An enterprising modder has added AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) technology to SteamVR (via Sweclockers). This allows supported VR games to significantly increase frame rates while maintaining adequate image quality; Nvidia's DLSS 2.1 has also added support for some VR titles, meaning there is some equivalence between the two technologies.

AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution is an open source project and works with a wide range of graphics cards, not just AMD's own products. As such, Nvidia and Intel GPUs can also benefit, but even FSR is going to have a hard time making Intel's current integrated GPUs shine in VR.

That said, it's not bad if you have a more powerful GPU, and we were impressed with the results in our tests. However, the open source nature of the FSR gives it a real edge. Modders themselves added FidelityFX Super Resolution to GTA V, and now any VR game can benefit from it. [The modder in question is fholger, who admits that there may be some issues with implementing FSR at this stage of the rendering pipeline, especially with regard to anti-aliasing. In other words, some experimentation may be needed.

Game developers will be more comfortable implementing this in the future, but for older titles, this mod may mean a stuttering mess and the difference between being genuinely playable in VR. In other words, the difference between being able to play the game comfortably and barfing all over the place.

Fholger's github page shows off the mod's capabilities, comparing Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR side-by-side. He also explains how to tweak the mod to suit your own needs using the configuration files, including how to set the rendering resolution, the scale factor used by FSR, and the amount of sharpness to add.

Any game that uses Open VR and runs on DirectX 11 should work with this mod. It will also work with Unity and Unreal 4 games. In other words, many titles should benefit from AMD FSR and fholger's work.

If you have tried it yourself, please let us know in the comments what you think.