Armin
⚠️
CHECK THIS BEFORE YOU BUY
Blender 5.3 or newer
NVIDIA driver 620 or newer
NVIDIA RTX graphics card (RTX 20 series or newer)
It will not work on Blender 5.2 or older, on an older NVIDIA driver, on GTX, AMD, Intel or Mac.
REQUIREMENTS · PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU BUY
To use this add-on you need
an NVIDIA RTX graphics card
(RTX 20 series or newer)
and Blender 5.3 or newer
GTX cards will not work. DLSS arrived in Blender 5.3, so the add-on does not install on 5.2 or older.
NVIDIA driver 620 or newerWindows or LinuxNo macOSNo AMD or Intel graphicsCycles only
CHECK BEFORE YOU BUY
Blender is free, so test DLSS in its viewport first:
- Edit > Preferences > System > Cycles Render Devices: choose OptiX or CUDA and tick your RTX card.
- Set the scene to Cycles, with Device: GPU Compute.
- Render Properties > Sampling > Viewport: tick Denoise and choose DLSS as the Denoiser.
- Switch the 3D Viewport to Rendered shading.
If the picture is cleaned by DLSS, the add-on will work. If DLSS is greyed out, Blender shows the same message for every reason: check that OptiX or CUDA is chosen and update the NVIDIA driver to 620 or newer (Blender 5.3 needs it for DLSS). If it is still greyed out, the card cannot run DLSS.
▶ WATCH IT IN ACTION
▶ HOW IT WORKS AND THE HONEST TESTS
CYCLES RENDER ADD-ON
FINAL CYCLES RENDERS
THROUGH DLSS
up to 10x faster.
DLSS Render Pro renders your final Cycles stills and animations through Blender 5.3's DLSS viewport denoiser and saves them like a normal render. Same scene, same graphics card. In my tests: about 10x faster on a character shot, about 2x or a little less on scenes full of glass. It also saves render passes, calms glass flicker, makes real movie files, runs a render queue with Resume and shows a live render window.
WHAT IT IS FOR
For anyone who renders Cycles animations or many stills and waits too long for them: product shots and turntables, character animation, motion design, client previews, look-dev, social clips. If your viewport with DLSS already looks right to you, this add-on turns that picture into your final frames.
1 · Set up
Most setup steps are one click: Switch to Cycles, Turn On Graphics Card, Use GPU Compute, Set Pixel Aspect to 1:1.
2 · Pick a quality
Draft, Balanced, High or your own number of samples per frame.
3 · Render
Render Image or Render Animation. Esc stops.
4 · Finish
Image files, passes or a movie, one shot or a whole queue, with the time left shown the whole way.
01HOW IT WORKS
The viewport, turned into a renderer.
Blender 5.3 uses DLSS only in the viewport: a normal final render cannot use it. This add-on locks a 3D viewport to your camera at one output pixel per screen pixel, steps through your frames, waits until DLSS has cleaned each picture and reads it straight from the graphics card.
The picture is saved through Blender's own image saving, as scene-linear colour with real alpha. So colour management, transparency and file format match a normal render. The view is even nudged by half a DLSS pixel, so the framing lands within about 0.03 px of a normal render.
Draft · 8 samples
Fast checks of timing and framing.
Balanced · 24 samples
The default, and a good start for most scenes.
High · 64 samples
Cleaner glass and fine shadows, at the cost of time.
Custom · 1 to 4096
Your own number. A frame whose picture has stopped changing is saved early.
Upscale Mode is Blender's own DLSS setting, shown right in the panel: how much of the output resolution (per axis) Cycles renders before DLSS upscales it.
None 100%Quality ~67%Balanced 58% (default)Performance 50%Ultra Performance 33%
02SPEED
Honest numbers.
Four real production scenes (client work), one RTX 5080. Normal Cycles at each project's own settings (with its denoiser) against this add-on on Balanced, on the same shot. Seconds per frame once the render is running.
SECONDS PER FRAME
Character close-up · 1920 × 1080
Normal Cycles 11.8 s → with the add-on 1.2 s · about 10x
Hard-surface prop · 2048 × 1080
Normal Cycles 7.3 s → with the add-on 1.3 s · about 5.7x
House interior, lots of glass · 3840 × 2160
Normal Cycles 22 s → with the add-on 9.9 s · about 2.2x
Glass and crystal · 2880 × 1872
Normal Cycles 12 s → with the add-on 7.1 s · about 1.7x
Light scenes win the most. Scenes full of glass are still faster, but bright light seen through glass keeps more grain than in normal Cycles, and on High (64 samples) a heavy glass scene can even be slower than normal Cycles. The 4K interior was rendered on a 4K monitor, so each frame was one tile. One machine: your numbers will differ, so render one of your own shots and compare.
03RENDER PASSES
Your passes. One file.
Tick Save Passes and every frame becomes one OpenEXR MultiLayer file: the DLSS picture as Combined, plus exact data passes from Cycles. Ready for Blender's compositor, DaVinci Resolve (in Fusion: MediaIn > Image > Layer) and other apps that read multilayer EXR.
Data
Depth, Mist, Normal, Position, UV, Vector.
Masks
Object Index, Material Index, Cryptomatte Object, Material and Asset.
Color
Albedo (Diffuse, Glossy and Transmission Color), AO, Emission, Environment.
Samples
1 to 256 for the passes, default 16. AO looks best at 32 or more.
How it is done. While the frames render, each file already holds the DLSS picture, so it is valid right away. After the last frame the add-on frees the graphics card and runs one short Cycles render per frame for the passes (no bounces, no denoiser): about 1 s per frame at 2K in my tests. Saved as 32-bit float with ZIP compression, or your own lossless EXR codec. Stopped with Esc? The files keep a valid DLSS picture. Light passes and light groups are not included, because DLSS cleans only the combined picture.
04STEADY GLASS & NOISE
Calmer glass in animations.
DLSS can flicker on glass, fine detail and leftover noise from one frame to the next. Tick Steady Glass & Noise and each frame is blended with its two neighbours on each side, after lining them up along the motion. Where a neighbour does not really show the same thing (parts moving apart, appearing or changing), the frame keeps its own picture. It never blends across a gap in the frames, or across a camera cut in a Queue job.
About 60% less flicker
Measured on two animations (a hard-surface prop and a glass-and-crystal scene): 38% and 41% of the flicker left.
Less on shots without glass
About 35% less on a character shot.
No visible ghosting in my tests
The picture gets a touch softer.
Little extra time
It runs on the CPU while the graphics card renders the next frames: +0.05 s and +0.14 s per frame in my tests.
Off by default, for animations only. It works with every output: image files, movies and passes. Frames are saved two frames late, because each one waits for its neighbours. It calms the flicker; it does not make glass noise-free.
05MOVIES
Set a movie. Get the movie.
When your output is a movie (FFmpeg Video), Render Animation gives you the movie itself, not a folder of PNGs. The frames are rendered to EXR files in a "_frames" folder next to the movie. Then Blender makes the movie through your scene's own Video Sequencer, so your container, codec, quality, bit depth, HDR, colour management (look, exposure, curves), stamp, metadata, frame rate and sound all apply.
Checked before it starts
A one-frame test encode (about 0.2 s) catches what your encoder would refuse, such as an odd width or height for H.264 and H.265, or an odd width for ProRes. There is a free-space check as well.
Half or Full precision
Half (16-bit, default) takes about 3-4 MB per 1080p frame and can be 1 level off in a few pixels. Full (32-bit, exact) takes about 20 MB. The panel shows the estimate.
Re-encode without rendering
Tick Keep Frames, change your codec later and press Make Movie from Frames.
Nothing lost
Esc keeps the frames. Frames from an earlier render move to "_previous".
06RENDER QUEUE
Queue it. Leave it.
Line up jobs and render them one after another. The list is saved with your .blend file, and every row shows its saved frames, such as 312 / 1000.
Each job its own
Scene, frame range (or only the current frame), output path with # and {camera_name}, and quality.
Cameras
The scene camera (camera markers become clean cuts), one chosen camera, or All Cameras, each into its own folder.
Resume
Stopped with Esc, by closing Blender or by a crash? Press Resume: it skips the frames that run already saved.
Time left
Seconds per frame, time left and the clock time it will be done, for the job and for the whole queue.
It follows Blender's Overwrite setting, refuses a job that would save over another job's files, and if one job fails, the queue carries on with the next. When Done and While Rendering options work for the queue and for the normal Render buttons alike:
Sound (a short chime)Flash TaskbarRender WindowKeep Computer AwakeKeep Screen On
Flash Taskbar, Keep Computer Awake and Keep Screen On work on Windows only.
07RENDER WINDOW
Watch every frame as it lands.
Blender's own render window opens with the latest picture and a progress overlay: frame N of M, tile, a % bar, sample count, elapsed time, seconds per frame, time left and when it will be done, the frames waiting for Steady and the current queue job. The mouse still pans and zooms there; Esc stops.
At the end it shows the saved file with a short summary (Done, Stopped or Failed). Image > Save As starts in your output folder, with "Save as Render" already ticked for EXR. The picture refreshes at most every 2 seconds, so it costs no measurable time: 1.56 s per frame with and without it in my tests. You can turn it off. And your own F12 picture stays, because DLSS Render Pro renders into its own slot.
08IN EVERY RENDER
The details, done right.
Any output size
Bigger than your screen? It is rendered in overlapping, blended tiles. It uses the true full screen, so a 4K output on a 4K monitor is one tile.
No black frames
A quiet fresh start every 50 frames (and at camera cuts in the Queue) stops a Cycles viewport glitch on long animations. Repeated 300-frame test runs came out clean.
Matches the final render
Viewport-only hiding, modifiers, subdivision levels, particles and Simplify switch to their render settings for the job.
Saved like a normal render
Any image format, your colour management, transparent background. A repeated still never overwrites the last one (_2, _3).
Picks up where it stopped
With Overwrite off, Render Animation skips the frames already saved. On Windows, a minimised Blender pauses instead of failing.
Everything put back
Every setting the job changes is restored, also after Esc or an error. Saving during a render saves your own settings; opening another file stops the render cleanly.
One-click setup
Switch to Cycles, Turn On Graphics Card, Use GPU Compute, Set Pixel Aspect to 1:1.
Plain notes
Grey notes in the panel say what a DLSS render of this scene leaves out, such as compositor nodes.
What you get
DLSS Render Pro 1.0.0
A Blender extension (.zip): drag it into Blender, or Install from Disk.
Every feature
Passes, Steady Glass & Noise, movies, the render queue with Resume, the render window, When Done.
Written documentation
Install, every setting and troubleshooting, in the Documentation and FAQ tabs of this page.
Updates
Updates to version 1.x are uploaded to this product, free for everyone who bought it.
09SET UP
Install. Set up. Render.
REQUIREMENTS
- Blender 5.3 or newer. It does not install on 5.2 or older, which have no DLSS.
- An NVIDIA RTX graphics card, RTX 20 series or newer. GTX cards and AMD, Intel or Apple graphics cannot run DLSS.
- NVIDIA driver 620 or newer.
- Windows or Linux. DLSS in Blender does not exist on macOS, and the add-on does not install there.
- Cycles on the GPU (OptiX or CUDA, Device: GPU Compute). The panel's buttons set this for you.
- A scene camera, square pixels (pixel aspect 1:1) and a 3D Viewport anywhere in the window. It goes full screen for the render, so Blender's window must be at least 256 px each way.
- For movies: free disk space for the temporary EXR frames (about 3-4 MB per 1080p frame on Half; the panel shows the estimate).
- Nothing else to install: numpy and OpenImageIO ship with Blender.
- Tested on Windows 11 with an RTX 5080 and Blender 5.3. Linux and other RTX cards have not been tested with the add-on yet.
INSTALLATION
- Download dlss_render_pro-1.0.0.zip. Do not unzip it.
- Turn off the free version first. If you have the smaller free add-on DLSS Render installed, go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons, find "DLSS Render", then disable or uninstall it. Both drive the same viewport, so only one can be on. While the free one is on, the Pro panel shows only "Turn off the free DLSS Render add-on to use Pro".
- In Blender 5.3: Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions, open the small arrow menu at the top right, choose Install from Disk and pick the zip. Dragging the zip onto Blender's window works too. It is turned on right away.
- Update your NVIDIA driver to 620 or newer. Blender 5.3 gets DLSS from the driver, there is nothing else to download.
- Edit > Preferences > System > Cycles Render Devices: choose OptiX (or CUDA) and tick your RTX card. The add-on's Turn On Graphics Card button can do this for you.
- Open Properties > Render: the DLSS Render Pro section sits at the top of the Render tab, below Render Engine (and Cycles' Device settings).
HOW TO USE
- Where: Properties > Render tab, the DLSS Render Pro section near the top, below Render Engine. Below the main buttons are folding sections: Passes, Movie (when the output is a movie), Queue, When Done and Output.
- Setup: if a box shows a problem, follow it and press its button when it has one: Switch to Cycles, Turn On Graphics Card, Use GPU Compute or Set Pixel Aspect to 1:1.
- Still: pick a Quality and an Upscale Mode, set the size, folder and file format in Output, press Render Image. The window goes full screen, the render window shows the progress, Esc stops.
- Animation: set Frame Start, End and Step in Output, tick Steady Glass & Noise if you like, press Render Animation. For shots with camera markers, use the Queue: it renders clean cuts.
- Passes: open Passes, tick Save Passes, pick the passes and their Samples, render as usual. Use an image output, not a movie.
- Movie: set Blender's output file format to FFmpeg Video. In the Movie section choose Frame Precision and Keep Frames, then press Render Animation.
- Queue: open Queue and press + to add the current scene. Edit each job, tick the jobs you want and press Render Queue. After a stop or a crash, press Resume.
- Tip: before a long animation, render one frame and compare it with a normal render.
10LIMITATIONS
Good to know before you buy.
WHAT IT CANNOT DO
- No motion blur in the DLSS picture. Save the Vector pass and add motion blur in the compositor.
- Glass keeps some grain. Bright light seen through glass is grainier than in normal Cycles (about twice the grain on Balanced in my glass test). More samples help but cost time. Steady calms the flicker but does not remove the grain. This is a limit of Cycles' DLSS mode, not something an add-on can change.
- It renders what the viewport can show. Some render-only content can still be missing: in one project I tested, grass and trees made with particle instances. Render one frame and check it first.
- The result is not guaranteed to match a normal Cycles render. Known DLSS weak spots: ghosting in mirror reflections, fine shadows that appear late, some noise left in depth of field.
- Compositor nodes are not applied, and sequencer pictures are not used (sound is, for movies). The panel tells you.
- No light passes (direct, indirect, shadow, volume, shadow catcher) and no light groups. Passes cannot go into a movie and do not work with Stereoscopy.
- Blender's window is used full screen while it renders. Keyboard and mouse are blocked in that window (Esc stops); the render window still pans and zooms.
- Keep Blender open while it renders. On Windows a minimised Blender just pauses the render until you restore it. If the viewport stops updating for any other reason (or on Linux when minimised), the job stops after 120 s with a message.
- Do not run other work on the same graphics card at the same time: DLSS gets fewer samples per frame and the frames get grainier.
- An output bigger than your screen needs tiles, and more tiles mean slower frames. Non-square pixels are not supported (one click sets 1:1).
- Movies need evenly spaced frames in order, starting at frame 0 or later, and your encoder's own size rules (checked before the render starts). In the queue, movie jobs render all their frames again, also on Resume, unless the stopped run already finished that movie.
- Steady is for animations only and uses CPU time: about 1.9 s per 4K frame on 4 CPU threads (measured on my computer). On light 4K scenes that render faster than that, the CPU becomes the limit.
- Camera cuts are rendered clean only in the Queue. For shots with camera markers, use the Queue.
- Save your .blend before a queue run: Resume of an unsaved file works only in the same Blender session.
- Flash Taskbar, Keep Computer Awake, Keep Screen On and the pause while minimised work on Windows only.
LICENCE & CREDITS
The add-on is licensed GPL-3.0-or-later. Everything you render with it is yours, for personal and commercial work. No third-party code or assets are bundled: it uses only Python and modules that ship with Blender (numpy, OpenImageIO).
DLSS Render Pro is an independent add-on. It is not made by, affiliated with or endorsed by NVIDIA. NVIDIA, RTX and DLSS are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. Blender is a trademark of the Blender Foundation.
Made by Armin5D · youtube.com/@armin5d