You might have to wait months or even years for AMD to release technology similar to NVIDIA's DLSS 5. Not everyone will wait. Not all players need this technology, nor are all willing to sacrifice GPU performance for visual effects (depending on the scene and personal preference). However, players interested in DLSS 5 can now experience parts of the technology on Radeon GPUs through community-made mods.
We have previously reported that developers ported DLSS neural rendering technology to Radeon GPUs, with performance being the primary concern at the time. AMD GPUs were not specifically designed for this technology, so developers had to find ways to make it run at acceptable speeds. In this context, frame generation time may be more indicative than the original frame rate, as frame generation time can...
Recently, running NVIDIA's DLSS 5 neural rendering on AMD Radeon GPUs has become quicker and more convenient. The unofficial DLSS-NR-on-AMD project has received two major performance updates, and the standalone AMD NR Launcher can now automatically handle most of the installation and configuration tasks.
Before AMD NR
After AMD NR
Developer Daniel Blanco released DLSS-NR-on-AMD Alpha 0.3.3, which reportedly offers a 23% performance improvement over version 0.3.2. Shortly after, Alpha 0.4.0 was released, claiming another 42% performance boost compared to 0.3.3. This project enables Radeon RX 9000 and RX 7000 GPUs to use FSR technology in DirectX 12 games.
The installation process has also become simpler
The AMD NR Launcher also addresses another issue with these unofficial implementations: installation. Previously, users had to manually copy and replace DLL files for each game, but now they can simply select the game and runtime environment in the launcher and install the required components with a few clicks. It also supports direct uninstallation of installed files and updating AMD NR components within the same interface.
Currently, the launcher supports the DLSS-NR-on-AMD runtime developed by Daniel Blanco and the open-source HIP runtime developed by Kien, while retaining the full OptiScaler interface. Users can utilize features such as FSR and XeSS options, Frame Generation, Ray Reconstruction, and Model Interleave. Additionally, the launcher offers experimental handheld support, with developers currently testing on the ROG Ally Z1 Extreme.
Performance optimization efforts are currently proceeding independently and are not tied to the launcher's development. The AMD NR development team stated that on the RX 7800 XT at 1440p resolution with FSR Quality mode, the time taken for one neural network processing step has decreased from approximately 73 milliseconds to 52 milliseconds, while the RX 9000 series GPUs are receiving new kernels for further optimization.
It is important to note that both projects are currently unofficial community-developed initiatives and are not affiliated with AMD or NVIDIA in any way.
It appears that NVIDIA's DLSS 5 (NR) technology has basically been "taken over" by mod authors. Currently, this technology can run not only on GeForce graphics cards but also on Radeon and even Intel graphics cards. However, the biggest issues remain performance, higher GPU power consumption, and the likely absence of an official method to forcibly apply this technology to other games not officially supported.
It is hard to imagine that DLSS 5 is currently still officially locked to just one game (NBA).