KCD1 Clarity

NVIDIA DLSS for Kingdom Come: Deliverance (the first game). It replaces the game's built-in anti-aliasing with DLSS. That gives a cleaner, more stable image, and with upscaling, more FPS. The game renders at a lower resolution and DLSS brings it back up to your screen's.

Unofficial mod, not affiliated with Warhorse Studios or NVIDIA. Uses NVIDIA DLSS.

Early version. DLAA (100%) is the most reliable mode. Below 100% some effects can still look wrong. Please report anything you see.

Website: eonflux7.github.io/kcd1-clarity · Config guide & cvar database

Players: Requirements · Install · AMD / Intel · Linux · Use · Troubleshooting · Config files & console variables

Developers: Building · How it works

Requirements

• An NVIDIA RTX graphics card (RTX 20 series or newer) with a recent driver. AMD and Intel cards can use FSR or XeSS through OptiScaler instead.
• Windows, or Linux with Steam's Proton (Linux).
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Steam version 1.9.8. Other versions (GOG, older patches) are untested. The mod's menu warns you if it doesn't recognise your game version.
• Not tested together with ReShade, ENB or other graphics injectors.

Install

1. Download the latest release. Under Assets, get kcd-clarity-<version>.zip. (The green Code button downloads the source code, which you don't need.)
2. Open the game folder. In Steam: right-click the game > Manage > Browse local files. Then open Bin\Win64.
3. Copy dinput8.dll and nvngx_dlss.dll from the zip into Bin\Win64.
4. Start the game. In Options > Video, set Anti-aliasing to SMAA 2TX. DLSS takes the place of that setting, so with any other anti-aliasing option the mod does nothing.
5. In game, press F8, select DLSS, and pick a quality level.

Other mods: this mod is loaded as dinput8.dll. Other mods that use their own dinput8.dll (Ultimate ASI Loader, ASI plugins, other DLSS mods) can't be installed at the same time. Copying one over the other replaces it.

Uninstall: delete dinput8.dll and nvngx_dlss.dll from Bin\Win64. You can also delete kcd_clarity.ini and kcd_clarity.log there.

AMD and Intel GPUs (OptiScaler)

Untested. It should work, since OptiScaler implements the NGX calls the mod makes, but nobody has confirmed it yet. Reports are welcome.

The mod talks to DLSS through NVIDIA's NGX interface. OptiScaler intercepts NGX and can run FSR or XeSS instead, so the mod works on AMD and Intel cards with it.

1. Install the mod as above.
2. From an OptiScaler release, copy OptiScaler.dll into Bin\Win64 and rename it to winmm.dll. Also copy OptiScaler.ini. Don't use dinput8.dll, which is this mod's name. version.dll works too. If you use OptiScaler's setup script, pick one of those two names.
3. Start the game. The F8 menu shows "OptiScaler version (winmm.dll)" when it's loaded. Choose DLSS in F8 as usual, then press Insert for OptiScaler's menu and pick the upscaler (FSR, XeSS). Model preset applies only to DLSS.

If F8 says the upscaler is not available, check OptiScaler.log and follow OptiScaler's own guide for your GPU (GPU spoofing, fakenvapi). On NVIDIA cards OptiScaler isn't needed. If it's installed anyway, keep nvngx_dlss.dll so it can still use DLSS.

Linux (Proton)

Untested. It runs as an ordinary Windows mod under Proton, but nobody has confirmed it yet. Reports are welcome.

Install the DLLs as on Windows. Then, in Steam, right-click the game > Properties > Launch options:

• NVIDIA: WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8=n,b" PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 %command%. Wine prefers its own dinput8.dll, and the override makes it load the mod's. PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 turns on DLSS support in Proton (it needs a recent Proton and NVIDIA driver).
• AMD / Intel (with OptiScaler installed as winmm.dll, see above): WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8,winmm=n,b" %command%.

If kcd_clarity.log doesn't appear in Bin/Win64, the override isn't in effect. The log says "running under Wine" when the mod has loaded under Proton.

Use

Press F8 in game to open the settings, and again to close them. While the menu is open, the mouse controls the menu instead of the game.

setting	what it does
Engine TAA / DLSS	switch between the game's own anti-aliasing and DLSS, live
Quality	the resolution the game renders at before DLSS: DLAA 100%, Quality 66.7%, Balanced 58%, Performance 50%, Ultra Performance 33%. Lower = more FPS, softer image
Model preset	which DLSS model to use. Default lets the driver choose; K is NVIDIA's recommended model for quality
Texture mip bias	keeps textures sharp at lower quality levels. The offset slider fine-tunes it (negative = sharper, can shimmer)
Shadow noise	two fixes for shadow flicker with DLSS. Leave them on unless shadows look wrong
FPS counter	small FPS readout in the corner

Your settings are saved in Bin\Win64\kcd_clarity.ini. To use different keys, change toggle_key (F8) or debug_key (F3) under [ui] there, using Windows virtual-key codes in decimal (F8 = 119). Leave the [debug] section at its defaults.

F3 opens a debug window. You only need it for bug reports.

Troubleshooting

problem	what to check
F8 does nothing	the two DLLs must be in Bin\Win64, not the game's main folder. If kcd_clarity.log doesn't appear there after starting the game, the mod isn't loading; check for another mod's dinput8.dll
F8 menu: "Set Anti-aliasing to SMAA 2TX"	change it in Options > Video
F8 menu: "DLSS is not available"	needs an RTX card, an up-to-date NVIDIA driver, and nvngx_dlss.dll next to dinput8.dll. On AMD/Intel, install OptiScaler. On Linux, see the launch options
Linux: F8 does nothing	the WINEDLLOVERRIDES launch option is missing; see Linux
F8 menu: "engine functions not found" or "Untested game version"	your game version differs from the one the mod supports, usually after a game update. Check for a newer mod release
something looks wrong below 100%	try DLAA. If it's fine there, it's a bug in the lower-resolution path; please report it

Reporting bugs

Open an issue with:

• your GPU, the quality level, the game's resolution and video settings;
• a screenshot, ideally of the same spot with Engine TAA and with DLSS;
• Bin\Win64\kcd_clarity.log from that session (attach the file).

Config files and console variables

The config guide builds a user.cfg / autoexec.cfg for your PC, checks any config line by line, and lists every console variable with what it really does. The research behind it is in docs/cvars, which explains how the game loads user.cfg and autoexec.cfg, and which tweaks there actually do something. Many popular lines are refused or overwritten by the game. It includes a script that checks your own config. You don't need any of it to use this mod.

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Building from source

Needs Windows and Visual Studio 2022 (or the Build Tools) with the Desktop development with C++ workload; CMake and Ninja come with it. Then run build.cmd. On the first build, CMake downloads Dear ImGui, MinHook and the needed DLSS SDK files and checks them against pinned SHA-256 hashes (THIRD_PARTY.md).

• build.cmd builds build\dinput8.dll (RelWithDebInfo, static CRT; the PDB is build\dinput8.pdb).
• build.cmd dist also writes dist\kcd-clarity-<version>.zip, the release package, including release/README.txt. The version comes from project() in CMakeLists.txt.
• To test, copy build\dinput8.dll and build\ngx\rel\nvngx_dlss.dll into the game's Bin\Win64. build\ngx\dev\nvngx_dlss.dll is NVIDIA's development runtime, which can show NVIDIA's DLSS debug overlay. Use it for testing only, never in a release.
• From WSL, run build.cmd through a drive-letter path (e.g. Z:\...); a \\wsl.localhost\ path fails to link. ./deploy.sh copies the build (with the dev runtime) into the game, --remove takes it out again, and KCD_BIN overrides the game path.

Debugging: the log (kcd_clarity.log) and the F3 window come first. [debug] d3d_debug=1 in the ini turns on the D3D11 debug layer, with its messages in the log. For RenderDoc captures, tick Skip NGX in F3, since NGX doesn't run under RenderDoc.

How it works

• Loading. WHGame.dll imports DirectInput8Create, and Windows looks in Bin\Win64 before System32. The mod forwards the dinput8 exports to the system DLL (src/core/proxy_*). An init thread waits until the game loads d3d11.dll, then installs its hooks (MinHook).
• Engine functions. src/generated/kcd_symbols.h lists the engine functions and data the mod uses, with byte patterns and RVAs for the supported build. src/game/symbols.cpp resolves them at startup. Data symbols (RVA only) are used only on that build.
• DLSS. src/hooks/d3d11_hooks.cpp recognises the engine's TAA resolve shader (PostAA, SMAA 2TX) by its reflection. When that shader draws, src/renderer/taa_dlss.cpp builds full-screen motion vectors the way the TAA shader does, runs DLSS (src/upscaler/dlss.cpp), and writes the result to the TAA output.
• Upscaling. Below 100%, the engine's own viewport downscale renders the scene into the top-left sub-rect of each full-size target. Several passes don't handle that correctly. src/renderer/screen_size_fix.cpp and src/game/renderer.cpp fix them by patching constants and UVs per draw. src/renderer/canary.cpp is a debug tool that finds passes reading outside the sub-rect.
• Image quality. Motion vectors are promoted to 16 bits (velocity_format). Object velocities left on now-occluded pixels are dropped (velocity_mask). Texture LOD is biased for the render scale (mip_bias), and the shadow filter noise is made temporal (shadow_noise).
• UI. Dear ImGui, drawn from a Present hook (src/hooks/present.cpp, src/ui/).

The symbols and engine notes come from a separate reverse-engineering workspace that isn't published. Source comments that cite kcd-re db/notes/*.md refer to it. Porting to another game build means finding the symbols in kcd_symbols.h again, starting from their signatures.

License

MIT for the source in this repository; see LICENSE. Third-party components keep their own licenses (THIRD_PARTY.md). NVIDIA, RTX and DLSS are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation.