Modder Achieves 74% Performance Leap for DLSS 5 on AMD Radeon in 24 Hours
A developer has significantly optimized an unofficial tool that runs NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 Neural Rendering on AMD Radeon GPUs, achieving a 74% performance increase in a single day. The update enables playable framerates in titles like Cyberpunk 2077, though critics note severe input lag and visual artifacts when combined with frame generation.
Key points
- The developer released Alpha 0.3.3 and 0.4.0 within 24 hours, collectively boosting performance by 74% on AMD hardware.
- Alpha 0.3.3 introduced a graphical installer and settings editor, while Alpha 0.4.0 provided a 42% performance jump over the previous version.
- Testing in Cyberpunk 2077 at 3440x1440 showed framerates rising from approximately 30 FPS to 50 FPS on Radeon RX 9000 GPUs.
- The tool leverages RDNA 4’s FP8 math support to intercept NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 DLL calls and route them to AMD hardware.
- A subsequent Alpha 0.4.1 update added an additional 8% performance gain, with further major updates reportedly imminent.
Background
NVIDIA’s DLSS 5, unveiled in March 2026, relies on FP8 neural rendering and is officially supported only on RTX 50-series Blackwell GPUs. Earlier leaks in August 2026 showed that porting DLSS 5 to older NVIDIA architectures like Ampere resulted in catastrophic performance drops due to a lack of native FP8 support. This development follows a trend of modders porting DLSS 5 to various platforms, including Intel integrated graphics and older NVIDIA cards, though AMD support had previously been limited to basic functionality.
How outlets are covering it
TechPowerUp and Wccftech highlight the rapid progress of the mod, emphasizing the 74% performance boost and the developer’s aggressive update schedule. They note that the tool now makes DLSS 5 playable on Radeon RX 9000 and RX 7000 series cards. In contrast, GameGPU reports on a separate benchmark using the same mod in Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, where a Radeon RX 9070 XT achieved 100 FPS with 4x frame generation. However, GameGPU notes that the r/radeon community criticized this result, arguing that the true base framerate was only 25 FPS, leading to unacceptable input lag and visual artifacts. TechPowerUp comments also reflect a debate on whether NVIDIA should lock such technologies to its own hardware, with some users arguing that proprietary restrictions hinder market innovation.
Why it matters
This development demonstrates the potential of AMD’s RDNA 4 architecture to handle FP8 workloads, which are central to NVIDIA’s latest neural rendering technology. It also highlights the ongoing tension between proprietary technology locks and community-driven modding efforts. If the mod continues to improve, it could force NVIDIA to reconsider its support strategy or accelerate AMD’s development of its own equivalent upscaling technologies.
What to watch
The developer has indicated that another major update is coming soon, which is expected to further improve performance. The modding community will likely continue to test the tool in various games to assess its stability and visual fidelity. NVIDIA may also respond to the growing popularity of these unofficial ports by adjusting its driver support or releasing official DLSS 5 support for more platforms.
- Modder Squeezes 74% More Performance Out of DLSS 5 on AMD Radeon in One Day techpowerup.com
- DLSS-NR-on-AMD Developer Delivers 74% Performance Boost On Radeon GPUs In A Single Day wccftech.com
- Modders make DLSS 5 Neural Rendering on AMD faster and easier to install VideoCardz.com
- Radeon RX 9070 XT gave out 100 FPS in Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy with DLSS 5 and 4x FG GameGPU
- AMDNR Launcher has become the neural network rendering manager for AMD graphics cards. GameGPU
Want the full story? Read the original reporting
Read on techpowerup.com