AMD GPUs Run DLSS 4 Experimentally via Open-Source d4r Project
A developer known by the handle countervolts has updated the open-source project d4r, bringing experimental support for NVIDIA DLSS 4 and DLSS 4.5 to AMD’s Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs. The effort arrives after DLSS had long been treated as an RTX-exclusive technology, and it marks a first step toward running NVIDIA’s upscaling suite on AMD hardware. The project is still early in development, but it offers a working proof of concept for cross-vendor AI upscaling.
The project, whose full name is “DLSS 4 Radeon,” does not port DLSS source code directly. Instead, it calls NVIDIA’s official nvngx_dlss.dll dynamic library through the Linux system and the Proton runtime, then uses the ZLUDA compatibility layer to translate CUDA-targeted compute tasks into instruction sequences that AMD’s RDNA architecture can execute. On top of that, dedicated kernels developed for RDNA 3 and RDNA 4 take on some of DLSS’s key compute work, replacing the heavyweight NVIDIA code paths inside the translation layer. This “official library plus compatibility layer plus custom kernels” combination allows DLSS 3, DLSS 4, and DLSS 4.5 to run on AMD GPUs.
The performance figures released by the developer come from testing on the previous-generation RX 7700 XT, which uses the RDNA 3 architecture. In 《寂静岭：小镇陷落》(Silent Hill: Townfall) at 2560×1440 resolution with the Quality preset, DLSS 4.5 climbed from 48.4 FPS in the d4r 0.1.1 build to 49.3 FPS in version 0.1.2. DLSS 4 saw a smaller gain, moving from 67.9 FPS to 68.1 FPS across the same update.
Even though the practical usefulness is limited at this stage, the developer notes that d4r still holds technical significance. The project demonstrates that RDNA 4’s native FP8 capability opens a viable path for running NVIDIA AI models across platforms. It remains an experimental effort rather than a finished solution for everyday players, but it is a promising signal for those who want to see NVIDIA’s upscaling tech reach AMD hardware. This is honestly one to keep an eye on for hardware enthusiasts.
