Yesterday, modder PureDark released an Alpha Build of his DLSS 3 mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to his Patreon subscribers. It is the first mod of its kind, made possible by NVIDIA's decision to publicly share the Frame Generation plugin as part of the Streamline SDK update 2.0 that went live to coincide with GDC 2023.
As you may remember from our previous coverage, PureDark had actually first set out to implement a DLSS 3 mod into Elden Ring. He got it working, too, and registered a massive performance improvement. However, there were issues with the image quality, and the modder decided to implement the Frame Generation plugin in another game he previously modded - Bethesda Game Studios's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - to assess what went wrong with Elden Ring.
PureDark previously introduced DLSS 2 (Super Resolution) as well as AMD FSR 2 and Intel XeSS to games that didn't have native support for these upscalers, such as Skyrim, Fallout 4, and various RE Engine titles. Skyrim was, therefore, an obvious choice. While the record-breaking open world RPG is over eleven years old, it is still played on PC thanks to the many mods that keep it alive.
I've tested the DLSS 3 mod and confirmed it works well in Skyrim, with a performance improvement and no side effects. Indeed, as you can see in the screenshot comparison below, enabling Frame Generation on top of Super Resolution (set to Quality) boosted the frame rate from 188 to 261 FPS (nearly 39% more FPS) while standing in Whiterun. This is on an Intel i7 12700KF CPU, GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, and 16GB DDR4, running the Anniversary Edition at 4K resolution and max settings without any mods (except for SKSE, which is required to unlock the frame rate and some necessary fixes).
Of course, the best use case for this DLSS 3 mod will be with many heavy graphics mods, like those showcased by YouTubers like Digital Dreams. These mods can completely overhaul the visuals so that Skyrim almost looks like a new game, but they can also bring down performance even on high-end PCs, which is why being able to enable DLSS Super Resolution and Frame Generation for RTX 40 Series owners is a big plus. There is one caveat right now - Reflex isn't working properly due to a DX11 bug with the Streamline SDK.
As I mentioned before, this first step could open up to DLSS 3 mods for other popular PC games. Fallout 4 is very similar to Skyrim, using an updated version of the Creation Engine, so it could be a prime candidate; the RE Engine games, which already support DLSS Super Resolution through mods, could also use DLSS 3, although they natively run smoothly.
Really, though, here's hoping PureDark can return to the Elden Ring job to fix what went wrong with the previous implementation. A DLSS 3 mod could do wonders for FromSoftware's masterpiece on top of the ray tracing options and various texture mods.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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