The absence of DLSS forStarfielddisheartened many fans when news of it broke out, but this nifty tech feature isn’t totally out of the picture. Users rocking AMD cards should have no trouble using the built-in FSR2 option, but NVIDIA card owners will want to get DLSS into the game as soon as possible if they want to see improvements to performance and image quality.
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While it may sound complicated, adding an unsupported graphical feature toStarfieldis surprisingly simple. Thanks to Bethesda’s omnipresent modding community, everyone can add DLSS to their game by simply downloading and pasting a few files into their game’s installation folder. Here’s how to do it.
Adding DLSS to Starfield
First, players need to download the necessary mod files.PureDark’sStarfieldUpscaler on NexusModswas the first to be released, and it works just as well as the other options. PureDark is also known for bringing DLSS3 support toSkyrim.
As far as mod installation goes, players must do the following (all relevant links can be found on the Nexus page above):
After doing all of these, players should have DLSS enabled forStarfield. To ensure that it works, press the END button on the keyboard to reveal a menu that controls the DLSS upscaler. The FSR2 optionmust be enabledin the game’s options menu for this to work, as the mod essentially replaces that with DLSS.
Keep in mind that performance gains,even with DLSS enabled, will vary from machine to machine. If players get only small FPS increases, it most likely means their CPU is holding them back. Additionally, according to the mod page, PureDark’s upscaler only supports DLSS2 used by RTX 20 and 30-series GPUs. It may not have any effect on gamers using any of the RTX 40-series cards since those primarily use DLSS3.
Players using high-end machines should have no trouble getting high FPS onStarfieldusing any graphical preset. Adding DLSS may make the game’s performance more consistent and its overall picture quality less muddy. Those unsatisfied with the FPS counts they are getting with the game may want to use modded graphics presets on NexusMods orwait for aStarfieldpatchfrom Bethesda.
Starfieldis available now on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
