Nvidia’s latest DLSS 4.5 update is, obviously, its best one yet. But the more I test it, the more I realize that not everyone needs it, at least not right now.
DLSS 4.5 comes with a host of improvements that make it impressive, but there’s a whole subset of gamers who won’t notice what it’s doing, and that actually makes me happy.
The new update shows that DLSS has matured
And that’s great to see, but not everyone will care.
When Nvidia introduced DLSS 4.5 earlier this year, I was thrilled. We’re stuck in various shortages right now, so the chances of seeing a new generation of GPUs anytime soon are slim to none, but at least Nvidia is upgrading its software stack—and in the case of DLSS 4.5, those updates are substantial.
The update ushers in a second-generation transformer AI model and Dynamic Multi Frame Generation. This means that DLSS will now dynamically adjust how many frames it’s generating depending on your needs, saving your PC from wasting precious computing power. The model is also better at processing spatial details. The actual benefit is a consistently smooth experience with lower input lag.
Compared to previous iterations, DLSS 4.5 isn’t as straightforward an update as before. It’s not a straight-up “here’s more frames per second (fps), enjoy” type of situation. However, Nvidia will add 6x frame gen in a later update this spring, so we’ll be getting some of that, too. This means that for every rendered frame, DLSS will generate an additional five.
These updates show that DLSS, as a technology, has fully matured. Nvidia’s found the secret sauce that works when it introduced DLSS 3, and it’s been iterating on it ever since. DLSS 4, while excellent, now has a successor that’s even better, and the downsides are few and far apart.
DLSS 4.5 is not without faults
You can’t get more performance for free.
Credit: Monica J. White / How-To Geek
Since Nvidia doesn’t make you pay extra money for DLSS (I hope I’m not giving anyone any ideas right now), the cost for better performance has to come out of your graphics card. Nvidia released a very capable upscaler, but those improvements require some serious hardware resources.
The new transformer model calculates spatial data using five times the compute power of previous versions. The most noticeable price you’re paying for swapping to DLSS 4.5 comes in the form of VRAM, which is a very coveted resource for graphics cards users (and is often lacking in budget GPUs). The added workload also makes your GPU draw more power and generate extra heat, although the exact resource cost will depend on the card.
The biggest roadblock is the one for those on RTX 20-series and RTX 30-series GPUs. Nvidia itself admits that those older graphics cards lack the specific tensor core architecture that’s needed to process these new calculations efficiently. It’s nice that they have access to the tech, but it may come with serious side effects in the form of frame rate drops and stuttering.
My own testing tempered my excitement
But that doesn’t mean DLSS 4.5 is bad.
Credit:
Justin Duino / How-To Geek
I played around with DLSS 4.5 when it first came out, and have been toying with it ever since. I tested it more extensively for my piece on Nvidia’s famous “RTX 5070 is a $600 RTX 4090” claim. The claim, made by Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang, was that the RTX 5070, a $599 GPU, could replace Nvidia’s previous flagship RTX 4090 at a fraction of the price. Of course, reviewers quickly put that claim to rest, and the only way it had some legs was with frame generation. Even then, the 5070 couldn’t hit those same numbers that the (much pricier and better) 4090 was able to achieve.
DLSS 4.5 is definitely the first version of the tech that kind of brings that claim closer to reality. We’re not quite there yet, but it’s possible that the spring update with even better frame generation will get us there. But for now, I found myself a little underwhelmed.
I switched around between DLSS 3, DLSS 4.5, and no DLSS, all using my Nvidia RTX 4080 Super. I focused on Cyberpunk 2077, as that’s the biggest resource hog of a game that I own, and kept an eye out for improvements.
It’s true: I did gain around 5-10 fps with DLSS 4.5 enabled, and that’s without any visual artifacts. The gameplay felt smooth, and the frame rates were steady. Of course, playing with DLSS off was a significantly worse experience, where I’d hit around 60 fps at max settings but never be able to max out my 165Hz monitor. The only thing that gets me there is DLSS, in some shape or form, but the difference between the two iterations wasn’t massive.
The biggest win for DLSS 4.5, though, is that you can switch away from the Performance preset and play on Quality while still maintaining steady fps. That’s the one thing that impressed me, but raw fps gains were nearly non-existent.
DLSS 4.5 has two major wins, and they don’t matter for everyone right now
They will, though, and probably soon.
Credit: NVIDIA
The results of my benchmarking got me thinking: Why am I not as impressed by DLSS 4.5 as I thought I’d be, and as some of my colleagues have been? After all, it’s one more thing that makes upgrading your GPU unnecessary, and I’m all for it.
The reason is simply that at a certain level, you won’t see as much benefit from upscalers and frame generation software. The RTX 4080 Super is no longer the latest generation, but it’s still a capable enough card that can play most titles at 4K at high to max settings without requiring DLSS at all, provided you’re fine with 60 fps. Some games are more of a challenge for the GPU due to either extreme ray tracing/path tracing capabilities or just how they were optimized, but on the whole, the 4080S can handle most games on its own. As such, DLSS 4.5 pushed me from playing on max settings comfortably to, well, playing on max settings a little more comfortably.
Therefore, I firmly believe that if you own a high-end GPU from the last two generations, you may not get the “wow” effect some people have experienced. And that’s completely alright. DLSS 4.5, and its future iterations, will keep those graphics cards relevant for years, so with each passing year, we might see more of a benefit in these updates. We’re not there yet, though, and that’s fine.
DLSS 4.5’s biggest strengths lie in being able to maintain steady frames without destroying image quality, but also in compatibility. Nvidia has finally opened up its latest upscaling/frame gen tech to older generations of GPUs, turning cards like the RTX 4060 into 4K-capable machines. That’s fantastic, and I’m all for it.
If you’re like me, you might need to wait a bit longer to be blown away by smaller updates like DLSS 4.5, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that DLSS, as a technology, is fully mature and fully outstanding. Whether we like it or not, this just might be where the future of graphics lies: small hardware upgrades, big software upgrades.
