Early Tests of NVIDIA’s New DLSS 4.5 Show Impressive Visual Quality but Heavily Penalize Performance on Older RTX GPUs

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New DLSS 4.5 Delivers Sharper Gaming Visuals, but Performance Hit on Older RTX GPUs

Early tests reveal that DLSS 4.5 offers sharper visual details in games, but also brings a considerable performance penalty to older RTX GPUs, particularly the RTX 20 and RTX 30 series. DLSS 4.5 enhances image quality through AI upscaling using a second-generation Transformer model and Tensor Cores. While compatible with older RTX cards, achieving the enhanced visuals comes at a performance cost. The increased demand on graphics memory can create bottlenecks, especially for older GPUs. For instance, with Cyberpunk 2077 running at 4K with ray tracing maxed out, the RTX 3080 Ti sees a 24% performance drop when comparing DLSS 4.5 to DLSS 4.0. Average frame rates decreased from 40 fps to 32 fps in Quality mode. Performance also dips at 1440p (14%) and when ray tracing is disabled (around 20%). Newer RTX graphics cards experience smaller performance losses and benefit from visual improvements in vegetation, textures, and characters. According to Jacob Freeman, the DLSS 4.5 model is five times more compute-intensive.

Enhanced DLSS 4.5 Brings Sharp Visuals and Temporal Stability, But Slight Performance Dip on Some Older RTX GPUs

NVIDIA refined DLSS 4.5—a second-generation Super Resolution transformer model—using extensive data from its latest data centers. The AI is now more adept at understanding motion, geometry, lighting, and disocclusion, leading to enhanced ghosting and antialiasing. Games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II showcase improved temporal stability, reduced ghosting, and smoother edges. DLSS 4.5 also increases VRAM usage. Tests comparing VRAM usage at three resolutions for the RTX 2030 and RTX 4050 series showed capacity increases from 40.2% to 103.7%. One RTX 4060 laptop user reported a nearly 16% performance decrease. Enabling DLSS 4.5 on the RTX 50 series results in a 23% performance reduction, but provides significant image quality benefits. NVIDIA’s DLSS 3.0, an upgrade in gaming graphics, uses AI to boost frame rates and picture quality and will be available on some next-generation GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD. Cyberpunk 2077 and Horizon Forbidden West are expected to support DLSS 3.0.

New DLSS 4.5 Offers Improved Visuals but Potential Performance Impact on Older RTX GPUs at 4K & 1440p

Shared performance tests comparing Preset K and Preset M using DLSS 4.5 in Cyberpunk showed average frame rates and percentage performance hits at 4K and 1440p on the RTX 3080 Ti. A table comparing NVIDIA GeForce GPU latency from the RTX 2080 Ti to the RTX 5090 across three resolutions (1920×1080, 2560×1440, and 3840×2160) indicates lower latency on newer models. DLSS 4.5 marks a significant advancement in image quality. Gamers with older GPUs may need to weigh visual improvements against performance, as this version is more resource-intensive. Download the latest GeForce drivers to try DLSS 4.5 RTX AI Super Resolution.

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