Steam Machine: Valve wants to ease concerns over 8 GiB of VRAM with FSR 4
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Valve has confirmed FSR 4 for the Steam Machine. AMD's technology is intended to improve upscaling and image quality, though a release date is still missing.
Valve apparently does not intend to improve the Steam Machine after launch only through conventional SteamOS updates. In an interview with PCGH, the manufacturer has now named a specific graphics feature that is planned for the device: FSR 4. According to Valve, the company is working with AMD to officially support the upscaling technology on the Steam Machine. There is no release date yet, however.
The statement comes in the context of the Steam Machine's graphics performance. PCGH had asked Valve about the 8 GiB of graphics memory, which can quickly become tight in current games depending on preset and resolution. Valve initially refers to the system's target profile. The Steam Machine is not intended as a device for the highest presets at native 4K resolution, but rather for 1,920 × 1,080 or 2,560 × 1,440 pixels as the render resolution, combined with upscaling to higher output resolutions.
In line with this, Valve is announcing several improvements. On the one hand, the company is continuing to work on VRAM management. Data that does not belong to the game is to be moved out of graphics memory more aggressively so that more VRAM remains available for the game itself. Even Steam Overlay data is expected to reside in system memory rather than graphics memory in the future. Opening the overlay could therefore cause brief stutters, but it should help relieve pressure on the limited graphics memory.In addition, there's an upcoming update to ray tracing that will improve performance.
- Valve
On the other hand, Valve is also promising a ray tracing update. This is intended to improve performance, although the manufacturer did not provide further technical details in the interview. Immediately after that comes the more important statement for the Steam Machine's image quality: Valve is working with AMD on official FSR 4 support:
"And we can say that we've been working with AMD to officially support FSR 4 on Steam Machine. That will significantly improve the upscaled graphical fidelity. We can't say anything about dates, but we can say that it is coming for Steam Machine."
AMD uses machine learning for FSR 4, or its current FSR upscaling. The goal is visibly better reconstruction of the image from a lower render resolution. Compared with older FSR versions, temporal stability, detail retention and ghosting in particular are expected to benefit.
Valve describes the effect in similarly clear terms. In the interview, the company says FSR 4 will significantly improve upscaled graphical fidelity. At the same time, the manufacturer is dampening expectations of a quick release. Valve cannot yet name any dates, but it can confirm that support is coming to the Steam Machine. That leaves open whether FSR 4 will be available at launch, shortly afterward or only with a later SteamOS update.
