AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution comes to Gamescope for the Steam Deck

More preparation work being done for the Steam Deck landed in Gamescope, the Wayland-based micro-compositor, with it officially landing support for AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). This is thoroughly interesting, as the official Steam Deck FAQ did mention how Valve planned to have AMD FSR “be included as part of an OS future release”.

For those not clued up – Gamescope is what the Steam Deck will use in the main Steam session (not the desktop mode). Any time you load up a game on the Steam Deck normally, it will be run through Gamescope to control the display of it. Behind the scenes Gamescope can do all sorts like spoofing a virtual screen with a set resolution and refresh rate, control the output and resize it, force an FPS limit, allow you to set an FPS limit for the game when unfocused and more.

We don’t know yet how the Steam Deck will present an AMD FSR option to players, although it will likely be relatively easy with options built into the Deck UI.

On a traditional desktop Gamescope has many great uses, like dealing with games that have problematic fullscreen modes (since it won’t mess with your actual desktop) and a contributor previously showed off testing the built-in scaling methods too. For a bit of background, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais did a talk on Gamescope during XDC 2020 that you can check out in another article.