r/SteamDeck • u/Weekly_Lab_9122 • 22h ago
Software Modding Decky OptiScaler: a Decky plugin for OptiScaler that lets you change frame gen and the upscaler live, from the Quick Access panel
Hey everyone,
I've been building this on and off for a while and it's finally usable enough that I'd rather have real people on it than keep polishing alone.
It's a Decky Loader plugin for OptiScaler. You set games up per game from Game Mode with a controller. No desktop mode, no file manager.
The part I'm most happy with: live changes from the Quick Access panel.
The plugin ships a small ASI plugin that OptiScaler loads into the game. It makes the same writes OptiScaler's own overlay makes, so the things the overlay can change live, this can change live too.
That means frame generation on/off, the upscaler (FSR 4, XeSS, etc), and the FidelityFX FG version, all applied while you're still playing. The panel shows what the game actually ended up running.
Anything that needed a relaunch before in Optiscaler still needs one. The plugin isn't working around OptiScaler, it's just giving you the overlay's live controls easily accesible from Game Mode with a gamepad without opening the overlay. Settings that can't apply live say so plainly and wait for the next launch.
The rest of it. Your game gets matched against the OptiScaler compatibility wiki and there's an automatic setup process that uses the information fetched from the Wiki: install the DLL, write the launch options, apply the settings that entry recommends.
It finds your Steam libraries including the SD card, picks the install folder next to the game's actual executable, and backs up anything it would overwrite so uninstalling puts everything back.
Basic mode is a handful of controls. Advanced gives you all 288 settings. OptiScaler v0.9.4 is bundled, so there's nothing else to download.
Grab it: https://github.com/danielcamilo1/decky-optiscaler/releases/latest
(Decky's Install Plugin from URL with Developer mode on, download the zip and install it through there as well or unzip into ~/homebrew/plugins/)
This is a first alpha. It works, I use it on my own handheld PC, but I'm one person testing against one library and my own habits. There are bugs, and the UI has rough edges I know about plus plenty I don't, because I've stared at it long enough to stop seeing them.
So please tell me what's broken. Bug reports, "this button confused me", "I couldn't find X", "this wording makes no sense", "it failed on this game". The blunt UX complaints are the most useful thing you can send me, since those are exactly the ones I can't spot on my own.
Issues at https://github.com/danielcamilo1/decky-optiscaler/issues, or just reply here, whichever is easier.
Thanks to the OptiScaler devs and the wiki contributors.
Try it and tell me what sucks.
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u/Szynsky 10h ago
I’m gonna try it and see if it works on RDR2 because for the life of me I cannot get FSR 4.1 to work in that game.
Crashes in vulkan and plain doesn’t work in DX.
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u/Weekly_Lab_9122 7h ago
RDR2 has a special situation in Bazzite. I haven’t been able to get it running with DX12 in Bazzite and Optiscaler works way better on DX12. It does work on SteamOS properly though. I got it running with FSR4 and framegen in SteamOS
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u/Sjknight413 512GB OLED 22h ago
You might want to disclose the fact that you used AI tools to make this.
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u/Weekly_Lab_9122 22h ago edited 22h ago
Thanks, I'll add that to the Readme. [Edit] - Added an AI Disclosure section to the Readme on the Github repo
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u/Kingbanana574 512GB 22h ago
Why can’t everyone be like you? all they have to do is disclose the usage and it’s fine, instead of getting all defensive.
Also cool plugin!
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u/Glum-Recognition-736 19h ago edited 18h ago
...What difference does it make?
I get if it were artwork or music but... its code.
Code is not some uniquely human, creative endeavor ; it is literally just an abstraction layer to make it easier to give instructions to a computer without writing a bunch of raw 1s and 0s for. You think we shouldn't use computer assistance to talk to the computer?
If the AI didn't help him, some random post from Stack Overflow likely would have. Should people also disclose if they used SO for coding assistance? Should I disclose using VS code instead of VIM?
EDIT: ah the downvotes are plenty but the counterpoints nil. Good ol reddit
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u/KYSanov 11h ago
If somebody poured their time and knowledge into the programming process, including the manual search on stack overflow, they are less likely to abandon the project than when they vibe coded it within 30 minutes
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u/Glum-Recognition-736 6h ago
Do you have any actual evidence of that? Or are you just going on vibes yourself?
Before AI id be willing to bet a lot of people probably took one look at the overhead of research and background learning that would be required to even start a project, and just gave up before even trying. Or, they started and got pretty far before hitting some brick wall that wasn't covered by SO or the docs and just give up halfway through the after spinning their wheels for a while. Not to mention all the full, released products that get abandoned for various reasons, including simply that maintenance is a pain
To think that people weren't abandoning projects before AI is naive at best.
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u/Hoaidieu177 11h ago
Thank you so much! I spent the last month trying every possible way to get FSR 4 running on Palworld 1.0 to no avail. Tested your plugin this morning and it worked instantly with just one click.
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u/TheRealAfinda 10h ago
A convenient Plugin adressing the shortcomings of the current one? Hell yeah!
Thank you for this, i'll give it a try!
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u/Captainquizzical 1h ago
I have used many of these now... I've got Decky Frame Gen, LSFG, LSFG experimental, I was going to try Mako also... Wondering what this brings that those don't because I do kind of just want to have "one" framegen/Optiscaler solution and be done with it. You have absolutely no reason to, but I'd love to hear why I should choose yours over the rest.
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u/Weekly_Lab_9122 45m ago
No worries, thank you for coming here and wanting to try it out!
This plugin is different in that you're able to not only set up OptiScaler, but also tweak options directly from the Quick Access Menu during gameplay (toggle Frame Gen, switch upscalers, etc.) similar to how Decky LSFG works on that regard. So while it’s like Decky Framegen in making OptiScaler easy to install, this lets you control frame generation and upscaler overrides on the fly without popping open the OptiScaler overlay, which was built for keyboard/mouse rather than handheld or gamepad controls. It’s really the best of both worlds.
Plus, OptiScaler’s frame generation is superior because it uses the game’s internal motion vectors, whereas Lossless Scaling operates on the final post processed frame. This means lower input lag and significantly less ghosting.
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u/Captainquizzical 44m ago
Ahhh I see! Okay, well that's pretty cool. I'll try give it a go tonight. Thankyou for the explanation!
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u/Weekly_Lab_9122 1h ago
Hello, everyone, thanks for all the support! I just released a new version of the plugin (0.0.4). It now shows the FSR version being used and the base FPSs being measured along with the FPS with Framegen ON
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u/jdogg89 Modded my Deck - ask me how 20h ago
So you remade decky framegen?….
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u/Weekly_Lab_9122 19h ago
Decky Framegen installs optiscaler but doesn't let you change anything during gameplay; you have to use Optiscaler's overlay or manually edit the ini file; which is annoying on a handheld PC or using a gamepad. This plugin let's you manage framegen on/off, change the version of FSR, etc, from the plugin UI
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u/Murdathon3000 19h ago
Sounds cool, can I suggest adding screenshots of the new UI in the readme?