v0.8.5 prerelease

The NR branch is rebased onto OptiScaler master 93fbf1b2 (20 September 2026), including its current descriptor caching, resource tracking and XeFG synchronization changes.

Fixes

• NR can initialize with the legacy menu when the presentation counter stays at zero. Actual GPU completion now releases the initialization gate.
• D3D12 finished-picture composition acquires swapchain buffers before NR locks. Disabled NR does not query the swapchain, avoiding the OptiFG lock inversion.
• Non-native finished-picture composition waits only for its selected, compatible, submitted producer. Native Streamline handoffs retain the no-wait rule.
• After-upscale and deferred NR support multi-mip, single-layer output textures. Copies address mip zero; input and output ownership remain separate. Texture arrays remain unsupported.
• A failed forced RR initialization falls back to the detected upscaler rather than unconditionally selecting FSR 2.1.2. No create-time guess about G-buffer pointers is used.
• Zero or non-finite game motion-vector scales use the NGX default. Explicit frame-hold motion remains unaffected.

Optional controls

• Restore sharpness adds bounded luminance detail in Replace modes below 100% model resolution. It defaults to zero, preserves hue and avoids crushing dark edges to black.
• White point source offers manual, game exposure or automatic HDR metering. Automatic exposure runs on the GPU in D3D12 and Vulkan, with highlight protection, a separate trim (default 5), and up to eight logarithmic trim anchors. Enter anchors as 1:5 100:2; game and automatic sources retain separate curves. Missing/invalid exposure falls back to manual paper white. Direct finished-picture processing retains its own white-point override.
• History confidence threshold optionally makes RR residual accumulation respond faster to disagreement. Zero preserves the existing blend.
• Profiles save/load named settings beside the DLL in OptiScalerProfiles. Startup-only settings still require a game restart. Ctrl/Alt requirements for the overlay shortcut are available through [Menu] ShortcutKeyRequireCtrl and ShortcutKeyRequireAlt.
• GPU diagnostics report rolling mean and p99 NR/model timings. These intervals can include other GPU work.

Packages

Choose OptiScaler-NR-v0.8.5.zip for the standard build. The separate OptiScaler-NR-v0.8.5-rtx40-mfg.zip adds OTA provider discovery, Streamline ceiling handling, presented-frame telemetry, optional Ada PTX correction and optional software pacing. The unlock, PTX selection and pacing patch remain opt-in; hardware-specific gameplay validation on RTX 40 is still needed.

NVIDIA NR/FG runtime binaries are not included. Retain your existing runtime installation. Back up the previous DLL and INI before testing.

Validation and limits

Release x64 builds and the targeted prerelease suite cover GPU lifetime/replay/concurrency, proxy readiness, MFG patch helpers, capture, native Streamline routing, multi-mip copies, cross-queue ordering, residual composition, sharpness and exposure. WARP exercises production D3D shader bytes; an RTX 5090 runs the production Vulkan shader. Shader headers are checked against their compiled binaries, and both archives include SHA256 manifests.

This is a prerelease: no new full game-session validation or RTX 40 hardware validation is claimed. Half-rate NR and evaluation cadence are excluded. Resource scanning, temporary mask/distortion probes and research-download tooling are excluded. Smooth Motion interoperability remains outside this change.

Based on ideas and contributions in PRs #54, #70, #72, #77, #79, #80, #81 and #82. See implementation review for correctness and scope decisions.

Source: 0dfd181a4e5e3bd0cdf9b5a2e75530fc616ad0b6. The 864-dispatch comparison against the previous committed shader matched bit-for-bit with the new controls disabled. The D3D12 debug layer was unavailable on the validation host; WARP pixel/fence checks passed.