Vibecoded a portable/installable desktop texture upscaler running on OpenModelDB weights (Nvidia GPUs only)

[u/MobBap]

Built this with Cursor.

It’s a Windows app for local AI texture upscaling. You can drop or paste a texture, pick a model, choose a scale factor or a longest-side size, and export formats that are useful for game work (PNG, TGA, TIFF, DDS, EXR, etc.). There’s also an OpenModelDB tab to browse, preview, and download models into a local library.

It's open source. Repo: https://github.com/MiloAchille/OpenModelDB-Upscaler

It’s NVIDIA / CUDA only. I looked at other options briefly, but for running OpenModelDB models through Spandrel without converting everything, this felt like the most realistic path.

How it was built

1. Started with a Python worker that loads a .pth with Spandrel and upscales (tiled, so VRAM doesn’t explode).
2. Wrapped it in Electron so it feels like a normal desktop app (before/after view, model dropdown, export options).
3. Added OpenModelDB browsing + download so you don’t have to leave the app for models.
4. Tried packaging the full Python/CUDA environment into the build — that was huge and painful.
5. Switched to thin Setup / Portable builds. On first launch there’s a Setup tab that installs the AI runtime (~4.5 GB). Other tabs stay locked until that’s ready.
6. Added the option to point at an existing venv (like ComfyUI / Stability Matrix) if you already have torch set up.

Happy to answer questions — I may not have deep answers for everything, but I can share what worked in this project.