been officially supported.
Key Features of OptiScaler
OptiScaler is a wide-ranging replacement framework for in-game upscalers. Using it, you can replace native implementations with whatever implementations you want. This implies that the games that have DLSS, XeSS, or FSR 2/3 can run FSR 4 immediately on RDNA 4 GPUs. Similarly, DLSS-only games can be re-routed to XeSS or an unofficial port of FSR 3.1. It does this without modifying the original code of the game, owing to the API interception layer that OptiScaler has.
OptiScaler provides great customization beyond mere replacement of simple upscalers. Through GPU spoofing, it is possible to fine-tune sharpening filters (RCAS and MAS), override rendering ratios, use dynamic resolution scaling (DRS), and select DLSS presets on non-NVIDIA GPUs. Its experimental features are OptiFG, frame generation driven by FSR 3 (which is available on DirectX 12), and Fakenvapi integration to hook NVIDIA Reflex or AMD Anti-Lag. These options are easy to adjust with the help of an in-game overlay (initially launched with the Insert key).
Supported APIs and Upscalers
The following table highlights the APIs and upscalers that OptiScaler supports:
System Requirements
Before you get started with the installation process, use this table to make sure that your system can run OptiScaler:
Note: OptiScaler can run on older GPUs (GTX 10-series or AMD RX 5000+) for FSR 2/3 and XeSS. However, running FSR 4 needs RDNA 4 hardware.
How To Install OptiScaler?
To install OptiScaler on your system, simply follow the steps listed below:
Configuring FSR 4 Injection
Here is what you need to do to inject FSR 4 in your game:
Enabling Frame Generation
In order to enable frame generation in games, follow these steps:
Troubleshooting and Known Issues
Below we have listed the known issues around using OptiScaler and how you may potentially troubleshoot them:
Community-Sourced Fixes
Besides the official workarounds, here are some of the community-sourced fixes for issues when using OptiScaler:
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