How to Enable DSR in The First Descendant

The First Descendant is NEXON’s latest multiplayer game that takes full advantage of Unreal Engine 5. There are a lot of settings that can be adjusted in the game, but there are also some glaring omissions. Similar to several recent Unreal Engine 5 games, there is a noticeable lack of downsampling options in this game, despite the upscaling technology available. If you would like to enable DSR or VSR externally in The First Descendant, here’s how to do it.

Enabling DSR in The First Descendant

To enable DSR or VSR support in The First Descendant, you can manually set your desktop resolution to the target super resolution, or use AutoActions to automate the process.

In my case, I have a 1080p monitor, but I like to play games at higher resolutions on smaller screens using DSR and DLDSR to improve image quality, even at the expense of performance. Unfortunately, the maximum resolution for The First Descendant is the default resolution, which in my case is 1080p.

First descendant default parsing options

You can fix this issue by following the methods below.

Change desktop resolution

The first solution is pretty simple, but can be a bit tedious. Simply change your desktop resolution to a higher value that you plan on downsampling. For example, you could set your resolution to 4K if you want to use the factor up to that point in your game.

  • Right-click on the desktop and select Display settings
  • Under “Scale and Layout” change the resolution to the desired target

Change resolution desktop

After that, the desired resolution will be displayed in the game. However, there are some caveats to this method.

  • You will need to do this every time you play a game, as using a higher resolution will affect the text and icon scaling on your desktop.
  • After switching resolutions, you’ll also want to change the refresh rate because even if your monitor has a higher refresh rate, Windows will default it to 60 HZ.

Use automatic actions

AutoActions is an open source and free automation tool that allows you to create profiles that change resolution, frame rate, HDR, and even color depth when launching and closing applications.

It’s very simple to set up, I’ll explain the steps below.

  • Go to the following GitHub link and download the latest version (click Release_AutoActions_1.9.19_x64.zip)
  • Extract the files and open AutoActions.exe
  • Click the Profiles tab and select Profile 1
  • Under “Actions”, click the “+” bar next to “App Launch Actions”

Adding actions to automation

  • Select “Display Operation” in the drop-down menu and use the following settings. For example, we used a maximum resolution of 4K and 165h Hz. You can use any values ​​you want.

Displays the actions in automatic operation

  • Click OK
  • Now, click on the + bar next to App Closing Actions
  • Select “Show Actions” in the drop-down menu and use the following settings

Show actions when application is closed

Now that we have created the configuration file, we can force The First Descendant to use it.

  • Select the Apps tab and click the + icon in the lower left corner.
  • In the next window click on “Choose Application” and then locate The First Descendant executable file (TheFirstDescendant.exe)

steamapps\common\The First Descendant

  • Select Open
  • In the Applications tab you will see The First Descendant executable. Select Profile 1 in the drop down menu and you are done.

Setting the first descendant in an automatic action

Once you are done setting up the profile, minimize AutoActions, and then launch The First Descendant. You will now see more resolution options, and the refresh rate will be set accordingly to what you want.

First offspring DSR

Once you close the game, AutoActions will change the desktop resolution and set the refresh rate accordingly. This makes it very easy to deal with games that unfortunately don’t support downsampling.

Other potential issues PC users may encounter when playing The First Descendant include an inability to save settings or DirectX 12 errors. For more on The First Descendant, be sure to check out our dedicated section.

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