Nvidia DLSS 4.5 is now available to all, with improved image quality and higher GPU demands

[midian182]

TL;DR: It's only been a week since Nvidia revealed DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution at CES 2026, but the latest version of its upscaling tech has already left its beta phase and is rolling out to all GeForce owners via the Nvidia App.

Nvidia made DLSS 4.5 available to those who enabled beta settings in the Nvidia App (download here) last week. In a post today, Team Green writes that the feature is now available to all users: just open the Nvidia App and let it auto-update.

To upgrade to DLSS 4.5, go to the graphics tab and DLSS Override - Model Preset for either global settings or individual games. From here, choose Recommended (the replacement for Latest), which sets Preset M to DLSS Performance mode, Preset L to DLSS Ultra Performance mode, and Preset K to the remaining modes. Nvidia reminded people that the biggest differences are in Performance and Ultra Performance modes.

Nvidia reiterated that DLSS 4.5 uses a second-generation transformer model that improves the image quality in supported games, having been trained on a significantly expanded, high-fidelity dataset. The new post includes quotes from the likes of Digital Foundry and Linus Tech Tips highlighting the difference in image quality compared to DLSS 4.

The extra computational requirements of DLSS 4.5 mean it comes with a performance penalty. Beta tests showed the impact was (usually) minimal – unless you're using an RTX 2000 or RTX 3000 series. The older-generation cards' lack of native, accelerated FP8 processing hardware means performance losses can exceed 20% compared to DLSS 4.

The post also notes that the current DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation is now supported in over 250 games and apps.

Nvidia showed off the new DLSS 4.5 Multi Frame Generation with 6X mode at CES. In addition to increasing MFG from the previous maximum of 4x to 6x, or 5 generated frames for every one native frame, it has a dynamic mode. As the name suggests, this automatically adjusts the number of frames being generated in a game instead of sticking to a fixed multiplier. Nvidia says this means the new mode will only generate the extra frames you need to hit a target, such as your display's maximum refresh rate.

Dynamic MFG with 6x mode isn't launching until this spring, and, as is the case with the original version, it will be an RTX 5000-series exclusive when it arrives. We'll be taking an in-depth look at the feature when it does.

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Nvidia DLSS 4.5 is now available to all, with improved image quality and higher GPU demands

 

[Puiu]

This should be enabled for Quality presets only a case by case basis since some games have massive drops in FPS even on the 5000 series compared to 4.0

 

[ScottSoapbox]

I tried 4.5 upscaling out on Spider-Man (since it's CPU limited for me) and it got rid of the shimmering around puddles that bothered me previously so I call that a win.

 

[yRaz]

I tried 4.5 upscaling out on Spider-Man (since it's CPU limited for me) and it got rid of the shimmering around puddles that bothered me previously so I call that a win.

Maybe it's a similar problem for me, but I know shimmering against hard, fast dges is particularly noticable across all upscaling. I'm not exactly against upscaling being more performance heavy as long as it provides a near native experience.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Maybe it's a similar problem for me, but I know shimmering against hard, fast dges is particularly noticable across all upscaling. I'm not exactly against upscaling being more performance heavy as long as it provides a near native experience.

I haven't seen a lot of those myself, but they drive me crazy. What games are you seeing it in?

I actually saw it recently with old school AA and it made me use upscaling just to stop the shimmer as my FPS was fine on native.

I agree on the performance hit for the visual performance gain. It's wild that more math is better than more input resolution. On Spider-Man 4K performance M looked as good to me as quality K plus no shimmer (note: this is watching a large 4K TV from a distance that lets me see better than 1440p resolution but all the 4K pixels according to science).

 

[godrilla]

In Vermitide 2 at 4k using dlss 4.5 model m performance looks better than native taa. With dlaa using model m it looks significantly better than model k imo but it's not perfect where I have seen a low resolution texture on one of the walls. Hopefully the official version will fix that. ( rendering latency went up but within 1 frame)
In Cyberpunk 2077 via pathtracing at 4k dlss quality m model looks and plays amazing even with 4x frame gen. Dlaa is still too demanding even with 4x frame gen ( ghosting mess).
on 5090.

 

[abactuon]

With 'NVIDIA Profile Inspector' you can select quality from 33%(Ultra Performance) to 100%(DLAA)
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This tiny registry tweak shows what resolution DLSS is rendering at

It'll also show you which DLSS version your game is running.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[jbright]

Five fake frames for every real one still sounds like black magic no matter how many transformer models Nvidia throws at it. At some point we’re just watching a very convincing hallucination at 240Hz.