WARDOGS display problems: DLSS missing, frame generation greyed out, black screen

Three display problems get mixed up constantly because they all look like a graphics fault: DLSS is missing from the menu, frame generation cannot be clicked, and the screen stays black at launch although the game is running. In one case the cause has already been named, in the others there are only workarounds. We keep them apart. Status: 22 September 2026.

DLSS is missing although there is a GeForce in the machine

The thread on this is unusually well documented: a player with a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and an additional Radeon RX 9070 XT in the same machine only gets FSR and TAA offered in the menu although the image is rendered on the NVIDIA card. According to the explanation given in the thread, the game queries graphics adapters in the order Windows reports them, and that order follows the PCIe slot rather than which card actually renders. With the AMD card in the first slot it is found first and used for the feature check. The result: the game sees no NVIDIA features and hides DLSS.

Team17 Support first gave the standard steps in the thread, disable VSync and verify game files, and later confirmed that the case had been passed on to the developers as a bug. A fix in the game is therefore still pending. Until then there are two workarounds, both from the thread:

• Temporarily disable the second graphics card in Device Manager so only the GeForce is left for the query. That is the more reliable route, but it costs you the other card's display outputs.
• Set the graphics adapter through a launch option. In Steam right-click WARDOGS, Properties, Launch Options, and enter -graphicsadapter=N, where N is the index of the card you want. Counting starts at 0, so try 0 and 1 in turn and check the menu after each attempt to see whether DLSS appears.

For context: the launch option is an engine option, not an officially guaranteed WARDOGS switch. It changes nothing about your installation and is undone by clearing the field. If it does nothing for you, Device Manager is the next step, not the next experiment.

Laptop with two graphics units

The related case on a laptop looks the same but has a simpler fix: if the game starts on the integrated unit instead of the dedicated card, upscaling options go missing and crashes follow. Assign it in Windows:

• Open Settings, System, Display, Graphics.
• Find WARDOGS in the list or add the EXE via Browse.
• Options, choose "High performance", save.
• Get the dedicated card's driver directly from the vendor, not through Windows Update, then reboot.

Frame generation cannot be switched on

Here the cause is not broken detection but a dependency in the menu. According to repeated and matching community reports, DLSS frame generation stays greyed out until two other options are off:

• The frame rate limit all the way to the left, meaning off.
• VSync off.

After that the switch is selectable. It also explains why the entry is suddenly locked again for some players after a patch: if an update resets the graphics settings, the limit comes back and locks the option again. Check both values before reinstalling drivers.

Black screen at launch while the audio plays

If you can hear the menu but see nothing, two causes are far more common than the rest: an overlay that cannot hook in, and a resolution your monitor will not accept.

• Switch overlays off and back on one at a time: Steam, Discord and the graphics driver's overlay.
• Force the game into a window and dictate the resolution. In the Steam launch options: -windowed -ResX=1920 -ResY=1080. Once you have an image, set the resolution and display mode you want in the game menu and clear the launch options again.
• Verify the game files if the image stays black in windowed mode too.

The open case: DirectX 12 error at launch

One report from the playtest describes a hard case: a black screen on first launch until a forced shutdown, an unstable Windows display afterwards, and on the second launch a crash with a DirectX 12 error in Unreal Engine's render path, reported as 0x80004004. The thread has no official answer and no confirmed fix. Anyone seeing the same error code should therefore not experiment on their system but reinstall the graphics driver cleanly, verify the game files and report the case with the crash log. There is also a driver release tuned for WARDOGS on the NVIDIA side; an outdated driver is one of the most common launch causes on Unreal Engine 5 titles.

What does not belong here

So you do not search at the wrong end: crashes after roughly 40 minutes, freezes during shader compilation and stutter despite a high frame rate are covered separately, as are the launch errors with WD-L codes. This article is only about image output and the upscaling options.

Our order in short

• If DLSS is missing, first check whether a second graphics unit sits in the system.
• Disable the second card or set the adapter index through the launch option, testing one at a time.
• On a laptop, set WARDOGS to "High performance" in the Windows graphics settings.
• For frame generation, switch off the frame rate limit and VSync, then go back into the menu.
• With a black screen, disable overlays and launch with -windowed -ResX -ResY.
• A DirectX 12 error at launch is open: reinstall the driver, verify the files, report it with the log.