Borderless Gaming now offers a custom DLSS 5 Neural Rendering effect through BGFX instead of NVIDIA software. It gives unsupported GPUs a simpler way to try the technology without replacing game files or DLLs.
Borderless Gaming has turned NVIDIA's latest neural-rendering concept into a more accessible experiment. Its custom DLSS 5 Neural Rendering effect runs through the app's BGFX pipeline instead of NVIDIA's software. It does not require users to replace game files or DLLs.
A different route
This is not a standard DLSS integration. Borderless Gaming captures the game window at the compositor level. It then processes the image through a GPU effect pipeline. That lets the app apply the effect across different games without a game-specific mod or direct access to NVIDIA's implementation.
Andrew Sampson reworked the model and quantised it to ease bottlenecks in its neural network. The aim is to make it work on more graphics cards instead of limiting it to NVIDIA's newest GeForce RTX hardware. Sampson says an RTX 3090 can target around 30 frames per second with the Borderless Gaming version, depending on the game and settings.
That figure is a target, not an independent performance measurement. The source gives no controlled test setup and no evidence that the result holds across games. It should be treated as a sign of the effect's reach, not as a general performance guarantee.
The project's GitHub README also presents the shader as intended for more than NVIDIA's newest GPUs. It lists adjustable lighting, tone and structure controls. The repository provides no official performance tests, so its wider hardware support should not be treated as a verified performance claim for every graphics card.
What the update adds
The Borderless Gaming Steam app gained two major features over the last week: Frame Generation and DLSS 5 Neural Rendering. Frame Generation is also a custom general-purpose implementation. Andrew Sampson says it was trained on tens of thousands of hours of gameplay and requires no game modification.
SteamDB's record of the Borderless Gaming update lists Frame Generation and DLSS5 Neural Rendering as separate new modes. It also says users can install effects directly from GitHub through the built-in repository importer. The update therefore adds more than a new preset. It also provides a way to distribute optional effects alongside the new processing modes.
Both features rely on BGFX. The mode was introduced earlier this year to capture game windows at the compositor level and send them through a GPU effect pipeline. That gives Borderless Gaming a way to add effects without sending requests to NVIDIA's DLLs.
The DLSS 5 effect is not bundled as an active background process. Sampson clarified that it is not installed by default. It does not run unless the user chooses to add it, and it uses no resources before activation. The effect itself is a single shader file hosted on GitHub.
Installation and controls
Borderless Gaming's update adds GitHub installation for effects and presets. Users open the effects editor or presets screen in Holo, choose Install from GitHub and paste in the repository URL. They then select the DLSS5-NR preset, enable effects and use Scaling (GPU) on Windows.
The separate andrewmd5/bgfx-dlss5-nr repository documents the same process. Users choose Install from GitHub in Borderless Gaming or Holo, enter the repository address and enable the DLSS5-NR preset. This confirms that the effect is distributed as an external shader package, not as a DLL replacement built into the game.
After installation, the preset exposes controls for strength, lighting, structure, style and processing resolution. The repository README also describes adjustable lighting, tone and structure parameters. That is a smaller set of options than the extensive controls described in recent The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Remastered tests. The trade-off is a much simpler installation process.
The practical difference is clear. Existing injection-based experiments require users to place a leaked DLL inside the game or change its files in another way. Borderless Gaming treats the effect as an optional screen-processing layer. Readers comparing the wider debate around expensive gaming extras can also see our earlier breakdown of a separate player-facing purchase that notably excluded its game.
DLSS 5 or a derivative
Calling the result NVIDIA's actual 3D-Guided Neural Rendering would go beyond what has been shown. NVIDIA officially describes DLSS 5 as 3D-Guided Neural Rendering and currently ties the technology to GeForce RTX 50 series hardware. Sampson reworked the Borderless Gaming version, which processes frames captured at the compositor level rather than running as NVIDIA's official in-game implementation.
