Gaming | October 4, 2023

Starfield officially arrived on PC and Xbox Series X/S consoles yesterday, allowing all players to enjoy a unique space RPG created by Bethesda as their new major venture in the role-playing game genre.

The PC version is the one we’ve been able to play the most, and while its performance is reasonably optimized, the community has already started working on various mods to improve it, especially for those who barely meet the game’s minimum or recommended requirements.

Among these mods is a modification that allows us to use NVIDIA’s DLSS technology to achieve a higher FPS rate in the game with minimal loss of quality.

How to install the DLSS mod for Starfield on PC?

Since DLSS is not natively present in Starfield despite being the best smoothing and upscaling technology currently available and the performance boost it provides, the modding community has decided to create a mod that allows us to use it. It has been created by PureDark, and you can install it by following these steps:

Required files

• Download the DLSS mod for Starfield by clicking here.
• Download Uplscaler Base Plugin.
• Download the NVIDIA DLSS DLL 3.5.0 at this link.

Installation steps

Once you have downloaded everything you need, follow these steps:

• Unzip the DLSS mod file for Starfield.
• Copy the extracted files and paste them into the folder where you have Starfield installed (C:XboxGames/Starfield if you are playing the Gamepass version or C:Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Starfield if you are playing from Steam).
• Unzip the Upscaler Base Plugin file.
• Copy the UpscalerBasePlugin file you extracted into the mods folder found within the folder where you have Starfield installed (C:XboxGames/Starfield/content/mods if it’s the Game Pass version or C:Program Files (x86)Steam/steamapps/common/Starfield/mods if you are using Steam).
• Copy the ncngx_dlss_3.5.0 file you downloaded in the previous step and paste it into the new UpscalerBasePlugin folder created in the mods folder (C:XboxGames/Starfield/content/mods/UpscalerBasePlugin if you’re playing the Gamepass version or C:Program Files (x86)Steam/steamapps/common/Starfield/mods/UpscalerBasePlugin if you’re playing from Steam).

Learn how to use the DLSS mod for Starfield

Now that the mod is installed, follow these steps to use it:

• Open Starfield.
• Select the display options.
• Under upscaling, select FSR2.
• Apply the changes.
• Once done, press the “END” key.
• In the new menu that appears, choose DLSS under the Upscale Type option.
• You’re all set to enjoy DLSS in Starfield.

On another note, please note that there are no DLSS profiles with this mod, so to control the quality of upscaling, you will need to adjust it using the sharpness option of AMD FSR2. Around 70% sharpness should provide very good graphical quality with a noticeable performance gain.

What is DLSS and what is it used for?

Many of you may already know what NVIDIA DLSS is, but for those who are not familiar, it is an exclusive technology of NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards. DLSS, in simple terms, is a rescaling and texture smoothing tool that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to take an image from a lower resolution to a higher one (for example, from 1080p to 1440p) and then uses the same AI to smooth out any graphical defects that may occur during that upscaling, such as jagged edges in the image.

This means that by working from a lower resolution than what is ultimately displayed on the screen, it allows us to increase the frames per second (FPS) of the game, improving performance significantly while minimizing the loss of image quality.

Is DLSS available natively in Starfield?

No, Bethesda has decided not to include DLSS technology natively in Starfield. The reason is unknown, as although there is a commercial agreement between the game’s creators and AMD, NVIDIA’s rival graphics company, AMD has stated that this commercial agreement does not prevent Bethesda from using DLSS.

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