"This is either a scam or a virus": one person ported DLSS 5 to AMD GPUs, 64 days, 3,400 stars

NVIDIA's DLSS 5 "neural rendering" launched Sep 3, RTX cards only. The same day, a developer named Daniel Blanco put up a GitHub repo that lets AMD Radeon cards run it too. The repo has no source code, just one installer. By 11-06 it had 3,441 stars and the installer had been downloaded 178k times. It rode a platform event, a video with 290k views, and an exe that was easier to install than any rival. This window has mostly closed, but the same play works again the next time a big-company exclusive feature leaks.

One issue and one video

On the morning of September 4, the second day after the repo went up, someone opened issue #8 titled "is this malware?". The first reply was blunt: "This is either a scam (ReShade or a post-processing filter passed off as DLSS) or a virus." Three people upvoted it.

The next reply didn't argue. It just linked a video from Ancient Gameplays, a YouTube channel that reviews AMD GPUs. That day it had posted "DLSS 5 now WORKS on AMD Graphics cards!! How can this be??", tested on an RX 9070 XT. By 11-06 the video had 292k views (YouTube, 11-06). Someone then posted a VirusTotal scan, and the thread fizzled out.

The same day, OC3D, Wccftech and PC Gamer all published, with nearly identical framing: "a modder named Daniel Blanco has brought DLSS 5 to AMD," all illustrated with Ancient Gameplays' test. OC3D recorded the numbers at the time: an RX 9070 XT running *Cyberpunk 2077* at 1080p managed only 28 fps, "slow, but the fact that it runs at all is astonishing."

What it is

The first line of the README: "Run DLSS 9000 neural rendering in any DirectX 7000 game that uses FSR, DLSS or XeSS, on AMD Radeon RX 6000, 12 and 5 GPUs. Magic!"

How you use it: run NeuralHub_setup.exe, import an nvngx_dlssnr.dll you extracted yourself from a DLSS 5-supported game, let it scan your machine for games, install the mod loader for the ones you want with one click, then turn on FSR or DLSS in-game and press End to open the menu. It hooks the step where the game calls the upscaler, so you don't have to adapt each game individually.

After 10-17's v0.8.0, it's not just neural rendering anymore. DLSS upscaling, ray reconstruction and frame generation have all been brought over. The README now claims 1080p 90–100 fps on an 9070 XT, with a goal of matching an RTX 5070 Ti.

A few facts to know:

• Closed source. The README calls it a "from-scratch DLSS neural network runtime for AMD architecture" that contains no NVIDIA code. The author 9-04 promised "source will be released after cleanup for legal reasons," and as of 11-06 it still hasn't been.
• One person, with AI help. Since v0.3.1, commit messages carry "Co-Authored-By: Claude." 45 days, 27 releases.
• No money. Only a Ko-fi tip link. The README's reason: "Tokens are expensive."

Where the stars came from

Data: daily GitHub stars (from 10-17), GitHub release download counts, YouTube view counts, all read on 11-06.

Two things stand out. First, the installer was downloaded 178k times but has only 3,400 stars, roughly 50 downloads per star: the users are gamers, not GitHub regulars. Second, every round of coverage was tied to a new version: "74% faster", "42% faster", "supports RX 6000", "the whole suite now comes over." Each release handed the hardware press a ready-made headline. I found no sign of paid acquisition or star farming; the download counts and the cadence of coverage line up.

Why this one and not the others

The gap was ready-made. After the DLL leaked in late August, it was easy to find online. NVIDIA users had a pile of tools within a week, while AMD users could only watch. AMD had nothing comparable, and rumor had it would wait for the next RDNA5. An r/radeon thread from the time was titled "DLSS 5 coming to AMD GPUs before FSR 5," which captures the mood.

It wasn't first, but it was the first that actually ran. lmxxf in the Chinese community shipped an open AMD port about two hours earlier, with bit-for-bit comparisons, far more rigorous. But that one only supported the RX 9000, required users to stitch together OptiScaler, ReShade and Magpie themselves, was distributed via a Quark cloud-drive link, and has 239 stars to date. danielblnc gave an English README, a single exe, and downloads straight from GitHub Releases.

The name got locked in by the press. The first wave of articles all said "Daniel Blanco," and later coverage followed that name. The later AMDNR bundle, with his permission, packaged his runtime directly; a Reddit post describing a similar project said it was "like danielblnc's more famous mod." At this point, no matter how good later projects are, it's hard to take "DLSS 5 on AMD" away from his name.

The skepticism was also traffic. Closed source, the name "Magic!", results that looked too good to be true: this drew "is it a virus?" and "ReShade tuned for five minutes does the same" (issues #8, #190). Each time, someone posted a video or benchmark in reply, and the discussion only got hotter.

Who's competing for this

There's also a batch of libraries named after the DLSS 5 buzzword that picked up thousands of stars in days with almost no forks, which looks a lot like malware distribution riding the keyword. That's why the first wave of users asked "is it a virus?"

Latecomers still picked up stars: HelixSR and OpenDLSS-NR arrived two to four weeks later and got about 1,000 stars each. They didn't go after the "DLSS 5 on AMD" name head-on: one only does upscaling, the other is an open-source Vulkan build, each filling a piece it left out.

Can you follow it?

First, this one. DLSS 5 on AMD already has eight or nine projects, the name is taken, star growth is slowing, and only 15 to 30 are left each day. Another generic AMD version will most likely stall at a few hundred stars.

Two or three gaps nobody has seriously tackled remain, and each is a bet:

• Intel Arc. None of the projects in the table above target Intel GPUs (inferred; I didn't find any). Fewer users, but just as excluded.
• Linux / Steam Deck. The README says Vulkan and Linux are "planned." d4r did Linux, but not DLSS 5.
• Open source. The source code the author promised hasn't appeared in two months. OpenDLSS-NR got 1,000 stars on "open + verifiable," which shows people care about this.

And the barrier isn't trivial. This isn't something you do by wrapping a shell. You need to rewrite another vendor's neural-network inference on AMD hardware (HIP / Vulkan compute shaders) and hook it into the game's render pipeline. The author had AI help, but he knows this stack himself.

What's actually worth taking away is the playbook, and it has already shown up twice (in 2023 and again in 3,2026 with this one):

1. Watch for big vendors' exclusive features: a feature in a GPU, phone OS, console or AI product that's only for the vendor's own users. The moment it leaks or launches, ship a "works on the other camp too" build.
2. Be first to something usable, not first to the best: one installer plus a manager beats open source and rigor for the first wave.
3. Attach a numeric headline to every release: "74% faster", "now supports older cards". The press will chase it.
4. Get vertical YouTubers to test it: channels like Ancient Gameplays that cover a single camp are exactly who needs this content. I couldn't determine whether the author reached out to them or they found it on their own.

If it were you

C: worth reading, but building "DLSS 5 on AMD" now isn't worth it. Its stars came from one platform event plus being first to claim the name, and both are gone. Eight or nine projects in the same niche, and growth is slowing. What's worth taking away is the playbook: "exclusive feature leaks → first to make it work for the other camp." Wait for the next event.

• Who it suits: developers who know GPU compute, graphics pipelines or systems-level code and can get another vendor's feature running on another platform within a week or two; people who hang out in communities like r/Amd and r/pcmasterrace and will hear about a leak the day it breaks.
• Who it doesn't suit: anyone wanting to build yet another AMD version of DLSS 5 now; people who can't write low-level inference and can only wrap a UI (AMDNR already occupies that layer); anyone worried about legal risk: closed source plus a DLL the user supplies from NVIDIA invites DMCA takedowns, and nobody can say for sure whether that will happen.
• How to do it: either pick the piece it hasn't covered (Intel Arc, Linux/Steam Deck, an open and verifiable build), ship something that runs first, then keep pace with its release rhythm; or right now compile a list of "each vendor's exclusive features," and open the repo the day the next leak happens.
• How to get users: put the download link and Discord in the first screen of the README; on launch day, give a beta to a YouTuber who covers that camp exclusively; write a one-line numeric update for each version, post it to the relevant subreddits, and send it to sites like Videocardz and Wccftech that need new stories every day.
• When is too late: this window effectively closed in late October. If you're betting on a gap, 11-05 *Hogwarts Legacy* officially adding DLSS 5 and NVIDIA expanding DLSS 5 to the RTX 40 series might bring a small wave of attention, probably through mid-November.
• What would mean we misread it: ① after the Hogwarts Legacy wave it posts another day with 100+ stars, meaning demand is still climbing and the gap deserves a bump up a grade; ② NVIDIA files a DMCA or blocks it with a new DLL version, which kills this whole class of project and shuts the window for good; ③ AMD ships its own neural rendering on RDNA4 early, and the gap is gone; ④ someone builds it for Intel Arc or Linux and gets over 1,000 stars, which would mean "swap in another excluded camp" is a wider path than it looks.