On September 18, GSC Game World released a patch for its Legends of the Zone remaster of the original Stalker games that adds Nvidia DLSS support, a seemingly absurd addition to the ancient shooters that makes more sense when you explore the details of the remaster.

Once Nvidia’s magic “make it run better” juice, DLSS and its alternative AI upscalers have become worryingly mandatory for running many of the most graphically demanding games. So why add it to Legends of the Zone, a remaster pack whose oldest game, Shadow of Chornobyl, debuted back in 2007?

User Avdievs in the Steam discussion page for the patch highlights that DLSS’s texture filtering and antialiasing features can be advantageous even in a game that should be easy to run—especially as Legends of the Zone can be more resource-intensive than the original releases.

“That DLSS is the perfect option for those wanting to play with their demanding indirect lighting in 4k 60+ fps,” wrote a user named Spleen.

In another comment translated via Google, Spleen expressed, “My 5080 is fully loaded at 4K 120 fps and is dropping frames with their new indirect lighting. Questions? I’m not against DLSS at all.”

Perhaps this advanced Nvidia technology finds its place in an old warhorse of a game engine after all. GSC Game World appears to be rebounding after a rough start for Legends of the Zone: Its recent Steam reviews are Mostly Positive, contrasting with an overall Mixed status. PCG news writer and dedicated Stalker fan, Joshua Wolens, was already pleased back in July when GSC rectified a vexing infinite quicksave bug that was wreaking havoc on his PC.