DLSS 5 Autopilot 1.8.2

Answers to what 1.8.1's first day reported, and a pull request by splicer3:
protected Xbox executables (#157).

Updating from 1.8.1 with [ update now ] should go through by itself - its
updater was run end to end before this release. From 1.8.0
or older, the old updater may end with a "Security validation failure" box
once - the update is already in place, start the app again (#136).

What changes for you

• "rescan" reads only what is new. It asks Steam, Epic, GOG and the other
  launchers what they have installed and inspects only the games it has not
  seen before; "full rescan" beside it reads every launcher, game folder and
  emulator location again, as rescan used to (#144). After the tool updates itself, the first scan is
  still a full one.
• RTX Remix: "swap the Remix runtime" is on the page. Every message about
  a mod whose runtime has no DLSS 5 pass said to tick it, and only the
  command line had it (#148). Experimental: the community runtime replaces
  the mod's own, and any fixes that one carried for its game; the old one is
  backed up and comes back on uninstall.
• A full drive is said in words. Which drive, how much is free, and the
  diagnosis says the drive was full, instead of a traceback and "install
  again" (#148). An install the tool itself stops part way is diagnosed by
  its reason too.
• Xbox / Game Pass games whose executable Windows protects can be set up
  when their folder can be written: choose 64-bit or 32-bit and check the
  graphics API in the game's details (#157, #71). Tested by splicer3 on Forza
  Horizon 6; not run here - a report from any other Game Pass game helps.
• .7z archives open without 7-Zip installed. Where Windows' own tar.exe
  cannot read them, 7-Zip's one-file unpacker is fetched - one build, checked
  by its hash before it runs (#87, #93).
• A launcher named after its game ('UBOAT Launcher.exe' beside 'UBOAT.exe')
  is no longer taken for the game, and a Unity game's player is recognised by
  its _Data folder (#152).
• Forspoken: the install page says the game checks the signature of
  dxgi.dll, and what to try (#154).
• Installing again kept losing track of a game's own file. Where the
  tool had replaced one of the game's files, a second install - or "update
  all" - dropped the backup from its record, and uninstall then removed the
  tool's file without putting the game's back. The original was never
  deleted: it sits beside it as <name>.dlss5-autopilot-backup. Still
  installed: install again with 1.8.2, and uninstall puts it back. Already
  uninstalled: rename that file back to <name>.

Which route you get, on driver 616.64 and newer

The native, bridge and feeder routes all reach NVIDIA's neural-rendering
runtime through the renodx-dlss5 add-on, and on 616.64 and newer that
path faults inside the driver in a good number of games - every evaluate,
no neural frame. The tool already pinned the add-on to 4.55 there, which
gets most games through and not all (#37, #92, #107).

For a game with no DLSS of its own, the recommendation is now
standalone-dlssnr where that route is offered (64-bit, D3D11 or D3D12):
it does not load that add-on at all, so it never takes the path that
faults. The games page says the driver did that, the install page gives
the whole reason, and the old route is one dropdown away. A game that
ships its own DLSS is not moved - the routes recommended there run the
game's own DLSS quality mode, which standalone ignores. Rolling the driver
back to 616.56 remains the other answer.

It brings its own feed and presents through a window of its own; at native
resolution that needs nothing from you, and to run below native there is an
option for reduced-resolution fullscreen and borderless swap chains on its
'Standalone DLSS-NR + SR' tab in the ReShade overlay - reported by the
person who got Need for Speed Payback working that way (#173). It is the
less tested of the two, and the shared results behind this are a handful.

When GitHub cannot be reached

• api.github.com is no longer a single point of failure. It is the one
  host that fails on its own - 60 anonymous calls an hour, and the name a
  DNS filter or an inspecting antivirus catches. Every component now reads
  the same two facts (which releases exist, what their files are called)
  off github.com's own release pages when the API does not answer: the
  feeder, the whole build list, the three OptiScaler builds, the bridge,
  DXVK, REFramework, the MFG unlock, the ASI loader, the video tools and
  the updater. The install log says when a list came from there (#175).
• A certificate error now says which of the four things it is. A name
  that does not match (something on the network answered in GitHub's
  place - a DNS or family filter, a block page, a hotel wifi login, a VPN),
  a certificate outside its dates (this PC's clock), one signed on this PC
  (antivirus HTTPS inspection), or a genuinely missing Windows root - which
  is the only one "open it once in Edge" fixes (#175, #54).
• Multi-frame generation no longer takes a name another mod is using.
  Cyber Engine Tweaks' version.dll IS an ASI loader; the unlock used to
  write over it, which took CET and everything depending on it out of the
  game. Where no supported name is free and one that is taken belongs to a
  loader that already has a plugins folder with an .asi in it, the unlock
  goes in there instead - no second loader, and nothing of anyone else's
  replaced (#137, reported with the layout by pizzaguylol). Checked here
  against a folder built to that layout, not against Cyberpunk itself - a
  report either way helps.

Wrong answers, corrected

• "The game closed before it drew a single frame" on OpenGL games that
  were drawing - OpenGL writes no swap-chain line, and the rule looked for
  one (Octowow, #156). And a 32-bit game whose helper stopped after a few
  frames would have been called "Working." whenever the helper's own log was
  missing; the diagnosis says the feed stopped (found replaying #156).

• "DLSS5_Feed.fx never loaded" about a game that closed while ReShade was
  still compiling the effects - the feed had said it was waiting (Half
  Sword, #142).

• A report printed ReShade.log (none) for a log that was there but held
  none of the lines it copies, which reads as "ReShade never loaded" (#155).
  It copies the last lines instead.

• "Neural rendering did not start" about a game dispatching the model
  every frame: the check looked for the word cost: and the fork had started
  writing elapsed: (Spider-Man 2, #168). A dispatch line with a duration in
  milliseconds counts, whatever the build calls the number.

• "ReShade loaded no add-ons" above a feed that had attached and hooked
  the game. ReShade.log is read from its tail, and a folder full of shader
  packs pushes the registration lines out of it; the add-on's own log settles
  it (Web of Shadows, #164). Where nothing handed the add-on an effect
  runtime, the answer now says that instead of "inconclusive".

• A provider shader reported MISSING that the install deliberately did not
  write. Where LumeniteFX is already installed, your copy is used - the file
  list says so and where it is, instead of naming a file as gone (#164).

• "The game has not been started since the install" printed above
  Windows' own record of that game faulting after the install (GTA V, #171).
  A fault record for that executable, in that folder, outranks an empty log:
  the game started and died before anything could write a line, and the answer
  on screen says so.

• "Sampled depth is flat" names the option Mass Effect Legendary Edition
  needs: 'Copy depth buffer before clear operations' (#150).

• "The game has not been started since the install" was a guess, and it
  was the opening line of a third of every report with no log. The game's
  own files answer it: a log, a config, a save or a shader cache written
  after the install - beside the executable, in the folders Unreal and
  Unity keep per user - and the answer becomes "it looks as though it ran
  and nothing this install wrote was loaded", with the proxy name and the
  executable as the causes to check. Evidence, not proof, and it says so: a
  store update writes into a game folder too (#182).

• An empty ReShade.log is not "ReShade loaded no add-ons". ReShade
  creates that file the moment it attaches, so a game that dies a breath
  later leaves it empty - which used to be read as a session that ran. A
  log holding nothing but ReShade's own start-up line now says the game
  closed during start-up (#182).

• An Unreal game is not an OpenGL game. Its shipping executable imports
  no graphics DLL at all and the only renderer name inside it is Unreal's
  unused OpenGL RHI, which read as OpenGL - and ReShade would have gone in
  as opengl32.dll, which such a game never loads. The layout decides now:
  Binaries/Win64 beside the engine's own folder is Direct3D.

The games page at high scaling

From 200% the buttons on the games page ran off the window, and the search
box was squeezed to nothing. Buttons that do not fit go into a "more" menu,
and the filters move under the search box. The architecture filter reads
"32 + 64-bit", "64-bit only" and "32-bit only".

Under the hood

Update staging folders and half-written library files no longer pile up in
%TEMP% and %LOCALAPPDATA%.