How to Enable DSR in The First Descendant
Use that GPU headroom!
The First Descendant is the latest multiplayer title from NEXON that makes good use of Unreal Engine 5. There are plenty of settings to tweak in-game, but a few notable omissions as well. Similar to a few recent Unreal Engine 5 titles, the game has a distinct lack of downsampling options despite upscaling technologies available. If you want to enable DSR or VSR in The First Descendant externally, here is how you can do that.
Enable DSR in The First Descendant
To enable DSR or VSR support in The First Descendant, you can either manually set the resolution of your desktop to your target super resolution, or automate the process using AutoActions.
In my case, I have a 1080p monitor, but I like to use DSR as well as DLDSR to play at a higher resolution on my smaller screen for improved image quality, even at the cost of performance. Sadly, The First Descendant maxes out on your default resolution, which is 1080p in my case.
Here is how you can address this.
Change Desktop Resolution
The first solution is pretty straightforward but can be a bit tedious. Simply change the resolution of your desktop to a higher value that you plan on downsampling from. For example, you can set the resolution to 4K if you want to use factors until that point in-game.
- Right-click on your desktop, and select Display settings
- Change the resolution to your desired target under Scale and layout
After that, the desired resolutions will show up in-game. However, this method has a few caveats.
- You will need to do this every time you want to play the game because using a higher resolution can impact text and icon scaling on the desktop.
- You will also need to change the refresh rate after you switch between resolutions because Windows will default it to 60 HZ, even if you have a monitor with a higher refresh rate.
Use AutoActions
AutoActions is an open-source free automation tool that allows you to create profiles that change resolution, framerate, HDR, and even color depth upon launching and closing an application.
It’s very easy to set up, and I’ll explain the steps below.
- Head over to the following GitHub link, and download the latest release (click on Release_AutoActions_1.9.19_x64.zip)
- Extract the file and open AutoActions.exe
- Click on the Profiles tab, and select Profile 1
- Under Actions, click the + bar next to “Application started actions“
- Select “Display action” in the dropdown, and use the following settings. As an example, we have used values for a max resolution of 4K and 165h Hz. You can use whatever you want.
- Click OK
- Now, click the + bar next to “Application closed actions“
- Select “Display action” in the dropdown, and use the following settings
- Click OK
Now that we have created a profile, we can force The First Descendant to use it.
- Select the “Applications” tab, and click on the + icon at the bottom left.
- Click on “Choose application” in the next window, and locate The First Descendant executable (TheFirstDescendant.exe)
steamapps\common\The First Descendant
- Select Open
- In the Applications tab, you’ll see the The First Descendant executable. Select Profile 1 in the dropdown, and that’s it.
After you’re done setting up the profile, minimize AutoActions, and launch The First Descendant. You’ll now see more resolution options, and the refresh rate will be set to your desired value accordingly.
Upon closing the game, AutoActions will change the desktop resolution and set the refresh rate accordingly. This makes it really easy to handle titles that sadly don’t have proper support for downsampling.
PC users can run into other potential issues while playing The First Descendant, including not being able to save their settings, or the DirectX 12 error. For more on The First Descendant, make sure to check out our dedicated section.
