Upscaling modder PureDark announced he will mod DLSS 3 into Bethesda’s new space role-playing game, Starfield, when the game enters its early access phase. The modder is going through the trouble based on the fact that Starfield is an AMD-sponsored title, and assuming that Bethesda (Starfield’s developers) will not add DLSS to the game. According to PureDark, he will add frame generation first, then slowly start implementing DLSS 2 upscaling after the game leaves early access.
PureDark is a pretty well-known modder at this point and is particularly known for his work in Jedi: Survivor, where he was able to nearly double the game’s frame rate by modding DLSS 3 frame generation into the game when it first came out with all of its performance problems. He’s built up quite a large following recently and now actively “sells” his mods through Patreon, where gamers can sign up to grab his latest mods.
His ports have been surprisingly good, and have a quality that closely resembles official implementations. That said his mods are not always perfect, and you’ll often see some minor artifacts with his implementation.
PureDark (Modder) on the Starfield situation from r/nvidia
The nice thing about PureDark’s commitment is that Starfield players will have DLSS support whether or not Bethesda decides to officially support it or not as long as the modder lives up to his promise. Modding is one of PC games’ biggest advantages, especially in this case, and gives gamers more ways to experience the game compared to other platforms.
That said, having frame generation before launch might not be that beneficial, depending on how demanding the game’s graphics are. Based on the game’s system requirements, it looks like it will be another daunting AAA title that will push all of your hardware to the limits — even your SSD. For some additional perspective, the game will also be locked to 30 frames per second on consoles according to game director Todd Howard, to insure visual quality won’t be compromised. If the game is as demanding as sources lead us to suggest, having frame generation could be very beneficial, but DLSS frame rate improvements will be locked to RTX 40 series owners until DLSS 2 integration gets added.
Of course, PureDark’s promise could be nullified if Starfield’s developers decided to add DLSS into the game early/at launch, which is what many would like in the first place. Even if DLSS doesn’t get implemented officially, it's not like the game won’t have other upscaling options to choose from. AMD has confirmed that Starfield will have FSR 2 support through its new PC-exclusive partnership with Bethesda. So Starfield players will still have an upscaling solution that will work with both Nvidia and AMD graphics cards that won’t require mods, they just won't have the choice of what they want to use.
