NijiLucid

Project Overview

NijiLucid is maintained by chenmozhijin as the browser extension take on the Anime4K and WebGPU upscaling route, moving shaders that used to live inside a player into the web page itself. It takes over the page's <video> element, runs super-resolution and sharpening frame by frame on WebGPU, and outputs to the same canvas, all on the local GPU without uploading any picture. The extension is built on Manifest V3 with separate builds for Chromium and Firefox.

Item	Value
Hosts	Chrome, Edge, Firefox
Extension model	Manifest V3
Version	0.5.0
Algorithm sources	Anime4K, ArtCNN, ACNet, CuNNy
License	MIT + LGPL-3.0-or-later

Sharper anime video in the page, rendered on the local GPU with no cloud round trip and no file changes.

Supported Hosts

• Chrome: load dist-chrome.zip or install from the store, rendering through WebGPU
• Edge: shares the same build as Chrome, so unpacked loading works directly
• Firefox: use nijilucid-firefox.zip or the .xpi, with a different permission grant flow
• Not supported: sites guarded by EME or DRM, such as licensed streaming services

Key Features

• Real-time upscaling: compute shaders on WebGPU enlarge each frame with latency low enough for playback
• Four performance tiers: fast, balanced, quality, and ultra, plus a custom mode defined by effect chains
• Resolution control: x2, x4, and x8 multipliers, or locked 720p, 1080p, 2K, and 4K targets
• Stackable effects: combine ArtCNN, ACNet, ARNet, and CuNNy, then drag to reorder them
• GPU benchmark: a first-run 1080p to 4K at 24fps test that drives the recommended tier
• One-click toggle: a purple upscale button appears when hovering the left-middle of the player
• Whitelist: matches hostname + pathname with * wildcards so only chosen sites are enhanced
• Performance monitor: off, light, and GPU diagnostics modes, the last showing per-effect GPU time
• Config sharing: export and import custom modes as JSON instead of rebuilding them per machine

Installation and Activation

1. Install from the Chrome Web Store, Edge Add-ons, or Firefox Add-ons
2. Alternatively unpack dist-chrome.zip or nijilucid-firefox.zip from the release
3. On Chrome and Edge open chrome://extensions, turn on developer mode, then choose load unpacked
4. On Firefox open about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox and temporarily load manifest.json from the unpacked folder
5. The onboarding page opens on first install: run the GPU benchmark and confirm the suggested tier
6. Play a video and click the upscale button at the left-middle of the player

Permissions and Scope

• All-URLs permission: <all_urls> lets the content script inject into every page, while the whitelist and manual toggle decide where enhancement runs
• declarativeNetRequest: used by cross-origin compatibility mode to rewrite requests, off by default, with a page refresh after enabling
• scripting and tabs: used to inject the enhancement script and read the current tab URL
• All-frame injection: the content script sets all_frames: true, so players nested in iframes are picked up too
• Extra Firefox step: allow access to all sites under permissions and data, or activate site by site

Notes

• DRM limit: EME-protected video yields no readable frames, so the extension cannot enhance it
• VRAM pressure: the x8 multiplier or ultra tier raises GPU load sharply, so laptops should start from balanced
• Match scope: the whitelist compares only hostname and pathname, ignoring scheme, port, query string, and hash
• Weak integrated GPUs: the benchmark may only recommend the fast tier on integrated graphics, and forcing a higher tier drops frames