DLSS Multi-Frame Generation Is Now Easier To Enable On Steam Deck, And It Makes Gameplay Worse

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There are tons of great tools that are available to help make our games run better on the Steam Deck. Whether it be in-game options like upscalers or Decky plugins that can inject lossless scaling, there are many ways we can get our games running better on the go. However, one of the more controversial is frame generation. This is an algorithm that can inject artificially made frames into a game, making it appear, though it’s running at a higher frame rate than it actually is. There are some downsides, including major input lag, ghosting, and big issues if the base framerate dips low. Still, there are some scenarios where it can work.

Now, there’s a new Decky plugin that has been released, which promises Multi-Frame Generation. The Decky DLSS Enabler, made by GitHub user xXJSONDeruloXx, can trick games into thinking DLSS is enabled, allowing us to use certain features from Nvidia’s upscaler. In this case, we can use it for Multi-Frame Generation. Multi-Frame Generation is basically tripling or quadrupling your base framerate. While we can do this with lossless scaling, it introduces some major bubbling and input lag, so I never recommend it.

Over the past few hours, I’ve come across multiple YouTube videos claiming this is magical and showing how the games are looking and running with Multi Frame Generation enabled. But none of them showed any meaningful gameplay that would indicate if this is working as intended. Most are just panning the camera around and not moving much in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Clair Obscur. There was almost no gameplay showing moving parts, which could indicate ghosting, and no indication of any possible input lag. So, I decided to download these games and try them out for myself.

And before I get into my thoughts, I want to say that this is not a judgment on the plugin itself. This is my opinion on the feature of the plugin getting the most attention. It doesn't reflect on xXJSONDeruloXx or his work; this is a judgment of the technology that can be used from it that I am evaluating.

Installing the plugin is relatively easy, but we are going to have to do it manually. If you wanna try this out for yourself, all you have to do is download the newest release from the GitHub page, then go back to game mode, enable developer mode for Decky, and install the plugin from the downloaded ZIP file. It’s also worth knowing that this will not work for every game, but it could be worth testing to see which ones work and which don’t.

However, my results were awful. At first, I could not get games to load at all. I had to go back to the stable SteamOS update and make sure my old lossless scaling files were deleted. It didn’t work for me otherwise. After that, I had to play around with the right DLL to patch. Cyberpunk wouldn’t work right unless it was "dxgi", while Clair Obscur worked with "version." I had to keep testing it to make sure Optiscaler would recognize when upscaling was turned on, so I could try injecting FSR 4.

So finally, everything was working. I was able to turn on DLSS Multi Frame Generation and use FSR 4. And after that, it was not worth it. While the frame rate does look like it’s going up, it actually just feels significantly worse. Immediately, there is awful ghosting that is clear as day when moving the camera around or watching any objects. In Cyberpunk, it is most clear when turning the camera or watching any object move in front of you. There is an option that does eliminate some of the ghosting in one of the setting menus called Ghostbusting, but then moving around makes the entire world look like it’s melting into each other. There is nothing appealing about it.

Then we have the insane stuttering. The game cannot and will not hold a stable frame rate, and actually feels so much worse because of all the stuttering. Once we’re moving around and actually playing, it feels like no part has improved. Now, I tested multiple areas of Cyberpunk and Clair Obscur in both 3X and 4X with a combination of upscaling tech, and it all felt terrible.
And all of that is before I get into the input lag. Oh boy, there is a lot of input lag. Even on just 3X, there were clear delays from my button inputs, jumping took half a second longer, and I overshot my targets when running and trying to play any game that has real-time combat, or real-time elements, just felt awful.

I also tried Stellar Blade, which exhibited all of the same issues that the other games did. The only difference is that when the Ghostbusting setting was turned on, it didn’t make the ghosting from our character model go away. So, I could clearly see bubbles around her. But the stuttering and input lag were there all the same.

I followed multiple different guides and tried so many different options, and none of them felt good. I already disliked spring generation for these reasons, with lossless scaling being the one exception sometimes, but I can’t see myself using this at all. It was so difficult to enjoy on any level, and I don’t think that there’s any part of me that would recommend this to someone who is genuinely trying to get a game running better on the Deck.

Is it cool that we have an easy way to try this out and integrate FSR 4? Absolutely. I will always be a fan of more options and think it only helps versus hurting, but there’s just no part of this that actually makes the experience better. In its current state, there’s no part of me that can recommend using this tool as a way to make your game more playable.

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