Officially, DLSS 5 and its photorealistic effects are supposed to be exclusive to Nvidia’s graphics cards, but someone has developed a way to run the tech on AMD’s Radeon GPUs.
Daniel Blanco created a mod that can run the leaked 158MB DLSS 5 file on AMD Radeon RX 9000, 7000, and 6000 GPUs, although it works best on the latest generation.
As expected, DLSS 5 seriously drags down the frame rates. But Blanco has been working to refine performance through new mod versions that also runs Nvidia’s other DLSS upscaling and FPS-boosting features.
“Performance is now playable,” Blanco says on his GitHub page, noting you can expect 90 to 100 frames per second at 1080p resolution on AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 XT. “Output quality is very similar to what DLSS produces on the original hardware, though there are still some effects that may not be working 100%.”
Blanco also created a Discord server, where users willing to try out the mod have been sharing screenshots of DLSS 5 running on their AMD GPUs. The mod seems to successfully replicate the same photorealism. That said, YouTuber Georgetech found that DLSS 5 runs better on Nvidia’s RTX 5060 Ti than on a Radeon RX 9070 XT.
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The mod could help fill a void since AMD has no DLSS 5 equivalent. There have been rumors about it, although it might be limited to next-generation GPUs.
In the meantime, only one title, NBA 2K27, officially supports DLSS 5 as an in-game feature, while Hogwarts Legacy will add support on Nov. 5. Still, the leak of the 158MB DLSS 5 file in late August has enabled modders to run the tech on all kinds of games. DLSS 5 was designed for RTX 5000 GPUs, but Nvidia is preparing to expand support to the RTX 4000 series as well.
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Michael Kan
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Experience
I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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