Call of Duty Vanguard Supports FidelityFX CAS on Next-Gen Consoles, Here’s How It Looks

COD Vanguard Update 1.06

Call of Duty Vanguard is the latest in a line of games to support AMD FidelityFX on next-gen consoles. And for those of you new to the feature, you may want to pay close attention to this article as we break down some of the improvements offered by it

What is AMD FidelityFX CAS?

By now, PC gamers with AMD graphic cards are probably well aware of all the features that come with AMD FidelityFX, such as super resolution, ambient occlusion, variable shading, and others, but today we are going to be looking at FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS). Here is a detailed description (via AMD’s GPUOpen site).

AMD FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) provides a mixed ability to sharpen and optionally scale an image. The algorithm adjusts the amount of sharpening per pixel to target an even level of sharpness across the image. Areas of the input image that are already sharp are sharpened less, while areas that lack detail are sharpened more. This allows for higher overall natural visual sharpness with fewer artifacts.

CAS was designed to help increase the quality of existing Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) solutions. TAA often introduces a variable amount of blur due to temporal feedback. The adaptive sharpening provided by CAS is ideal to restore detail in images produced after TAA .

CAS’ optional scaling capability is designed to support Dynamic Resolution Scaling (DRS). DRS changes render resolution every frame, which requires scaling prior to compositing the fixed-resolution User Interface (UI). CAS supports both up-sampling and down-sampling in the same single pass that applies sharpening.

Basically, it improves overall image quality by sharpening details that are usually blurry. It’s a great option to have, especially for those wanting to get the best possible picture out of their games, which brings us to Call of Duty: Vanguard, the latest yearly iteration of Call of Duty. While it should come as no surprise to anyone that Vanguard supports both Nvidia DLSS, and AMD FidelityFX on PC, what many may not know is that next-gen console players also can experience a bit of this themselves, as the option for AMD FidelityFX CAS is supported on both the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. 

How to Enable AMD FidelityFX CAS for Call of Duty Vanguard on the PS5 or Xbox Series

Enabling AMD FidelityFX CAS for Call of Duty Vanguard on either the PS5 or Xbox Series is very easy. All you have to do is boot up Call of Duty Vanguard, and from the settings menu (accessible either from the main menu or in-game) you will want to navigate to the graphics tab. From here, you will see “FidelityFX CAS” towards the bottom of the graphic options.

See, told you it was easy, and if you want you can even edit the strength of the feature, scaling from 0 up to 100. By default, it’s set to 80.

Call of Duty Vanguard FidelityFX CAS Support Tested (PS5)

So I guess you might be wondering why anyone would want to turn this on? Well if it wasn’t already obvious, this option enhances the overall sharpness of a scene. However, the real question is by how much is it actually an improvement? Well at lot, even if you don’t notice it at first hand. With the option turned on, we decided to do a bit of comparison between different scenes.

While at first glance it may not seem to offer much an improvement, upon further inspection it became very clear of what kind of benefits a player can get with FidelityFX CAS.

We have included other close up shots from other sections of the game that you can see below. 

If you look closely at the floor and the box, you can see there is an increase in sharpness, better high lighting textures on the floor and objects.

If you look closely at the floor and the box, you can see there is an increase in sharpness when Fidelity FX is turned on.

Small bumps on the crate are now noticeable.

This one is a bit of a further away view, but if you look at the wall, the shadow from the tree, and even the words on the posters, you can clearly see how much more of an improvement Fidelity FX is when it is turned on.

A wooden sign that shows increased in details.

Same image above, just a zoomed in case you needed to see the differences better.

This one is just a close up of a wall (about 200% zoomed). It’s not as noticeable as the ones above because of how small the details are, but this gives you an idea that Fidelity FX improves even the smallest of details. 

Does This Work in Multiplayer?

Yes, the same improvements above can also be seen in the multiplayer. In fact, those complaining about the environments and other things blending into each other may want to have this option turned on as it helps with objects in the distance.

I think you guys are getting the idea here.

Overall, I have to say I am surprised by the results as the differences in actual gameplay didn’t seem all that big. I don’t see a reason why anyone wouldn’t want to have FidelityFX CAS enabled on consoles, especially since it seem to have zero affect on the general frame-rate. There’s a lot of perks to being able to see things better, especially when it comes to competitive play.

What do you guys think, is FidelityFX CAS the kind of game changer consoles need? Or were you expecting a bigger difference?

Stay tuned to our review of Vanguard hitting the site soon.

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Eric Payne
2 years ago
  • I keep it on even though as I can’t seem to see TOO much of a difference it doesn’t hurt my gameplay nor performance on Series.

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