Starfield on PC already has a mod to swap AMD’s FSR2 upscaling with Nvidia’s DLSS

A mod has already been released for the PC version of Starfield that adds support for Nvidia‘s DLSS upscaling technology.

At launch the game only supports FSR2, the latest version of AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution tech.

This allows players with certain AMD graphics cards to upscale their game in real-time, essentially enabling them to save performance.

For example, a game could render at 1080p, then use FSR2 to upscale the game to 4K resolution using only a fraction of the processing power that native 4K rendering would need.

The tech also frees up processing power to potentially increase frame rate or allow players to increase their detail settings.

Nvidia cards use an equivalent tech called Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) which is supported in its GeForce RTX graphics cards, but this isn’t supported in Starfield at launch.

To get around this, modder PureDark has created a mod called Starfield Upscaler – Replacing FSR2 with DLSS or XeSS, which does what the title describes.

It removes support for FSR2 and replaces it with support for either DLSS (for players with Nvidia GeForce RTX cards) or XeSS (for players with Intel Arc graphics cards).

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PureDark explains that how well the upscaling works will depend on each player’s individual set-up. If their graphics card is already very powerful and their game’s performance is being held back by a slower CPU then the difference may be minimal.

“Performance gain depends on how much you are GPU limited,” they say. “If you don’t see any gains it’s very normal, you are most likely CPU limited.”

AMD says it’s “Starfield’s exclusive PC partner”, which may explain why the game only supports its FSR2 tech at launch.

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However, AMD gaming chief Frank Azor suggested last week that this apparent exclusivity may not last forever.

“Bethesda’s decision to use FSR is console leverage,” he told The Verge, referring to the fact that the Xbox Series X/S also use AMD GPUs.

“If and when Bethesda wants to put DLSS into the game, they have our full support.”