RTX 4090 frame rates jump 63% with FoveatedDLSS5 mod on ultrawide monitors

FoveatedDLSS5 lets you get foveated rendering (like in VR) on traditional ultrawide monitors, by selectively cutting corners of the image (lower resolution), while keeping the center of the screen fully detailed. And this is of interest to gamers, as it provides a significant drop in graphics card load, without requiring hardware investment. This is a modification for people who want to boost framerates in graphics-intensive games like The Witcher 3, while preserving the center of their FoV.

Open-source mod reduces peripheral rendering load for significant performance gains

FoveatedDLSS5 is an open-source mod, developed by the modder maximedgoulet for the RenoDX DLSS 5 add-on that's integrated with ReShade. It works by compressing the image output, putting it onto a smaller processing grid before passing the image to the AI upscaler. That saves a lot of processing pixels that have to be passed through the neural net – and saves rendering time as a result. (Note that there's a similar one called CheekyFoveatedDLSS, that adds support for optional eye tracking hardware.)

• Resolution Tested: 7680 × 2160
• Performance Gain: 49 FPS to 80 FPS
• Processing Grid Reduction: 5540 × 2132
• Pixel Reduction: 71%

In The Witcher 3 on GeForce RTX 4090, when testing at 7680 by 2160 resolution, we see a step up from about 49 FPS to more than 80 FPS. That's because the processing grid for DLSS 5 gets reduced down to 5540 by 2132 pixels, leaving only about 71% of the original pixels for the neural net to process. That lighter load means the GPU can hold higher framerates, with sharp quality in the center of the screen.

The developer remarks that it's hard to see the quality drop at the edges when actually playing games. Subjectively this suggests that it's a minor compromise from the user's perspective. The mod lets you get over 60% more performance for RTX 4090 on ultrawides, by cutting corners in terms of computational cost on the periphery. (We covered the last update of FoveatedDLSS5. It shared many of the same balance and stability concerns.)

FoveatedDLSS5 is a free mod for anyone using the RenoDX DLSS 5 add-on. It's a great way to improve your gaming performance on high-end GPUs, without having to upgrade hardware. It shows how you can tweak software to give more life to your existing GPU, by reallocating processing power.