OptiScaler provides a universal wrapper for various upscaling (and other) technologies
With the Radeon RX 9000 series, AMD launched updated gaming upscaling technology. FSR4 uses artificial intelligence for the upscaling step for the first time, which should improve image quality. However, there’s the usual problem of not all games supporting these technologies. Now, a surprisingly capable solution has emerged—the OptiScaler tool, which can “force” the new FSR into a large group of games that don’t natively support it.
Back in the days of FSR 2 already, mods have quickly appeared that unofficially added support for AMD’s upscaling to selected games by converting the calls of Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling interface, enabled by the fact that in principle, all these technologies work very similarly. Now, a mod called OptiScaler has appeared on GitHub, which does this more generally and can “swap” upscaling in various games. Currently, it allows FSR4 to be added to games that don’t have official support (and not even FSR 3.1 support, with allows FSR4 to be upgraded into games officially by AMD drivers). But the possibilities don’t end there—OptiScaler can universally replace these technologies, making it useful for users of all brands.
The tool can also add Intel’s XeSS upscaling to games implementing DLSS. In addition to the new FSR4, which currently only works on Radeon RX 9000 cards with RDNA 4 architecture, it also supports the older FSR 3.1, which is universally compatible. However, it can also dot he reverse and replace FSR with Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling (which will then only run on GeForce RTX 2000 and newer graphics cards). It works by acting as a wrapper inserted between the game and the upscaling, implementing the necessary APIs to make the chosen technology function.
Since this is work byl game hacking, OptiScaler naturally has its limitations, and various games may have compatibility issues. However, the tool has successfully managed to enable FSR4 in Cyberpunk 2077, where, given Nvidia’s sponsorship of the game, it’s questionable when or if official support will ever arrive.
It’s important to note that such modifications alter game files, so you shouldn’t use them with online games (where you’d likely get banned by anti-cheat systems). You can find a list of games where FSR4 injection works or doesn’t work here.
Generating frames in any game?
OptiScaler isn’t just about replacing upscaling technologies in games. It can also add universal frame generation to games built on DirectX 12 API using the OptiFG tool or the dlssg-to-fsr3 component. OptiFG is particularly useful for GeForce RTX 2000 and 3000 users (if they want “fake FPS”), as Nvidia doesn’t provide frame generation for these cards.
This tool should even allow the addition of frame generation to some games that don’t include any such option at all but do implement some form of upscaling with temporal filtering (such as DLSS 2.x or FSR 2.x). For such such unsupported games, the additional Hudfix feature attempts to address the issue of applying frame interpolation to in-game GUIs.
Modding Latency-Reducing Technologies
Similarly, for games supporting Nvidia Reflex it is also possible to add support for alternative latency-reduction technologies (open-source LatencyFlex, AMD’s Anti-Lag 2). This is provided by the FakeNvapi component. However, it’s important to note that this modification will be flagged by anti-cheat systems (again leading to bans), making it practically unusable for multiplayer games, where it might be most desired. For those games, your only option is to push developers to support graphics cards other than just Nvidia’s.
If you’re interested in this kind of game modding, you can find a description of the tool and installation instructions on GitHub.
Sources: OptiScaler, VideoCardz
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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