NVIDIA DLSS support lands in open-source NVK Vulkan driver for Linux

No, NVIDIA did not open source DLSS

NVIDIA DLSS support is coming to the open-source NVK Vulkan driver used by Mesa on Linux.

According to Phoronix, the required code has been merged into Mesa 26.2-devel. This allows NVK to handle DLSS-enabled games through Linux and Steam Play, although the feature remains experimental for now.

This should not be confused with NVIDIA open-sourcing DLSS. NVIDIA’s upscaling technology still relies on its own binaries and SDK. The way this works, the new NVK path instead implements VK_NVX_binary_import, a Vulkan extension that lets applications import and execute NVIDIA CuBIN binaries on supported NVIDIA GPUs.

These CuBIN files are prebuilt CUDA binaries. In this case, they allow the open-source driver stack to load the DLSS components supplied with games or the DLSS SDK. NVK is therefore adding compatibility with NVIDIA’s existing DLSS binaries, not replacing the DLSS implementation with open code.

Source: Freedesktop

This work follows earlier progress by Valve Linux graphics developer Autumn Ashton, who had DLSS working experimentally on NVK last year. That work involved VK_NVX_binary_import and VK_NVX_image_view_handle, which are used by DXVK and VKD3D-Proton through DXVK-NVAPI for DLSS support.

Mesa 26.2 is expected to become stable in August.

Source: Phoronix, NVK (Github)

Source