"This isn't another mod that passes off FSR": one person gets NVIDIA's original frame generation running on an RTX 30, 60 days, 5,000 stars

Since 2022, NVIDIA's DLSS Frame Generation has only worked on RTX 40, and multi-frame generation only on RTX 50. In Sep 2026 7, a developer named sdli1995 published a repo that lets RTX 30 and RTX 20 run it too. It runs NVIDIA's own model, not an AMD FSR reskin. The next day a Reddit post went up, and global hardware media covered it within 48 hours. By 11-06 it had 5,037 stars, and the installer from the last two releases was downloaded 49k times. It wins on being the real thing and on compatibility work. But the biggest wave of attention in Nov 5 landed on a rival that's easier to install, so anyone thinking about following this should look at that first.

A post from Sep 8

Sep 8, a post on r/nvidia was titled "You can run DLSS Framegen on RTX 3000 cards now!" That same day 17:00 (GMT), VideoCardz published, and the first source in its sourcing list was that post. Headline: "NVIDIA locked multi-frame generation to RTX 50, and a modder just got it running on RTX 30." The first paragraph of the body has a bolded sentence:

this is not another mod that replaces DLSS with AMD FSR Frame Generation.

"This isn't another mod that swaps DLSS for AMD FSR." The subhead is more direct: "This is NVIDIA DLSSG running on Ampere." The numbers in the article came from the author: on a 3080 Ti running Black Myth: Wukong, with frame generation off, 2X and 4X gave about 50, 80 and 150 frames; in Cyberpunk 2077 with path tracing, it went from about 35 frames to 60 and then 100. Another RTX 3080 12GB owner posted a real-world test on YouTube. VideoCardz closed by asking: "Maybe NVIDIA should talk about multi-frame generation on Ampere?"

Sep 9, OC3D, TechPowerUp and TweakTown followed up; the Chinese-language scene picked it up too: Taiwan's PCDIY reported on it on 8, NGA posted a 《Wuthering Waves》 install guide on 9, and on 10 a Zhihu post declared "the player community is going wild"; on Bilibili, someone tested 《Cyberpunk 2077》 on an RTX 3060.

What it is

A Windows proxy DLL. You place version.dll, a config file dlssg_sm86.ini and a folder into the game directory. When the game calls DLSS frame generation, the request is forwarded to the NVIDIA original runtime bundled with it, with the backend swapped for an inference kernel the author wrote that runs on RTX 30 (SM86) and RTX 20 (SM75). It also spoofs the GPU model to the game as an RTX 50, which unlocks the 3X, 4X and 6X options. It only supports D3D12, and the developer advises against using it in online games with anti-cheat.

The README is in Chinese first, then English, suggesting a Chinese developer (inferred). The GitHub account was registered in 2017, has 177 followers, and has no personal site, no X account and no sponsorship link.

Why this one, and why September

Three years of pent-up frustration. NVIDIA's original reason was that frame generation needed the hardware optical flow accelerator found only on RTX 40. RTX 30 has a big installed base, and older owners kept feeling artificially shortchanged. VideoCardz's subhead was literally "no artificial gimping."

The reasoning no longer holds. In January 2025, DLSS 4 replaced the hardware optical flow with an AI model, so the "needs Ada hardware" claim fell apart technically (OC3D). In Aug 29, another project, MFG-Unlocker, had already unlocked multi-frame generation on RTX 40, and the press had already been primed, so the news value was there.

Earlier solutions were all impersonators. dlssg-to-fsr3 (4,973 stars, no updates since March 2025), DLSS Enabler and Lossless Scaling all essentially swapped in AMD or a home-made interpolation. This is the first to run NVIDIA's original model, and from 0.3.2 onward it explicitly compares against the 3080 Ti and 5070, claiming output that is "bit-identical" to the official one. That claim can be verified, and the media was willing to amplify it.

Constant fixing. From Sep 14 to 19 it shipped 6 releases in a row, fixing RTX 20 failing to open, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth refusing to start on an unsupported-hardware check, Forza Horizon 6 driver resets and similar issues, each tied to an issue number with a root cause explained. In Oct 14 0.4.0 it added INT8 upscaling acceleration and NVIDIA's Preset C, released the day before; on Oct 27 0.4.1 it ported Intel XeSS's multi-frame model, and the README claims it is 8–15% faster than DLSS-G at 1440p and below. There are 217 open issues now, which means lots of users and lots of feedback.

Stars and downloads

Release download counts on the Releases page (11-06): 0.4.0 is at 18,556 downloads, 0.4.1 at 30,059. Files before 0.3.x were committed straight into the repo with no download count, so real users are more than this number. SourceForge also auto-mirrors it, the all-in-one pack dlss-unlocked bundles it by default on RTX 20/30, and a Nexus Mods Cyberpunk 2077 mod says outright "using sdli1995's". On "run stock frame generation on RTX 30", it's the underlying component everyone else reaches for by default.

The Nov 5 wave landed on someone else

In Nov 5, Hardware Unboxed (1.17M subscribers) posted a 37-minute video titled "Nvidia Lied About DLSS Frame Generation". They compared RTX 3090 and 5090 at 1440p with 2X frame generation. Frame insertion behavior and where artifacts appeared were identical, and their verdict was "this isn't fake frame gen, it looks like the real thing". By 11-06 the video had about 300k views (YouTube, 11-06), and hardware sites in Poland and Russian-language media reshared it the same day.

But the video didn't install sdli1995. It installed dashdogy's Universal MFG Unlocker. Russian site techno-news and English site NoobFeed both reported that this was the tool tested. The star count tells the story: in Nov 6, MFG-Unlocker gained 115 stars in a day (previously 10 to 25 per day), while sdli1995 gained only 16.

Why people picked it isn't visible from outside. One plausible explanation (inference): MFG-Unlocker has an in-game menu and can select presets directly in the NVIDIA App, which covers both RTX 40 and 30. Upgrading sdli1995 means deleting the old files, then copying three things over. If the game doesn't load version.dll, you have to swap in a proxy yourself from alternatives\, and all configuration means hand-editing INI files. The technical lineage is also tangled: in Oct 14, the first project to bring Preset C to RTX 30 was MFG-Unlocker 1.5.0 (VideoCardz 10-14), and sdli1995's 0.4.1 ported the XeSS model from MFG-Unlocker 1.6.0.

The lesson is concrete: having the hardest tech and the first media mention doesn't mean the reviewers using it in big channel videos chose you. How smooth it is to install decides who gets the second wave of exposure.

Who's competing for this

Copycat projects also appeared, e.g. mcsoderh/RTX30MFG-Unlock, created Sep 9, with 7 stars, and it stopped after two days.

Where nobody has done it well yet

• Vulkan. The author's README says Vulkan is "difficult to continue in the current state of the project" and points people who need it to community patches.
• Installation is too painful. File layouts change between versions, upgrades can't just overwrite, and you have to work out yourself which proxy DLL the game loads. A manager that auto-detects the game, picks the right proxy, and upgrades in one click isn't done well by anyone yet (inference).
• Linux / Steam Deck, Proton. It only targets Windows D3D12. I haven't seen anyone seriously build stock RTX 30 frame gen on Linux (inference, not verified).
• Risk sits on top. 0.4.1 requires R580 or newer drivers from the start, and there are reports that NVIDIA blocked another unlock method on RTX 40 in a newer runtime. If NVIDIA moves to close this off, projects of this type get hit together.

If it were you

C: Worth reading, but building another "stock frame gen on RTX 30" tool now isn't worth it. The position has already been split between it and MFG-Unlocker: one owns the tech and the bundles, the other owns ease of use and big-channel reviews. Late small projects stopped within two days. The bar is high too: you need to hand-write CUDA tensor-core kernels, hook them into the game's render pipeline, and fix crashes one game at a time. What's worth taking away is the playbook.

• Who it fits: developers who understand GPU compute, graphics pipelines, or low-level Windows hooking, who already hang out in communities like r/nvidia and NGA, and who can ship several versions in a week against issue reports.
• Who it doesn't fit: anyone who wants to build yet another identical unlock mod; anyone who can only wrap a UI and can't write inference kernels (unless they specialize in the manager described below); anyone worried about legal and account-ban risk.
• How to do it: either pick the piece it explicitly leaves out (Vulkan, Linux/Proton), get something working first, and put the performance and quality comparison on the first screen of the README; or build an "install and go" manager that unifies these unlock projects, auto-detects the game, and selects the correct proxy file. Longer term, watch for the next feature big vendors reserve for new hardware, and be first to ship a verifiable stock port.
• How to get users: the first line must be a verifiable difference ("the original model, output bit-identical"). Launch in the relevant Reddit subreddit with real measured frame rates. Sites like VideoCardz and OC3D that need news every day will come to you. Write the README in both English and Chinese, since NGA, Bilibili and Zhihu will spread the Chinese version. Every time a big vendor releases a new preset, ship support within a week, which gets you a round of free coverage each time. Make installation as simple as possible, so that when a big channel reviewer picks a tool, it's yours.
• When the window was: the main wave of this round was in September, and it has already passed. Hardware Unboxed's video brought attention back for a small second wave, probably lasting into mid-November. If you go after the Vulkan or Linux gap, you need your first working build out before that fades.
• Signs you've misread the situation: (1) If MFG-Unlocker or this project gets hundreds of stars in a single day over the next week or two, demand is still growing, and the gap play or the manager is worth moving up a tier. (2) If NVIDIA blocks it in a driver or runtime update, or sends legal letters, stop all of these. (3) If NVIDIA, under public pressure, officially opens frame gen to RTX 30, the whole category goes to zero overnight. (4) If someone ships a working Linux or Vulkan version and quickly reaches a thousand stars, then "switch to a platform that was excluded" is a wider path than it looks.