AMD FSR 4 Redstone Tested – Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
Conclusion
AMD’s FSR Redstone has potential, but Black Ops 7 was a poor game to showcase it
If you look at our image quality comparison, it is clear that AMD’s Ray Regeneration tech delivers a significant boost to image quality. However, the sad thing is that most Call of Duty players will never see these benefits. The performance cost of enabling ray tracing in this game is a high one. Furthermore, ray tracing is only available on Black Ops 7’s multiplayer and zombies modes. I guess that most players will simply turn off ray tracing and enjoy higher framerates.
Regardless, AMD has successfully showcased FSR “Redstone” ray regeneration in action. It clearly has a positive impact on the quality of Black Ops 7’s ray-traced reflections. It’s just a shame that this game’s ray tracing implementation isn’t good enough to be worth enabling, at least for most players. This game’s default non-ray-traced reflections do a reasonable job as-is. As mentioned before, most gamers will choose that option to enable higher framerates. That’s what gamers want from a fast-paced shooter like Call of Duty.
As always, AMD’s FSR 4 upscaler delivers much better visual results than FSR 3. AMD has clearly demonstrated the benefits of its AI upscaling technology. With FSR 4 upscaling and ray regeneration, it is clear that AI hardware can deliver tangible benefits to gamers. However, it is worth noting that Black Ops 7’s AI journey isn’t finished. A future update should add AMD’s new ML-based version of FSR Frame Generation to Black Ops 7. This update should improve the quality of AMD’s generated frames.
The tech is good, but Black Ops 7 isn’t a great “showcase game” for AMD
While Black Ops 7 clearly demonstrates the benefits of AI to gamers, it is a poor showcase for AMD. Gamers don’t tend to turn on ray tracing in fast-paced multiplayer shooters, and ray tracing is not available in Black Ops 7’s campaign. Furthermore, Black Ops 7’s use of ray tracing is limited to reflections. That limits the potential impact of AMD’s ray regeneration technology. AMD needs a “Cyberpunk 2077” style ray tracing showcase for its FSR “Redstone” tech. Black Ops 7 isn’t that game.
Regardless, AMD has successfully showcased the potential of its newest FSR technologies. In the future, we can expect more games to feature AMD’s “Redstone” technologies. Additionally, we should expect to see features like “Neural Radiance Caching” to further enhance AMD’s ray tracing prowess. This is just the start of AMD’s “Redstone” journey. There’s more to come.
You can join the discussion on AMD’s FSR 4 “Redstone” technology in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 on the OC3D Forums.
