Starfield is officially launching on September 5, 2023, on Xbox and PC platforms. The early access for the game is now live though, and it looks like some modder didn’t like the fact that Starfield only supports AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 2.0 technology at launch. Taking matters into his own hands, the modder has added Nvidia DLSS & Intel XeSS support to the game! Yes, you are reading that right. Let’s look at all the details about this mod.
Starfield Gets DLSS 2 & Intel XeSS Third-Party Mod
As you might know, Starfield is an AMD-sponsored game made by Bethesda. Officially, the game only comes with AMD FSR 2.0 support – even though AMD says it’s not stopping Bethesda from adding DLSS support. While the developer is yet to confirm future DLSS support, the game has received support for other super-resolution technologies like Nvidia DLSS 2 and Intel XeSS through a third-party mod made by PureDark.
This same modder is also working on a Starfield DLSS 3 mod, which he confirmed will launch soon, in time for Starfield’s official release on September 5. So, how does PureDark’s DLSS 2 and Intel XeSS Starfield mod work? It replaces the in-game FSR implementation with either DLSS or XeSS, based on what the user selects.
The mod is merely 460KB in size, with a 2.3MB reshade mod file available as well in case users want to use the modder’s ReShade CAS effect. The Starfield Upscaler mod by PureDark can be downloaded from NexusMods and installed by following a few simple step-by-step instructions. These steps are detailed in the NexusMods page above and in the second screenshot below.
Should You Install Starfield DLSS Mod or Stick with FSR?
The Starfield Upscaler mos with DLSS/XeSS is an unofficial modification made by PureDark. A lot of his mods add functionality like this, and he is a renowned modder in the community. However, this is the v1.0 release of Starfield DLSS/Intel XeSS Mod so it can result in bugs when used. For example, the bug reports page of this mod mentions users experiencing various issues such as:
- Reduced FOV
- Not able to use VSync
- Frozen game state
These issues could be fixable, but you might not want to spend time getting the game to work properly. The native FSR implementation in Starfield works across all GPUs (Nvidia GeForce, Intel Arc, and AMD Radeon). This is because AMD’s FidelityFX FSR technology is open-source under the MIT license.
So, you don’t really need to install this mod, unless, as an Intel or Nvidia graphics card owner, you want to use their own super-resolution technologies instead of FSR. Moreover, try this mod at your own risk and back up any replaced files to restore your original game easily.
Sanmay Chakrabarti
