Gamers struggling to maintain a steady framerate in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR after installing one too many graphics mods have reason to rejoice, as a new mod for the game adds support for temporal upscaling and promises to dramatically improve performance. While being able to explore the world of Bethesda Game Studio’s Skyrim in VR has made the game a hit with many players, poor performance on all but the most powerful PCs has kept the game out of reach of many gamers.
Released for PlayStation VR and PC in 2017 and 2018 respectively, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR takes the addictive, open-world gameplay of the 2011 original and transfers it to VR. Although gamers were eager to explore the mountainous province of Skyrim in this new, immersive mode, poor performance and unoptimized controls left many players disappointed with the VR ports. Much as happened with the original game, however, a community of talented creators has produced numerous mods for Skyrim VR over the years that have addressed many player complaints.
In a new tweet from the Flat2VR account on Twitter, which covers mods for both VR and flatscreen-native games, it was announced that modder PureDark has added support for DLSS 2, FSR2, and XeSS support to Skyrim VR. By using temporal upscaling, this new mod can drastically improve the game’s performance for PC players regardless of which brand of video card they use. This Skyrim VR mod has the potential to make the demanding title playable for gamers on older hardware, as well as give gamers on high-end PCs the ability to go all-out with graphics mods without the worry of tanking their framerate.
In a video linked in a follow-up tweet, Skyrim VR YouTuber Cangar showed the mod in action and provided gamers with a walkthrough on how to use it. Standing near the game’s starting area, Cangar goes through the process of enabling the mod before toggling DLSS on and off to show the difference in performance and visual quality. While the game struggles to go above 70fps at Ultra settings with the mod turned off, enabling it allows Cangar to maintain a near-90fps framerate while also improving the antialiasing and overall visual quality.
For gamers who have been holding off from diving into the world of Skyrim VR due to fear of poor PC performance, this new mod could be the perfect reason to finally give the open-world VR title a go. And if wandering through the frozen wastes of the game’s mountainous setting proves to be too exhausting, players can always kick back on their bed and see if they can beat Skyrim VR laying down.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is available now on PC, PS3, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Flat2VR