The most popular Starfield mod replaces FSR with DLSS

Earlier this year, speculations arose that Bethesda’s long-awaited blockbuster, Starfield, won’t have one of the most popular gaming features—DLSS. Nvidia’s upscaling technology has become a household name, allowing players to run their games at higher resolutions and settings without sacrificing performance. 

Last month, it was confirmed that Starfield won’t launch with DLSS support. This angered many fans online, with some even accusing AMD of forbidding Bethesda from implementing a competing technology since they are one of the developers’ sponsors, and their upscaling technology is featured and implemented in Starfield. 

AMD responded to these claims, saying that Bethesda can implement whatever upscaling they want, whenever they want. While fans await an official response from Bethesda, modders have already offered a solution. The most popular Starfield mod on NexusMods replaces FSR2 with Nvidia’s DLSS technology. 

However, it isn’t the only popular mod that does so. The sixth-most popular mod is also one implementing DLSS instead of AMD’s open-source upscaling technology. It’s clear that the player base is genuinely frustrated with Bethesda’s move to keep DLSS and XeSS out of their title. 

The sharp reactions arising from this issue are unsurprising, considering how dominant Nvidia’s products are on PC. Per Steam’s Aug. 2023 survey, Nvidia’s graphics cards hold a vast majority of the market share. The 12 most popular cards are all Nvidia products, with AMD only showing up from position 13 and lower. 

Bethesda’s move to lock the most coveted Nvidia feature from such a massive number of players seems counter-intuitive. However, the game still hasn’t been released officially, and it is only available to those who preordered it. While it is likely that Starfield will receive full DLSS support following the game’s official launch on Sept. 6, nothing has been confirmed yet, truly making this situation a modder’s paradise.