Elden Ring’s implementation of ray tracing might not be the finest example of the feature on the market, but it’s still a neat visual upgrade for gamers with powerful PCs, and modders may soon have a way of making it viable on lower-end machines, too. In most cases, ray-traced lighting and shadows end up relying heavily on AI-based upsampling to keep these effects performant, which simply isn’t available in FromSoftware’s seminal RPG.
The problem withElden Ring’s ray tracing, then, isn’t that it looks bad. Instead, since the game offers no support for upscalers such asNvidia’s own Deep Learning Super-Sampling, the relatively minuscule visual uptick provided by ray tracing is not worth the performance drop that comes with enabling it. That, however, may soon change.
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A prominentElden Ringmodder, PureDark, is now working on getting Nvidia DLSS 3.0 to work in the game. According to Reddit user JordieJordanV6, who posted a screenshot of PureDark’s Patreon site, the modder has successfully modded DLSS 3.0 into the game already. At this time, PureDark says, there are issues with the way DLSS 3.0 generates interim frames, leading to substantial interpolation problems and bad image quality. Since the feature is working, however, odds are good that the modder may end up launching it sometime down the line.
Some may recognize PureDark as the modder behindSkyrim’s unofficial DLSS implementationfrom a few months back. Indeed, PureDark’s Patreon post specifically mentions that they’ll attempt to get DLSS 3.0 to work inSkyrimbefore continuing their efforts inElden Ring, so as to see if they can learn something about the upscaler from the way it interacts with an entirely different title.
ThoughElden Ring’s ray tracing is disappointingwhen compared to implementations such as the ones present inDying Light 2andMetro: Exodus Enhanced Edition, it’s still an interesting way to bolster the game’s visual fidelity. Its biggest problem, as it were, is that FromSoftware chose not to support any mainstream upsampler, leaving a huge amount of performance on the table for modders such as PureDark to work with.
Naturally, there are some issues with PureDark’s DLSS mod. Setting aside the fact that it’s currently still in active development, using it will mean disabling all ofElden Ring’s online features. WhilesomeElden Ringmods do feature multiplayer, they all sing the players off from the game’s official servers, as otherwise, the player runs the risk of getting banned.
Elden Ringis currently available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
