Baldur’s Gate 3 – FPS Boost or How to Add FSR 2 (Non-RTX, Unstable)

This guide will teach how to greatly boost your FPS though the game might be a bit unstable and crash from time to time. Note: you don’t need this guide if you have RTX gpu! Just use DLSS!

FPS Boost Guide

Сrеdit gоеs to Reptiloid!

What Do FSR and DLSS Do?

FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) and DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) are two different technologies used to improve the performance of video games. By rendering at lower resolutions and then using advanced upscaling techniques, these technologies help achieve smoother gameplay on hardware that may not be able to handle high resolutions, while still providing visually appealing results. However, because DLSS requires tensor cores (which are only present in RTX GPUs), it can only be used on a limited range of GPUs, while FSR works on any GPU.

How You Can Install FSR 2

I, like many other players, faced a rather low FPS even in the main menu and during character creation on the minimum settings. At first, I tried experimenting with different settings and looking for help on the Internet, but I couldn’t find any advice other than “Update your drivers” and “Upgrade your PC”. At some point I remembered that PotatoOfDoom had once made a mod for Cyberpunk 2077 that replaced DLSS by FSR 2 and the description said something about how FSR2 could theoretically be added to any game with DLSS since they used almost the same dataset for upscaling. After a little more searching, I came across similar mods for other games, but there was no Baldurs Gate 3 mod anywhere. That is when I decided to turn to the “DLSS2FSR” Discord server (link below) which was referred in some mods description. There I discovered that other players had already tried to replace DLSS with FSR 2 in Baldurs Gate 3. After a little more searching, I found how to install it and the least I can say is… I was impressed. Playable FPS on ultra settings… I can’t wait for official support of FSR 2.

How to Install FSR 2

• Download CyberFSR.
• Extract the Archive into the Baldurs Gate 3 bin folder (for me it’s D:\Programms\Steam\steamapps\common\Baldurs Gate 3\bin) so that the nvngx.dll is in the same folder as the main EXE file.
• Very important: Run the included “EnableSignatureOverride.reg” file. (Accept the admin prompt that pops up).
• Launch the game using Vulkan, go into the graphics options and select a “DLSS” setting.
• Enjoy the game with FSR 2.

FPS Difference

My system:

• ASUS ROG Strix G15 G513IH-HN002
• AMD Ryzen 7 4800H
• Nvidia GTX 1650 4GB (Overclocked: +40 MHz Core | +1000 MHz Memory)
• 16 GB RAM (DDR4, 3200 MHz)
• NVMe SSD

• Note 1: The tests are not really objective since they were made in the location without a lot of effects. FYI DX11 on the first location gave ~20 FPS on Ultra settings!
• Note 2: Smallest FPS value is FPS when I was intensly rotating camera. Highest FPS value is FPS when camera is looking at one place.

Minimal settings, 1080p, DX11, no FSR | 50-80 FPS, ~12 ms

Ultra settings, 1080p, DX11, no FSR | 35-45 FPS, ~22 ms

Minimal settings, 1080p, Vulkan, no FSR | 55-70 FPS, ~15 ms

Ultra settings, 1080p, Vulkan, no FSR | 40-45 FPS, ~23 ms

Minimal settings, 1080p, Vulkan, FSR 2 (Performance) | 70-100 FPS, ~9 ms

Ultra settings, 1080p, Vulkan, FSR 2 (Performance) | 59-70 FPS, ~14 ms

Important Notes

Larian Studios is planning to add official FSR 2 support in September.

I am not responsible for any damage inflicted by modificating your game or operating system.

Do it at your own risk.

P.S. I am pretty sure you can’t break anything, I left this note just in case.

FSR2 is only compatible with DirectX 12 and Vulkan, so you must run the game in Vulkan mode to access FSR 2.

Once FSR 2 is enabled the only way to change it’s mode is to disable it first. In order to disable it you have to change graphic preset (otherwise the game crashes with DEVICE_LOST Vulkan error). If you wan to disable it completely you need to run DisableSignatureOverride.reg and delete dll and ini files you’ve installed.

The game is not stable and can sometimes crash (e.g. ~10 seconds after loading a new location when the Nautiloid teleports and crashes, another is example is when I talked a bit with Shadowheart on the second location).

In order to get through the places where the game crashes each time, you have to disable FSR 2 completely (once you have a save after that place – feel free to enable FSR 2).

You might want to experiment with Intel XeSS, I am not sure which one is more stable nor works better since I didn’t test the latter.