Starfield DLSS 3 DRM-protected mod cracked hours after launch

PureDark, the modder implementing Nvidia’s DLSS into games, has seen their DRM-protected Starfield mod cracked and distributed across the web.

Modder PureDark has been on a tear lately. Between implementing Nvidia’s supersampling software, DLSS, into multiple games, they also earn a lot of money through Patreon. However, there’s never been more attention on the modder with the launch of Starfield.

Starfield hasn’t been properly optimized for the PC and can run poorly depending on your hardware. In our own staff testing, we’ve found that PureDark’s DLSS 2 mod can improve Starfield’s performance by nearly double.

With so many people vying for better performance, and with AMD’s partnership with Bethesda supposedly the only hurdle to jump over – but not according to AMD’s boss – PureDark has worked it into the game themselves.

New DLSS 3 Starfield mod cracked and shared on piracy websites

Bethesda

The DLSS 3 mod sports frame generation tech for those on Nvidia’s RTX 40 series cards. This extra bit of juice allows Starfield’s most notoriously hard sections to run and hit a stable framerate. PureDark knew that this would be wanted by a large swath of the audience, and is protecting their work with DRM.

DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is often the bane of many would-be pirates. While most are easily foiled by the various teams across the internet, it’s not surprising that PureDark’s Starfield mod was cracked so quickly.

Posted onto the Steam Underground forums, user and cracker Seeburschbanause stated:

“Looks like we came to the age of DRM mods.”

The mod was protected with a custom DRM and VRM, a Google protection software. However, this has been cracked and quickly shared less than 24 hours after PureDark’s original upload.

Starfield itself was cracked and put on torrent websites within mere hours after it launched in early access.