Ever since the full release of Baldur's Gate 3-FSR 2.2 sat in the graphics options, I personally have been waiting for this moment.

Say what you will about upscaling, but if you are struggling to get the frame rate up as high as you want when you are ramping up in Moonrise Towers or Reithwin, upscaling will certainly make a difference. But if you're playing Baldur's Gate 3 on an AMD graphics card, Steam Deck, or other PC handheld, you're probably struggling with FSR 1.0 and the terrible picture quality it provides.

Even the Ultra Quality setting, FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 (formally known as FSR 1.0), is terrible. But with the new FSR 2.2 update, patched to the latest version of the game in today's patch #4, this is what happens.

Curiously, FSR 2.2 support is not listed in the patch notes, and I only noticed it when I booted up to try messing with Baldur's Gate 3 on the Steam deck. But wow, I'm soooo excited. It's made my day. Because on the Steam Deck and other gaming handhelds (which almost exclusively use AMD graphics hardware), the game looks terrible unless you play it at native resolution, in which case it's choppy.

I once considered whether DLSS or FSR should be used for Baldur's Gate 3, and the answer at that point was definitely not FSR. Now, it would be much closer. But FSR 2.2 looks much better than AMD's FSR 1.0. But FSR 2.2 looks so much better than FSR 1.0 for those who use AMD.

I've only just discovered it and have played around with it a bit in my own games, but I can immediately see the difference, even between the equivalent quality modes of the two versions. in FSR 2.2, my games are a bit aliased due to Steam Deck's custom settings, but they It looks clean. However, when I switch to FSR 1.0, I see ...... This is probably left only to highlight how good the new version looks, but suddenly the pixelated shine is back and strange graphic artifacts surround the battle-hardened crew.

So much so, in fact, that it is unplayable.

Hard to see in a still image, especially if you don't zoom in, but the FSR 2.2 version is much better.

My deck records about 38 fps with both FSR 1.0 and FSR 2.2 without tinkering with any other settings. Digging deeper might add a frame or two to the first generation options, but it's certainly not worth the visual pain for my money and my eyeballs.

It has been some time since I last heard of FSR 2.2 being added. Larian had previously suggested that it would be added at about the same time the PS5 version shipped, which was in September. But the wait was worth it, as native Steam decks, handheld PCs, and other Radeon GPU users can now reap the benefits.

Ah, I love good news. ❤️