NVIDIA DLSS 3, or Frame Generation as it should be more correctly called, had its plugin released publically by NVIDIA at GDC 2023 as part of the latest Streamline SDK update.
This opened up a lot of interesting possibilities, chiefly easier access to DLSS 3 for game developers and even for modders. PureDark's was already working on a DLSS 2 (Super Resolution), FSR2, and XeSS Elden Ring mod, and he's now attempting to add DLSS 3, too.
According to the modder, DLSS 3 bumped the performance of his GeForce RTX 4070Ti GPU by 68.5% (from 70 FPS to 118 FPS) when implemented into Elden Ring. That was without even activating DLSS Super Resolution. Needless to say, it would be more than enough headroom to allow GeForce RTX users to enable the new ray tracing option at max setting without worrying too much about the consequences for their frame rate.
The bad news is that, unfortunately, the image quality is far from ideal; the modder described it as if the generated frames were juxtaposed with regular interpolation. That's obviously not what DLSS 3 is supposed to look like. As a troubleshooting method, PureDark decided to fall back on what he knows best. If you've been following his work and our reports, you might recall that he successfully implemented DLSS 2 (Super Resolution) into Bethesda's Creation Engine for both The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4.
PureDark has now modded DLSS 3 into Skyrim, though he's still tweaking the image quality and details. If he succeeds at making everything look right in this game, then he could possibly understand what went wrong with the Elden Ring implementation.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a very old game nowadays, but DLSS Frame Generation could still be useful for those who attempt to mod the game to look like a recently released game. YouTuber Digital Dreams, for example, often uploads Skyrim videos featuring massive graphics mods and ReShade ray tracing presets that can push the visuals to amazing levels but also force even the mighty GeForce RTX 4090 GPU to run the game at lower than 100 frames per second.
Although PureDark hasn't shared any info on the DLSS 3 uplift in this game yet, there's good reason to expect it will meaningfully boost performance. However, the real benefit from this work would be greater insight for future implementations - starting with Elden Ring. Stay tuned for more information; you can support PureDark on Patreon if you want him to keep working on these 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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