Upscaling can’t save the world’s slowest ‘modern’ GPU — FSR doubles performance on GT 1030, but titles still barely playable

After testing FSR and XeSS upscaling on a GTX 660, YouTuber GCS Hardware has moved on to the GT 1030 (the GDDR5 variant) to see how the slowest DX12-capable GPU copes with upscaling. According to a video they published on the matter, the GT 1030 technically can take advantage of FSR upscaling, but it still isn’t enough to boost FPS to playable territory, except on GTA V: Enhanced Edition.

The YouTuber expanded their testing suite with more modern titles, featuring: Kingdom Come Deliverance II, Space Marine II, Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2077, CS 2, and GTA V Enhanced.

Ok, but can upscaling save the slowest “MODERN” GPU? – YouTube Watch On

The GT 1030 delivered a measly 8 FPS average at native 1080p resolution in Kingdom Come Deliverance II. Enabling FSR 3.1 performance mode significantly boosted performance to 15 FPS average, and moving to a 720p render resolution with the same settings yielded an even greater 21 FPS average. Despite the gains, performance was still well below playable FPS.

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Space Marine II was even worse, averaging just 6 FPS on the GT 1030 at 1080p native resolution with low settings. FSR performance mode upscaling more than doubled performance to 13 FPS, but the game was still far from playable.