Upshift

Upshift finds the games on your PC, shows which upscalers each one ships with (DLSS, FSR, XeSS, TSR…), suggests what suits your graphics card, and installs the official OptiScaler release into a game: with a backup of every file it touches, a record of every change, and an exact uninstall.

Upshift is a free, unofficial tool. It isn't made by or affiliated with the OptiScaler team, NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. Everything it installs is downloaded from each project's own GitHub releases; nothing is re-hosted.

Download

Get Upshift from the Releases page. The latest release has two downloads:

• Upshift-Setup-x64.exe: installs Upshift for your Windows account (no admin rights needed) into %LocalAppData%\Upshift.App, with a Start menu shortcut. Uninstall it from Windows Settings > Apps; it asks whether to delete your Upshift data as well, and keeps it unless you say yes.
• Upshift-Portable-x64.zip: no installer. Unzip it to a folder of its own and run Upshift.exe.

Both update themselves: Upshift checks for a new version at start-up (when "Check for updates automatically" is on) and with "Check now" on the Updates page, and installs it when you press Update on Upshift's row there (or Restart to update).

First launch

Upshift isn't code-signed yet, so the first time you run it Windows SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then Run anyway. On PCs with Smart App Control turned on, Windows may block it outright.

Screenshots

Library: every game on the PC, with the upscalers each one ships with.

A game's details: what's inside the game, suggestions, OptiScaler and its options.

Updates: new versions of OptiScaler and the upscaler files, for all your games at once.

Video

What it does

• Finds your games from Steam, Epic, GOG, the Xbox app / Game Pass, EA app, Ubisoft Connect, Battle.net, Heroic and itch.io, installed programs that look like games, folders you add yourself, and (optionally) a scan of every drive.
• Looks inside each game: DLSS, FSR, XeSS and Streamline files and their versions (DLSS versions with their names, e.g. "310.9.1 (DLSS 4.5)"), the main .exe, 32/64-bit, DirectX 11/12 or Vulkan, the engine, anti-cheat, and mods that are already there. Games with anti-cheat are never modified.
• "Upscalers in this game": what the files show, merged with PCGamingWiki, plus "Suggestions for this game" from the OptiScaler wiki.
• Installs OptiScaler the way its own setup does, under the loading name you choose (dxgi.dll by default). Every game file it overwrites is backed up first, and everything is recorded in .upshift\manifest.json in the game folder.
• "Is it working?": after you've played, the game's panel reads OptiScaler's own log (Upshift turns it on at its lightest level) and says, for example, "According to OptiScaler's log: Working. The game's DLSS is being replaced with FSR 4.", or that OptiScaler loaded but the game isn't using an upscaler it can take over, or that it didn't load, with what to try.
• Uninstall that explains itself: before removing anything, Upshift checks whether the game or its launcher is still running, whether Windows will ask for permission, and which files changed since the install ("Leave them" or "Remove anyway and restore the originals"). Afterwards it checks the folder file by file and either says it's back to how it was before Upshift, or lists exactly what's left with "Open folder". If Upshift's record of a game is missing or damaged, "Remove what Upshift added" lists OptiScaler's files and removes only the ones you tick.
• Upscaler files: updates the DLSS, FSR and XeSS DLLs a game ships with to newer ones from NVIDIA's, AMD's and Intel's own GitHub pages (for example DLSS 3.x to 310.9.1, DLSS 4.5, which unlocks the DLSS 4 and 4.5 models). Only swaps known to work are offered, only files the game already has are replaced, every new file must carry its vendor's digital signature, and "Restore original files" puts the exact originals back.
• OptiScaler options per game: upscaler, frame generation, DLSS model, FSR 4 (OptiScaler's built-in, or a 4.1.1b or 4.0.2c file you add yourself), a frame cap and an FPS counter, each with a "Which one should I pick?" guide.
• Measure performance: press a key in game (F10 by default) to record 60 seconds with Intel's PresentMon, then see the average and low points, compare runs, and get "What to try" (such as a frame cap you can apply). PresentMon is downloaded from its GitHub page the first time you measure, and Windows asks for permission only for the measuring step. Nothing measured leaves your PC.
• Updates: checks each component's GitHub releases (cached, with ETags), lets you pick Stable or Beta, updates games while keeping your OptiScaler settings, and can undo the last update exactly. Changed or missing files are flagged at scan time and can be repaired.
• Play: starts a game through its store (Steam, Epic, GOG, …), with optional launch options. Games are never started with admin rights.
• "Changes Upshift made to this game": a dated list of everything it changed in each game folder, including uninstalls and their results.
• About (in the sidebar): the version, licence and an optional Buy Me a Coffee button, plus Report a problem.
• Cover art from Steam's local cache, GOG, Epic and the Steam store, and optionally SteamGridDB (with your own API key).

When a game folder needs admin rights (games under Program Files), Upshift starts a second copy of itself with a UAC prompt for just that one change. The main window never runs as administrator.

Requirements

To run: Windows 10 version 1809 or later, or Windows 11; 64-bit (x64). The build is self-contained, so no separate .NET or Windows App SDK install is needed. An internet connection is used for downloads, cover art and wiki lookups; everything else works offline.

To build:

1. Install Visual Studio 2022 or newer (Community is free) with the "WinUI application development" workload, which includes the .NET 8 SDK.
2. Open Upshift.sln, set the platform to x64 and the startup project to Upshift.App.
3. Press F5. The first build downloads the NuGet packages.

Or from a Developer Command Prompt: msbuild Upshift.sln /p:Configuration=Debug /p:Platform=x64

To make the installer and portable zip locally: powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build\package.ps1 (output in releases\). It uses Velopack's vpk, pinned in dotnet-tools.json.

Releasing

1. Set the new version in Directory.Build.props (the only place it's set).
2. Add a ## [x.y.z] section to CHANGELOG.md; it becomes the release notes.
3. Commit, then push a tag with the same version: git tag v1.2.3 and git push origin v1.2.3.

The Release workflow builds Release x64, makes the installer, the portable zip and the self-update packages, and publishes them as a GitHub release, with the SHA-256 of the installer and the portable zip added to the notes. It stops if the tag and the version differ.

Where it keeps things

Everything Upshift stores lives in %LocalAppData%\Upshift: the library cache, settings (including an optional SteamGridDB key), cover art, downloaded components (PresentMon too, once you've measured), files you supply, wiki caches, your saved OptiScaler settings (saved-settings\), measurements (measurements\), each game's uninstall history (history\) and logs\. None of it is part of this repository, and none of it is sent anywhere. The installed program is in a separate folder, %LocalAppData%\Upshift.App, so uninstalling never touches your data unless you ask it to. In game folders, Upshift only writes the files it installs and its own .upshift folder. A problem report is only written when you press "Report a problem", as a zip on your Desktop.

Project layout

• src/Upshift.Core: all the logic, no UI. Discovery (launchers), Detection (what's inside a game), Hardware (GPU), Catalog (catalog.json: download sources, DLSS presets and names, guide text), Components (GitHub releases and downloads), Install (install, update, undo, repair, options), Launch, Wiki, Artwork and Services.
• src/Upshift.App: the WinUI 3 app (Library, Updates and Settings pages).

catalog.json holds everything that changes more often than the app: pinned versions, asset patterns, DLSS names and the "Which one should I pick?" text. At start-up Upshift downloads the copy on this repository's main branch and uses it from the next start when it's valid and newer than the one built into the app, so fixes reach everyone without an app update. When it can't be reached, the built-in copy is used. Settings > "Catalog address" can point to another catalog instead.

Credits

Upshift downloads, installs or reads information from these projects. All credit for them goes to their authors.

• OptiScaler: the upscaler and frame-generation mod Upshift installs.
• OptiScaler DLSSNR: an OptiScaler fork that adds DLSS 5 Neural Rendering.
• AMD-NR: an OptiScaler fork for neural rendering on AMD cards, with the AMD-NR runtime by danielblnc.
• dlssg-to-fsr3 by Nukem9: runs FSR frame generation through a game's DLSS Frame Generation option (bundled with OptiScaler).
• fakenvapi: Reflex support through Anti-Lag 2, LatencyFlex or XeLL on non-NVIDIA cards (bundled with OptiScaler).
• PresentMon by Intel (MIT License): the frame-timing tool behind "Measure performance", downloaded from its GitHub releases only when you measure.
• PCGamingWiki: engine and upscaler information for each game. PCGamingWiki content is available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0; Upshift links back to each game's page.
• The OptiScaler wiki: the compatibility list and per-game notes behind "Suggestions for this game".

Built with the Windows App SDK, CommunityToolkit.Mvvm, SharpCompress and Velopack (installer and updates). NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FidelityFX and Intel XeSS are trademarks of their owners.

Reporting a problem

Use Issues: "Bug report" for something that went wrong, or "Game not detected / wrong info" for a game Upshift misses or describes wrongly.

Please attach Upshift's problem report: press Report a problem with this game in the game's panel (or About > Report a problem). It saves one zip file to your Desktop with Upshift's and Windows' versions, your graphics cards, today's log and, for a game, its OptiScaler details, change history, OptiScaler's log and a list of its files (names, sizes and versions only). Your Windows user name is taken out of every path, your SteamGridDB key and other games are left out, and you see what's inside before it's saved. Nothing is sent anywhere: you attach the file yourself.

Support

This program is free forever. The coffee button is purely optional and unlocks nothing. It just keeps a hobo developer caffeinated and the AI bills paid.

Buy Me a Coffee

_{Donations go to PCVGS, not to the OptiScaler team, NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. OptiScaler does the heavy lifting: if you want to support them too, visit the OptiScaler GitHub page.}

License

Upshift is free and open source under the MIT License. Copyright (c) 2026 PCVGS.

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_{Upshift is provided as-is, without warranty. Changing game files is at your own risk. Never use it with online or anti-cheat games. Made by PCVGS, pcvgs.com.}