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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Starfield is out now on Xbox Series consoles and PC, but the latest Bethesda RPG is missing a key graphics option that PC users are clamoring for. Nvidia DLSS, which stands for Deep Learning Super Sampling, is upscaling technology that's been a highly-requested feature for Starfield, and it was missing at launch.

While Bethesda has already revealed that DLSS support on PC is coming to Starfield sometime down the line, players who want to benefit from the better visuals now are turning to fan-made Starfield DLSS mods — and that's where some controversy lies.

Modder PureDark specializes in creating DLSS3 and DLSS2 mods, and he restricted access to his more advanced Starfield DLSS3 mod behind a $5-per-month Patreon subscription. The mod uses Digital Rights Management (DRM) to authenticate users. PureDark's less advanced DLSS2 mod is free on NexusMods.

While PureDark has been creating DLSS mods and putting them on his Patreon for years, the high-profile status of Starfield and the related mod are reigniting the controversy surrounding paid mods. Some folks believe that modders deserve to be paid for their work like a game developer, while others believe that the community-oriented nature of the modding scene means mods should be free to everyone, no matter what. In a poll we ran on our initial article about this paid mod, 68% of respondents selected that mods should always be free.

PureDark added Digital Rights Management (DRM) authentication to the mod, and the mod has already been cracked by members of the modding community. In an interview with IGN, PureDark defended the decision to put his advanced DLSS mods on Patreon, and he planted his flag in the debate over paid mods.

"It's funny that people think this is new, I've been providing it as a service for more than 10 months, way before Starfield," PureDark said. "I've been making my subscription an Xbox Game Pass-like service that anyone subscribed [to] at any time can have access to all my mods previously made without having to pay for each, and they work after the subscription expires... I've been making new mods and keeping mods updated for months for my subscribers, is $5 too much for such a service?"

It's true — the mod does not require an active Patreon subscription, so people can still pass the DRM authentication after unsubscribing. PureDark also responded to how quickly the Starfield mod was cracked.

"It was expected since it was something I put together within a day or two, but I did get enough patrons so it's done its job. So from now on I will place hidden mines in all my mods to make it harder for these people. They might be able to find and bypass some of them, but they will never know if they have found all of them. The cracked mods will sometimes work, sometimes fail, sometimes work but [be] very wonky, sometimes even crash and they won't even know if it's a bug or just them using the cracked version, and they will never have the support I've been always providing to my subscribers."

The paid mod got a lot of backlash on social media, with one post on X (formerly Twitter) gaining a lot of traction, reading: "STARFIELD DLSS 3 FG Mod by PureDark Has Been CRACKED Already. Paid mods get what deserved for having DRM implemented."

Another X user wrote that "adding DRM to a paid mod is all kinds of messed up." But PureDark isn't too concerned with the backlash to his paid mod, as he says once the Starfield mod is in a stable state, he'll move on to whatever game he wants to work on next.

"Most of my subscribers [are] happy with what they get for only $5 and consider it a good deal. People are against the idea of an honest man making a living with his programming skill? I found no shame in that."

For people that do have a problem with paying for mods, there is already an alternative out there. Shortly after PureDark's mod sparked the conversation in the Starfield community, a different option on NexusMods cropped up from modder LukeFZ. Titled Starfield Frame Generation - Replacing FSR2 with DLSS-G, the mod makes similar visual upgrades as PureDark's mod. IGN asked LukeFZ if this free mod was in response to the paid mod, but the creator said that's not the case.

"My motivation for making the mod was mainly based on it being an experience to try out something new," LukeFZ said in a statement to IGN. "I read about all the commotion about mods implementing DLSS and DLSS Frame Generation in games that did not support it initially, and I found the concept very intriguing. I had never written any 'real' big mods before — normally I develop tools and other things designed to help modders, among other projects — and I saw it as a learning experience of both writing an interesting mod for a game and learning a bit about graphics programming."

Starfield Paid DLSS Mod Creator Hits Back at Pirates, Threatens to Add 'Hidden Mines' in Future Mods - IGN

In an interview with IGN, Starfield DLSS modder PureDark defends the decision to put his advanced DLSS mods on Patreon, and he plants his flag in the debate over paid mods.

www.ign.com

 

[GHG]

The grift is over bro, let it go.

 

[systemr123]

Oh god paid mods are already stupid, and this guy is: “Just wait and see, I can do even stupider and be the stupidest person alive muhahaha”

 

[Magic Carpet]

So I could be playing along happily and in the background secretly all my data is being encrypted for ransom.

 

[T4keD0wN]

He wants his supporters to download dormant malware or what exactly does he mean by "hidden mines"? Is that only supposed to affect the game or maybe something more?

Even if i was a naive enough to trust someone who has just admitted to malicious intent, i cant trust them to never make a single mistake.

No matter how many promises to only affect non-supporters he makes, one would have to be crazy to download malware when the only guarantee is:
"Its totally safe, not meant to affect you. Just trust me, bro."

 

[Del_X]

lmao fuck this guy

EDIT: looks like he hid how many patrons he has? I'm sure he made a nice bag off this - something like $100k or whatever. Solid payday for bullshit work. Now subs have probably fallen off a cliff.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

lmao fuck this guy

EDIT: looks like he hid how many patrons he has? I'm sure he made a nice bag off this - something like $100k or whatever. Solid payday for bullshit work. Now subs have probably fallen off a cliff.

Before he hid the numbers he had something like 11k patrons.

 

[Roxkis_ii]

Stealing from corpos is whatever, but stealing from individual people is kind of an asshole move imo. If the guy spent time putting in work to make the mod work, he should be able to charge for his work.

If you disagree that people shouldn't have to pay for mods, then make/commission a mod of your own and release it for free and if it's good enough, no one will need to pay for the other one.

 

[StereoVsn]

Ahh, built in malware into a paid mod for Starfield. What a time to be alive.

 

[MadchesterManc]

Wonder when the mod is going to be updated with Denuvo

 

[Fake]

What a dumbass.

 

[winjer]

As if DMR wasn't bad enough for mods. Now he wants to add malware. What a dick.

 

[LordCBH]

What an asshole.

 

[dickpretzel]

If you don't like it don't buy it...

 

[Dis]

Theo needs Jamie to pull up some help! 🤣

youtube.com

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Dude lost the plot.


DRM is unequivocally bad, there is no other legitimate stance.

 

[poodaddy]

This guy must be a pretty intelligent guy.

Shame about what a fuckin prick he is.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

To me, the mod expecting people to pay him for modding a game said people have already paid for, and then the people complaining or insulting him for expecting payment for whatever work he has done and them not being happy they don't get to benefit off his work for free...


Are all in the same stupid greedy selfish opportunistic boat.

Guy A, takes one company's proprietary tech, shoehorns it into another company's proprietary tech, then asks to be paid for that while not giving either of the IPs he is now using to make money any kind of royalties, but starts getting butt hurt when some people are using his work without any compensation. Guy B, starts insulting Guy A for doing work they are incapable of doing themselves, but refusing to give it to them for free.

PC gaming at its finest.

 

[DeepEnigma]

What a corny ass loser.

 

[StueyDuck]

does he know he could simply just not release the mod and waste his spare time doing such things.

who is this petulant child

 

[DrFigs]

i didn't realize he had a patreon. pretty dumb of him to act like this

 

[Cyberpunkd]

FYI, the worst part of this is the Patreon subscription was required to unlock the CURRENT VERSION of the mod, so if in the future any update broke it you had to re-sub to access the most up-to-date version again.

Fuck this guy.

 

[Draugoth]

Dude is having his own Joker arc

 

[OmegaSupreme]

 

[hlm666]

He's just going to draw the focus of real crackers, we all know how it's like catnip to them when someone says you'll never crack it.

 

[dDoc]

LoL

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Im pretty sure Empress has said her next project is adding DLSS to starfield

this mod creator sounds like a real piece of work.

 

[Kenpachii]

So basically his mods are spyware now, good way to get people to not care about your mods anymore.

 

[M1chl]

Add Denuvo

 

[Guilty_AI]

Oh god paid mods are already stupid, and this guy is: “Just wait and see, I can do even stupider and be the stupidest person alive muhahaha”

Not the first time someone does something like this.



TL;DW. The mod creator basically released a cracked version of his own mod in secret, however this version had a hidden tracker that registered IP address, steam profile and country of whoever downloaded and installed this version. Then he'd put up all of that info in a 'wall of shame' website for everyone to see.

 

[Gojiira]

Honestly fuck Bethesda, they almost ALMOST ruined modding forever with paid mods, Nexus doubled down on the stupidity and clowns like this guy are next level…
Its a even bigger joke that absolutely monstrous mods that took 1000’s of hours to build are still free but this cock gobbler charges money for a glorified dll file…

 

[Utherellus]

"Most of my subscribers [are] happy with what they get for only $5 and consider it a good deal. People are against the idea of an honest man making a living with his programming skill? I found no shame in that."


Then remove the paywall and be dependant on your loyal subscribers' good will.

But in that case you would have 3k partons, not 11. And you wouldn't want that, would you

 

[Lucifers Beard]

This whiny cunt should shut up and fuck off in a hurry.

 

[adamsapple]

So from now on I will place hidden mines in all my mods to make it harder for these people.

 

[damidu]

hahah
can nvidia please sue this moron out of his socks in any way?

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I mean, many games have done similar things, like if you played a pirated copy of arkham asylum, the game would disable the ability to glide, so you could never finish it, same with mirror's edge, the game will slow the player down so they can never make the first jump.

It would be pretty funny if he could do something like that, like an inverse DLSS that just makes performance worse instead.

 

[Soodanim]

I mean, many games have done similar things, like if you played a pirated copy of arkham asylum, the game would disable the ability to glide, so you could never finish it, same with mirror's edge, the game will slow the player down so they can never make the first jump.

It would be pretty funny if he could do something like that, like an inverse DLSS that just makes performance worse instead.

> Player runs reverse DLSS
> 4k rendering cost downscaled to 480p output
> Buys AMD out of spite

 

[Clear]

I mean, many games have done similar things, like if you played a pirated copy of arkham asylum, the game would disable the ability to glide, so you could never finish it, same with mirror's edge, the game will slow the player down so they can never make the first jump.

It would be pretty funny if he could do something like that, like an inverse DLSS that just makes performance worse instead.

Best way of preventing unauthorized use, but the downside is it doesn't really work as a deterrent - which is precisely the reason commercial games use it. There's no expectation that the DRM will last forever, just long enough to put people off from pirating during the all-important launch window.

Honestly, I support the guy for doing it. Sorry but the level of entitlement some people have is crazy. You don't have a God-given right of access to other people's work. If you don't think its worth the money, don't buy it. Its that simple.

 

[Pejo]

Yea fuck this guy. Goes entirely against the concept of why mods exist to begin with. Threatening malware for a game mod? Fuck right off.

 

[Dane]

Mod DRM in a game that doesn't have DRM is the most parallel universe thing you can imagine as if it was really a Starfield NG+ moment.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

bet this guy never bought winrar

 

[SmokedMeat]

Fuck this guy.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Most anti PC mod mentality I’ve seen so far. GTFO fucking leech. Should always have been free.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Wouldn’t that get him in trouble with the law?

 

[SJRB]

 

[Hawking Radiation]

There were free DLSS mods literally days after he released that DRM crap.
Now Nvidia's going to officially patch DLSS into the game.

No need to sub to his patreon for DLSS anymore.
The gold coin cache is fast disappearing for this rat.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

a $5-per-month Patreon subscription.

What could go wrong bro

I really hate those kind of devs thinking that they can do anything without consequences. I really hope his mods gets banned if he adds "mines".

 

[Facism]

good thing there's free alternatives to his little cunty tyrant attitude.

 

[cripterion]

Honestly fuck Bethesda, they almost ALMOST ruined modding forever with paid mods, Nexus doubled down on the stupidity and clowns like this guy are next level…
Its a even bigger joke that absolutely monstrous mods that took 1000’s of hours to build are still free but this cock gobbler charges money for a glorified dll file…

This. It's on Bethesda as well as they fail to provide the most basic things or QoL changes that could easily be implemented in their games time and time again.

Watching the weekly mods vids on YouTube and seeing all the shit modders have to fix, things that were also done in Fallout or Skyrim mods...
I don't dismiss the work being done by the devs but when modders can do a better job in a couple of days , shouldn't they let them in on the dev cycle or at least incorporate some of their ideas?

ES6 should just release as an upgraded engine with modding tools on day one and be priced accordingly.

 

[lmimmfn]

Any who has supported this idiot or does is a clown.

The PC mod scene doesn't need wankers like this.

Also a game like this shouldn't need mods for basic functionality, if that functionality doesn't exist vote with your wallet and don't buy otherwise nothing will change.