Quiet launch, loud questions: AMD FSR Redstone and Ray Regeneration in focus
ComputerBase takes a closer look at AMD’s quietly released tech.
I think we all feel a bit disappointed with how AMD announced its long-teased FSR Redstone technology. Contrary to what the company had said, there was no press event. In fact, the company hadn’t even provided access to the technology prior to launch.
Redstone also didn’t launch fully. It was just one technology out of four that make up the full stack, and it appeared in only one game. We still don’t know what the plan is here. Is COD supposed to play an exclusive role, or did AMD simply want to release the tech and fulfill its promise to launch it by the end of this year?
Meanwhile, ComputerBase tested AMD’s new FSR Ray Regeneration in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and compared it directly with NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction. The feature is part of the broader FSR Redstone program, but here it appears alone, while super resolution still uses FSR 4 and frame generation uses FSR 3.1.5. AMD did not brief the press on this launch, so, as the editors put it, “ all information in this article was independently researched; AMD declined to comment, even when asked. ” Usually that doesn’t bode well. The denoiser DLL in Black Ops 7 reports version 0.9.0.0, which underlines that this is not yet a polished release.
The test was run at 2560 × 1440 with FSR 4 Quality and maximum graphics settings, including ray-traced reflections. Ray tracing in Black Ops 7 is limited to multiplayer, where players can select the standard game denoiser, FSR Ray Regeneration, or DLSS Ray Reconstruction on GeForce cards. Hardware used was a Radeon RX 9070 XT and a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, so comparable in terms of overall performance.
A screenshot from a video comparison, Source: ComputerBase
Against the game’s own denoiser, FSR Ray Regeneration is a clear upgrade in many scenes. Reflections keep more detail in motion, and the AI denoiser reacts faster to changes than the built-in one. At the same time, ComputerBase calls it “a mixed bag” and stresses that “the quality is highly variable and prone to errors.” In several scenes, FSR RR introduces swirling and wobbling artifacts in reflections. When the game denoiser is already very blurry or glitchy, turning on FSR RR can trade that blur for unstable but sharper reflections, which can pull attention away from the action.
When it comes to NVIDIA tech, ComputerBase says that both AI denoisers show slight “wavy” behavior in reflections, but with NVIDIA it stays subtle, while with AMD it often escalates into noticeable instability. Sometimes DLSS RR restores more detail, sometimes FSR RR does, and this can even flip between static and moving shots. Despite that, ComputerBase writes that “ FSR Ray Regeneration can’t compete with DLSS Ray Reconstruction, at least not in Black Ops 7, ” because “the image remains significantly more stable with DLSS RR.” Stability is the deciding factor, even where AMD briefly shows sharper reflections.
Source: ComputerBase
Performance is almost a non-issue in this game for both approaches. On the Radeon RX 9070 XT, the switch from the game denoiser to FSR Ray Regeneration reduces average frame rate from 74.5 to 72.0 FPS, a drop of around 3%. On the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, the change from the game denoiser to DLSS Ray Reconstruction moves average FPS from 61.0 to 59.9, roughly 2%. The 1st percentile values show the same pattern. These differences are measurable but, according to the review, not noticeable in practice.
It’s definitely too early for final conclusions, but I’m surprised AMD refused to comment on ComputerBase’s questions. Jack Huynh has time for AI-heavy analyst conferences, yet his team cannot answer a straightforward question about a flagship graphics feature.
Source: ComputerBase
