Initial checks

Important

If you can't open the in-game menu overlay:

• Please check that you have installed OptiScaler in the correct folder (where the proper game exe is located)

  • for Unreal Engine games, look for the win_shipping.exe in one of the subfolders, generally <path-to-game>\Game-or-Project-name\Binaries\Win64 or WinGDK\, ignore the Engine folder
  • Example paths - Expedition 33\Sandfall\Binaries\Win64, Jedi Survivor\SwGame\Binaries\Win64, Cyberpunk 2077\bin\x64, HITMAN 3\Retail, Warhammer 40,000 DARKTIDE\binaries, The Witcher 3\bin\x64_dx12

• Check that you have enabled DLSS2+, XeSS or FSR2+ from game options and are opening the overlay while in-game, not inside game settings

  • Some games tend to disable upscalers in Settings menus or inventories (e.g. Remedy games, RDR2), so it's crucial to check while walking around in the game world

• If you are using RTSS (MSI Afterburner, CapFrameX), please try shutting it down first. When using OptiFG, please disable RTSS for best compatibility.

  • If closing RTSS helps, then please check below - In-Game Menu

• If you see the Opti splash message in the bottom left, but can't open the Overlay with Insert (or Alt + Insert), then try changing the shortcut key

  • ShortcutKey= in OptiScaler.ini, default (auto) is 0x2D (which corresponds to VK_INSERT/Insert key)
  • If you want to use e.g. Home button, that would be 0x24 (VK_HOME/Home key) - set ShortcutKey=0x24
  • For all keycode values, you can check this link - Virtual-Key Codes

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Table of Contents

• In-Game Menu
• All Games crashing
• EGS games crashing with FG
• OptiFG, Steam Input, Overlays Disabled and Controller not working
• Output Scaling greyed out
• Upscale Ratio Override issues
• Resource Barriers
• Exposure Texture
• XeSS issues
• XeFG issues
• Intel Arc spoofing issues
• Performance Issues
• Display Resolution Motion Vectors
• Graphical Corruption and Crashes
• Shader Compilation error on Linux
• DirectX 11 with DirectX 12 Upscalers
• Legacy In-game Menu

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In-Game Menu

• If you are using RTSS (MSI Afterburner, CapFrameX), please enable Use MS Detours API hooking in RTSS Setup/Settings (and try updating RTSS also if possible).
• XeFG usually requires disabling Inject Reflex Markers to work properly.

Tip

• If Opti overlay is instantly disappearing after trying Insert a few times, maybe try Alt + Insert (reported workaround for alternate keyboard layouts).
• For some games (e.g. Dying Light 2), mouse doesn't work in the overlay, so keyboard navigation is required - Arrow keys, Tab and Space
• Sometimes pressing Esc to pause the game unlocks the mouse input in the overlay

All Games crashing

We've identified some apps which seem to inject in all processes, conflicting with OptiScaler and thus causing the games to crash, generally on boot.

Warning

Problematic apps:

• Windhawk
• MacType

Note

FIX

Starting from OptiScaler 0.9-final, Opti already automatically blocks these apps from hooking into games!

• Either disable the afformentioned problematic apps, or add crashing games to the app's Exclusion List
• Probably easier just to turn off the apps

EGS games crashing with FG

EGS/EOS Overlay has been identified to cause crashes when using Frame Generation options through OptiScaler.

Solution was to either set DisableOverlays=true in OptiScaler.ini or manually rename the EOS DLLs.

Note

Starting from Opti 0.9, we're automatically blocking EGS/EOS Overlay when FG Inputs/Outputs are selected in OptiScaler.

OptiFG, Steam Input, Overlays Disabled and Controller not working

Note

IMPORTANT NOTES

• Due to compatibility issues, Optiscaler automatically disables overlays when OptiFG is enabled (Steam, RTSS, Ubisoft, EA App, Overwolf).
• This seems to include Steam Input, which gets blocked too which can mess with controller layouts. If you're having issues with your controller, try setting DisableOverlays=false in Optiscaler.ini.

Output Scaling greyed out

• This generally happens on Unreal Engine games as the game sends Dilated Motion Vectors which aren't supported by Output Scaling.

Note

Solution

• To unlock OS, disable Dilated MVs through Engine.ini - check Wiki link

Upscale Ratio Override issues

• Some games don't support DLAA/Native AA since they were never configured for it. That's when overriding the Upscale Ratio to 1.0 causes a problem.
• Problem - overriding to Upscale Ratio 1.0 disables the upscaler and OptiScaler says "Please activate XeSS/DLSS/FSR"

Note

Solution

• These games require atleast 1.01 ratio override!
• For games that check the ratio each frame, if you're overriding from the Opti Overlay, it is recommended to first write 1.1, then add the 0 in-between to get 1.01, in order to avoid the upscaler disabling itself.
• If you want to override through OptiScaler.ini, check here for overriding all presets or overriding per-preset

Resource Barriers

• The Unreal Engine DLSS plugin is known to send DLSS resources in the wrong state.
• Normally OptiScaler checks engine info from NVSDK and automatically enables necessary fixes for Unreal Engine games, but some games do not report engine info correctly.
• This problem usually manifests itself as colored areas at the bottom of the screen or dark/black blocks at top right corner of the screen.

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Click here for screenshot examples

Deep Rock Galactic

Ghostrunner 2

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Note

Workaround is to set ColorResourceBarrier=4 from OptiScaler.ini or select RENDER_TARGET for Color at Resource Barriers (Dx12) from the in-game menu.

Exposure Texture

• Sometimes games exposure texture format is not recognized by upscalers.
• Most of the time manifests itself as crushed colors (especially in dark areas) or white screens instead of normal rendering with XeSS (like Jedi Survivor).

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Click here for screenshot examples

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

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Note

In most cases, enabling AutoExposure=true in OptiScaler.ini or selecting Auto Exposure in Init Parameters from the in-game menu should fix these issues.

XeSS issues

Black/garbled/white screen, crashes or degraded performance over time

• Some users have reported that when using XeSS upscaler backend, the result is a black/garbled screen with UI or crashes (in Guardians of the Galaxy e.g.).

For Unreal Engine games, only UE XeSS -> Opti XeSS/FSR4 work!

• Regarding XeSS inputs, since Unreal Engine plugin does not provide depth, replacing in-game XeSS breaks other upscalers (e.g. Redout 2 as a XeSS-only game), but you can still apply RCAS sharpening to XeSS to reduce blurry visuals.

Note

• Try turning on Auto Exposure if it's disabled as some games require AE enabled for XeSS to work properly.
• If the game crashes with XeSS, or performance degrades over time (e.g. GTX 1600 series, example), please try setting these options in OptiScaler.ini

; Building pipeline for XeSS before init
; true or false - Default (auto) is true
BuildPipelines=false

; Creating heap objects for XeSS before init
; true or false - Default (auto) is false
CreateHeaps=false

• OUTDATED WITH NEWER XESS - In some cases downloading the latest version of DirectX Shader Compiler and extracting dxcompiler.dll, dxil.dll from bin\x64\ next to the game exe file resolved this issue.

XeFG issues

• XeFG requirements and issues are already explained in their own section in the FG Options Wiki entry.
  • Frame Generation Options

Intel Arc spoofing issues

• Intel Arc GPUs seem to present weird colour "rainbow" artifacts in some games when spoofing to Nvidia (e.g. Robocop Rogue City, STALKER 2).
• Also check below for more UE5 issues

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Click here for screenshot examples

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Note

Solution

• Either disable spoofing with Dxgi=false in OptiScaler.ini and use FSR or XeSS inputs
• Or use OptiPatcher if that game is supported

Performance Issues

• In general XeSS is heavier than FSR for GPUs, so it's expected to be have lower performance even on Intel Arc GPUs.
• As a result of spoofing to an Nvidia card to enable DLSS, some games would use an Nvidia-optimized codepath which may result in lower performance on other GPUs.
  • AMD/Intel users can always take a look at OptiPatcher - an ASI Plugin for OptiScaler for exposing DLSS/DLSS-FG inputs without spoofing in supported games.

Display Resolution Motion Vectors

• Sometimes games would set the wrong DisplayResolution init flag, resulting in excessive motion blur.
• Setting or resetting DisplayResolution would help resolve this issue.

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Click here for screenshot examples

Deep Rock Galactic

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Graphical Corruption and Crashes

• As mentioned above, spoofing an Nvidia card can cause games to use special codepaths that can cause graphichal corruptions.
• Screenshot below is from a pre-UE 5.3 game where these blue texture corruptions used to be seen - The Talos Principle 2, Black Myth Wukong, Ranch Simulator...

Note

• If possible disable spoofing and use FSR or XeSS inputs on these situations, or use OptiPatcher on supported games.

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Click here for screenshot examples

Talos Principle 2

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• And crashes, especially when raytracing is enabled.

Shader Compilation error on Linux

• If you are using OptiScaler with Linux and you have problems with RCAS, Reactive Mask Bias or Output Scaling, you will probably notice this message in your logs.

CompileShader error compiling shader : <anonymous>:83:26: E5005: Function "rcp" is not defined.

Note

• To solve this problem you can use Precompiled Shaders option from menu or install d3dcompiler_47 with WineTricks/ProtonTricks. OptiScaler uses custom shaders for these features and depends on this compiler file to compile these shaders at runtime.

DirectX 11 with DirectX 12 Upscalers

• These implementations use a background DirectX 12 device (D3D11on12) to be able to use DirectX 12-only upscalers. There is an up-to 10-15% performance penalty for this method, but allows many more upscaler options.

Legacy In-game Menu

• Please try opening menu while you are in-game (while 3D rendering is happening)

• On some system and game combinations, opening the old in-game menu may cause the game to crash or cause graphical corruption (especially in Unreal Engine 5 games).

Click here for screenshot examples

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

• In games that use Unity Engine, legacy in-game menu will be upside down.

Click here for screenshot examples

Sons of Forest