Lossless Scaling's Frame Generation Lands on Linux, Works on Steam Deck

[AleksandarK]

The popular third-party upscaling tool, Lossless Scaling, previously exclusive to Windows, has been ported to Linux with the release of the open-source lsfg-vk project. Developed by PancakeTAS, lsfg-vk utilizes Vulkan and the DXVK translation layer to bring the frame generation feature of the paid Windows application to Linux desktops and handheld devices, such as the Steam Deck. Until now, Linux gamers relied on FidelityFX Super Resolution frame generation only in titles where it was natively available. The lsfg‑vk promises to extend artificial intermediate frames to nearly any game. Rather than depend on in‑game integration, lsfg‑vk intercepts DirectX 11 calls and reimplements the Lossless Scaling pipeline on top of Vulkan.

Rather than directly porting DX11 to Vulkan, the developer used DXVK to present a DX11 interface on Linux and hooked every shader load, allowing a bit-for-bit comparison between the original DXBC shaders and their SPIR-V counterparts. With shader fidelity verified, a combination of IDA‑based static analysis, custom C++ utilities to log DX11 commands, and careful file‑by‑file comparisons in WinMerge enabled reconstruction of the entire rendering pipeline on Linux. Finally, RenderDoc traces of Vulkan calls guided the implementation of a native Vulkan pipeline, complete with the required synchronization primitives. Additionally, automation scripts and a statically linked subset of DXVK allow users to install the project and enable frame generation simply by setting a single environment variable.




Installation remains somewhat complicated. Users must own the Steam version of Lossless Scaling and install a compatible legacy build alongside Vulkan drivers, DXVK, and several helper utilities. After cloning the lsfg‑vk repository and following the setup instructions on GitHub, frame generation can be enabled by adding ENABLE_LSFG=1 %command% to a game's launch options. Early adopters have seen success in a range of Steam titles, though results vary and occasional manual adjustments may be required.

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[Fatloader]

That will hopefully be nice for the heavier games on Steam Deck

 

[cucol]

Awesome piece of software, variable frame gen is incredible.

In some games has less ghosting than Nvidia frame gen

And if you use dual gpu performs like 40% better than Nvidia mfg.

You got full native frames performance because frame gen is done with the second GPU so no performance hit.

Nvidia on the other hand will lose 30+ native fps if you enable multi frame gen

On a 80 native fps game

 

[bug]

What's the "lossless" in the name supposed to mean? Upscaling usually means adding (as much as possible) details to a scene, not losing it.

 

[d3Xt3r]

Until now, Linux gamers relied on FidelityFX Super Resolution frame generation only in titles where it was natively available

This isn't true - you could also get scaling and FG for non-supported games using Optiscaler, so, this Lossless Scaling port is a bit late to the party.

 

[Veseleil]

What's the "lossless" in the name supposed to mean? Upscaling usually means adding (as much as possible) details to a scene, not losing it.

How do you consider that upscaling a certain scene from, for ex. 1080p to a 2160p translates into adding more detail? What are the missing 1/3 of the pixels in that scenario? Certainly not a lossless bits. So yes, you're effectively losing details. And lossless in that context is just a marketing trick.
You might misunderstood upscaling for downscaling, which was a common technique for ex. MSAA, providing a superb visuals for a hefty cost in performance.

 

[bug]

How do you consider that upscaling a certain scene from, for ex. 1080p to a 2160p translates into adding more detail? What are the missing 1/3 of the pixels in that scenario? Certainly not a lossless bits. So yes, you're effectively losing details. And lossless in that context is just a marketing trick.
You might misunderstood upscaling for downscaling, which was a common technique for ex. MSAA, providing a superb visuals for a hefty cost in performance.

When it comes to image/video compression, "lossless" refers to the material you start with. In your example, the FHD image. The resulting, UHD image has at least the same amount of detail (if you blindly quadruple each pixel) and slightly more detail if you employ a non-braindead interpolation algorithm.

 

[Veseleil]

When it comes to image/video compression, "lossless" refers to the material you start with. In your example, the FHD image. The resulting, UHD image has at least the same amount of detail (if you blindly quadruple each pixel) and slightly more detail if you employ a non-braindead interpolation algorithm.

Lossless scaling is the name of the tool, but I still think that you misunderstood what the term upscaling means in this context. Lossless usually means preserving the original quality, which by using upscaling in this context is impossible, even with the most advanced AI tools (software and hardware). And please excuse me, but I'm too tired to invest myself in this topic right now, maybe some other time. Cheers

 

[bug]

Lossless scaling is the name of the tool, but I still think that you misunderstood what the term upscaling means in this context. Lossless usually means preserving the original quality, which by using upscaling in this context is impossible, even with the most advanced AI tools (software and hardware). And please excuse me, but I'm too tired to invest myself in this topic right now, maybe some other time. Cheers

Once again, in this context, the original quality is the quality of the FHD image.

 

[Event Horizon]

Seems the name Lossless Scaling continues to cause confusion. In this context, they're referring to eliminating the blur. LS started out as a tool to apply integer scaling (which is lossless). When it first came out, its main goal was to eliminate the blurry interpolated mess that is produced when you try to fullscreen old/retro games like FTL. LS came out in 2018, and Intel, Nvidia, and AMD added integer scaling to their control panels in 2019. Since then, LS has added a wide assortment of spatial upscalers and framegen to remain relevant. Everything has a place. Spatial upscaling cannot compete with temporal upscaling in modern 3D games, temporal upscaling is irrelevant for retro/pixel-art games, and framegen is best used on high refresh screens.

 

[LastDudeALive]

Seems the name Lossless Scaling continues to cause confusion. In this context, they're referring to eliminating the blur. LS started out as a tool to apply integer scaling (which is lossless). When it first came out, its main goal was to eliminate the blurry interpolated mess that is produced when you try to fullscreen old/retro games like FTL. LS came out in 2018, and Intel, Nvidia, and AMD added integer scaling to their control panels in 2019. Since then, LS has added a wide assortment of spatial upscalers and framegen to remain relevant. Everything has a place. Spatial upscaling cannot compete with temporal upscaling in modern 3D games, temporal upscaling is irrelevant for retro/pixel-art games, and framegen is best used on high refresh screens.

If I'm reading this right, Lossless scaling is far inferior to FSR for modern 3D games (which would include everything that a Steam Deck would struggle to run), it's mildly useful for retro/pixel art games that run fine on a Steam Deck, and its framegen is irrelevant on the 90hz screen of the Steam Deck OLED.

So... there's absolutely no reason to run this on a Steam Deck?

 

[Pepamami]

Waiting for some Valve implementation. This one is region-locked for some people some how.

 

[duckface]

It's very good, it only loses latency in shooting games, but in action games it's great, it only pulls a little of the CPU and GPU but makes them work at maximum generating more frames.